back in jan i went down to portugal for a week, non birding mind but i had my bins and camera to hand at all times:). we stayed on the algarve coast near portimao. even without any proper birding there were a few potential lifers of which i scored two - azure-winged magpie and caspian tern. the magpies were a lot easier than i was expecting - just in the scrub around the apartment. caspian tern was a lucky tick on the final evening when two appeared in front of me at lagos marina whilst sitting at a coffee bar. a redhead goosander was probably a major rare find for portugal not that it means anything to me, the place looks great for yank rares tho. most of the expected med bird species were seen but no other wildlife except for jamming a mongoose which crossed the track in front of the car. of course first thing i did was get down to the beach to perve on the local portuguese beauties....

nice moult, shame about the face

didn't waste any time getting stuck into the ylg's. on average they seemed to be slightly darker/dirtier/more streaked than birds i've seen in the west med (and which turn up in uk). there was a nice variation to keep up the interest (!), aren't gulls great...

super advanced 1st-winter?? completely moulted tail (2nd-winter type feathers) and all tertials

with a pale shade of grey on the mantle and pale centred coverts i'd call this an argenteus if i saw it back home. being as they're rare in portugal, maybe i shouldve looked at this more closely. or maybe not

news for y'day: some mild sunny weather at last so went for a walk round the east side checking for migrants. two firecrests at culver, one of which was doing a lot of singing - someone thinks it's spring. blackrock to baywatch without a sniff of a rock pipit, what's that all about? it's been a few years since my last littoralis. checked through all the remaining brent with nothing rare amongst them. at least the four little egrets at bembridge must be a sign of spring cos i've only seen one around all winter. also 24 blackwits on the lagoon was the most i've seen there, some coming into sum plum now. nothing of interest on brading marsh except for some impressive log piles - for better or worse the marsh is pretty much a treeless landscape now. there's some bits that look good for waders tho so an lrp or summink could be on the cards soon. the sewage works was good if you like chaffinches. roll on april.

foreland clifftop path, still open to rebels and those who want to check the fields for wheatear

Spring has sprung

the start of spring is always marked by hearing my first Med.

 

 

Black-headed gull amongst the ridibundus

some more of that Argie from the other day

  

 

viking pirate

Back to Ventnor to see what the Razorbills were up to. Back to wearing five layers and still freezing. And this time a bit of a shock to the system having been in Portugal during the week. Razors have eased off, only 320 east this morning, I wonder what went past on Tuesday when there were 12k east at Durlston in one hour?! Nothing much else on the go, loads of gulls moving east and feeding in flocks (on sprat shoals I guess). Three RTD, about 40 Kittiwake east, a Merg on the drink. A visit to the canoe lake at midday produced this adult Argie and what looked like a 1w YLG getting flushed off just as I arrived, plus 37 Shoveler. In the avo I got a look at that Scaup that's been hanging around Dodnor for a while. The only other one I've seen on the IOW was also at the Medina.

 

The missing eye made it look even more of a brute.

Ventnor seawatching

Dunno what happens between Sussex and Portland but the Island tends to disappoint when it comes to seawatching, so I don't do much of it nowadays, but the big numbers of Razorbills in Dorset lately prompted me to see what was happening in local waters. It doesn't take long staring at the sea to be reminded: Ventnor is not Portland. But I was happy with what I did see this morning, my count of 2,350 Razorbills east is actually a county record. They were coming in fits and starts, at times looking quite impressive, biggest flock 60, but the viz prevented me picking up all the distant ones. And they look way cool, much better than Guillemots. I stayed until I had to move.... ah, standing for hours in a northerly wind, till I lose the feeling in my toes and my fingers are so cold I can't jot down numbers, staring at little specks whizzing by in the 'heat haze' (yeah right), this is nostalgia at its best, I used to look forward to this! There wasn't much else on the go, the usual suspects - a trickle of Gannets, Kittiwakes and Common Gulls, ten RTDs, a few Fulmars. And of course some Brents (17) heading up-Channel, you can always count on them to get their spring on stupidly early. A pair of Peregrines came in off, the female carrying something quite bulky - an auk perhaps?? I walked along the front to Bonchurch to see if that Water Pipit was there again this winter. It was, and flushed up from the revetment west of Monks Bay before foraging on the cliff face. So it's back for its 3rd year but this is the first report I've heard this winter. I couldn't finish the morning without seeing a decent gull of some sort :-). Scanning through a feeding flock of gulls, Gannets, auks and divers fairly close inshore I picked out a 2yr YLG.

 

Water Pipit on the cliff face, taken from video

Pale-bellied Brent

watch as the bird up-ends: you can see the area between the legs is white, compared to the dark brown of the Black Brant in the video below; Dark-bellied Brent is mid-brown in this area.