PULA DO LOBO – MINA SAO DOMINGOS – TELEGRAPH HILL
WEATHER: broken sunshine all day, great light and temperature, with a nice breeze.
We had a terrific day today with plenty of sighting and a couple of real ‘goodies’, our Guru, Guy, was on fire! After breakfast we drove for nearly an hour to the beautiful gorge called Pula do Lobo (wolf’s leap) where legend has it that a wolf jumped across the gorge. We stopped many times along the way to look at roadside birds and raptors drifting over.
The start of the gorge
The Iberian Shrike was new for us, we saw a couple, with one posing on the telephone wires close to the road. We saw several Turtle Doves, lots of Stonechats, Common Buzzards, Griffon Vultures, Black Vultures, Black Kites, and Iberian Magpies were coming out of our ears! The habitat we drove past included open oak woodland, pine copses, eucalyptus stands and open cultivated fields.
One stop to look at a Turtle Dove produced our first Great Spotted Woodpecker found by Guru Guy. Once we were on the track down to the gorge the woodland was dense and we stopped to look for woodland species. Our first bird of note was a lesser Spotted Woodpecker, found by Vanda!! We watched as the male proceeded to carve out a nest hole and the female was seen feeding nearby. We spent 30 minutes just watching the woodpeckers, Vanda then went on to find the nest of a Eurasian Nuthatch, the parents were feeding chicks.
Lesser Spotted Woodpecker making a nest hole
A Woodlark sang nearby and a couple of us saw it in flight. Other species seen were Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Goldfinch and Spotless Starling. We drove all the way down to the river at the base of the gorge, it was a beautiful setting and our main target was the summer visitor and uncommon breeding species, the White-rumped Swift. Our eyes were mainly on the skies but we did record several species in the scrub and along the river banks.
record shot of the female Lesser Spotted Woodpecker
A Black Stork was nice but distant, two Cormorants flew over and so did a string of Vultures and a Short-toed Eagle. We searched the sky and found Barn and Red-rumped Swallows, House and Crag Martins but no swifts of any description. We spent a couple of hours there and ate our picnic lunch.
Sardinian Warbler, Serin, Cirl Bunting (heard), White Wagtail and Golden Oriole were seen but not a swift came over. We gave up and drove up out of the gorge and headed to some disused Copper Mines where the Swift was also known to breed. I was forced to make a coffee stop along the way and what a good idea that turned out to be.
there is a Sardinian Warbler in there somewhere!
We sat outside on a terrace and watch many birds coming to feed on a Mulberry Bush which was in full fruit. We saw several Iberian Magpies, Spotless Starlings and a Golden Oriole feeding on the berries. A White Storks nest was just a few meters away and many House Sparrows were nesting within the stork's nest.
The best part of our stop, was not only the coffee but a huge kettle of Vultures rose up from the fields about 1 kilometer away, there must have been 60+ birds, Black and Griffon Vultures, Black Kites, Ravens and Short-toed Eagles.
Vultures were everywhere at the coffee stop
On the way to the mine we stopped to watch a Buzzard, thinking it may have been a Honey Buzzard, but it wasn’t. However, we did find our first Booted Eagle, or rather, the Guru found it!!
the old Copper Mine
At the mine we perched on a prominent outlook and scanned the sky once again. We found Blue Rock Thrush, Black-eared Wheatear and Common Waxbill. Plenty of butterflies were on the wing too, the Swallowtail getting most of our applause.
The Guru Guy then stepped up to the mark and called ‘I’ve got a swift’!! Two birds were distant but he identified them as White-rumped Swifts and sure enough they were! They came closer and lower, everyone had great views of them as the twisted and turned, ducked and dived, in the sky over the open-cast mine. What a great sighting and our most wanted species was in the bag!!
For the last hour or so of the day we drove a little way to a ridge with a large communications tower on it, the hillside was covered in cistus scrub with broom and oak bushes and eucalyptus trees. We heard Common Quail calling, but we never saw it. Our target birds were Dartford, Spectacled and Subalpine Warblers. We had great views of the Dartford, fleeting view of the Subalpine and no views of the Spectacled. We added Thekla’s Lark, Crested Lark, Corn Bunting, Sardinian Warbler and Linnet to the list.
the Guru with a White Stork flying over him
As we watched our first Linnets, we had a large group of Pallid Swifts over us and some smart cookie found two Alpine Swifts. Egrets were added to our list, distant Cattle Egrets were the addition.
At 5pm we called it a day, a good day, we got back to hotel at 6pm in good time to get ready for dinner.