Bird Watching September 2011

summer special!

SUmmer 2011

Britain’s best-selling bird magazine

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MIgration mysteries revealed!

The key routes, the huge

things to do at

Birdfair plus exclusive

pull-out

distances & the Scottish bird eaten by a crocodile!

Find Chough in Cornwall

site map

22 page guide

plan your 2012 BIRDING

holiday From St Ives to Sri Lanka: Where to see some of the world’s best birds

Rare bird round-up We look back at the biggest and best rarities of the past 12 months

on test 3 peaks Gull guide ■ Meopta bins ■ Celestron bins ■ Gitzo tripod

Birding at the top of Britain’s highest mountains

Yellow-legged Gull: Use our ID poster to help sort out this tricky gull

Go birding: Brand new summer walks to try

Summer 2011 Aug 10 - Aug 31 £4.10

While you’re birding, look for

butterflies

(and a moth!)

Chalkhill Blue

Mike Weedon

Legend has it that in days of yore (preMyxomatosis), downland fields would be bathed in swarms of this lovely sky-blue butterfly. It is scarcer now, but still common where it thrives.

It is larger than the Common Blue, and pale blue (brown in female) with dark bits near the edge.

Check flower-rich limestone meadows.

Adonis Blue

Unlike most of our blues, this tiny butterfly is mainly found in acid conditions, heathery heaths scattered in southern England (though in a few sites, eg north Wales, it prefers limestone grassland). Like so many of our butterflies it is in decline, but can be found in good numbers at some sites. It is small and purple-blue and the name refers to the pale spots in the marginal black spots on the underwing.

Marbled White

A butterfly on the increase, the distinctive Marbled White (which is not a true ‘white’ but related to the ‘browns’), is heading north and east, appearing in all sorts of unimproved flowery meadowlands and verges. This year has been a good one, at least at some sites, so catch them before they disappear at the end of the summer.

Six-spot Burnet

www.birdwatching.co.uk/martinmere 8 Bird Watching 2011

Mothing’s a brilliant way to get into the diverse and beautiful world of moths. Most traps are a bright light (with high UV) with a box-like construction which acts as a ‘lobster pot’ to ‘trap’ the moths, who rest in old eggboxes.

In the morning, you can identify, log and release the unharmed moths. An average garden can get hundreds of species per year, and on a good night you may even get more than 100 species. It is also a fabulous way of getting kids into wildlife in your own back yard!

From left: Brown Hawker, Privet Hawk Moth and Poplar Hawk Moth

Mike Weedon

One of the most easily-recognised, distinctive day-flying moths we have, the Six-spot Burnet is a beautiful dark iridescent green with shocking red spots (six on each side). The colours are a warning that the insect is loaded with cyanide, so please don’t eat them… Like butterflies, burnet moths have clubbed antennae.

why not try Moth trapping?

For more information visit

Mike Weedon

Ruth and Alan will join Mike, Matt and Sheena, below

Silver-studded Blue

Ray Wilson (Alamy)

Fancy a day out with us at one of the country’s best bird reserves? Bird Watching’s Sheena Harvey, Mike Weedon and Matt Merritt will be on hand as you enjoy the tranquility of WWT Martin Mere. On top of that, we’ll be joined by Alan Davies and Ruth Miller, famous for their record-breaking Biggest Twitch.

For just £49.95 per person, you could join us at the Lancashire reserve on Friday 14 October 2011.

At this exclusive event we will also be joined by top bird photographer Ron Thomas, and the warden and his staff for a day of great birding culminating in the evening geese spectacular.

Throughout the day there will be talks and workshops, guided walks and the chance to ask all your questions about optics, as well as entry to the reserve and a glimpse behind the scenes.

To book your place, fill in the coupon printed in our August issue – or download it from birdwatching.co.uk/martinmere, email bwreaderday@bauermedia.co.uk or call 01733 468201. (if answer phone in operation, please leave your name and contact number for a return call. Please do not leave your card details).

Mike Weedon

join us at Martin mere

One of the real gems of the British butterfly fauna, the iridescent dazzling Adonis Blue is restricted to downland sites in the south. The dazzling blue flashes like a Kingfisher, while the black and white edge of the wing easily distinguishes duller specimens from bright Common Blues.

George Reszeter (Alamy)

Don’t forget to look up A common mistake many birders make is to forget that many birds fly, and quite high at that! It is all too easy to spend time scanning wetlands or bushes for waders and passerines respectively, and not look to the heavens. This can be a big mistake as migration starts to kick in again, and some bigger birds such as raptors could be drifting over. As the month progresses, Ospreys and Honey Buzzards can be on the move, and you never know when a rare harrier will be flying above your head. So, spend a little time scanning the skies, especially on days when there is a bit of cloud (on the clearest days, birds fly too high to see properly).

Luckily, when some big birds pass, especially birds of prey, smaller birds or corvids will announce their presence, giving you a cue to start looking skywards. Listen for odd squeaks from Rooks or Carrion Crows, rapid trills from tits or ping-type calls from scattering Starlings.

If you spend all your time peering into hedges you’ll miss any potential Honey Buzzards!

That’s why they call it the butterfly bush...

Pipistrelle? Noctule? Be a bat detective Bat detectors are electronic devices which convert the inaudible ultrasound bats produce for their sonar into audible sound for us to hear. Different bats produce different frequencies of calls, at different speeds and patterns, and by turning the detector to different frequencies you can easily work out which bats are coming to your garden. A basic detector will cost from about £60 upwards.

blickwinkel (Alamy)

One of the easiest plants to grow – in fact it grows as a ‘wasteland’ weed, buddleia has long been called the ‘butterfly bush’, as its heady purple flowers are irresistible to certain butterflies, such as the colourful nymphalids (eg Peacock, Red Admiral and Painted Lady) as well as hoverflies and bees.

All you need to do is cut it back to the bare bones in the close season, to ensure a full growth for next year, when the dense, quick growing branches can form roosting and nesting sites for birds, and the flowers will once again be drawing nectar-loving insects.

Make a niger feeder

Niger is a tiny seed beloved of thin-billed finches, particularly Goldfinches. The catch is, the seed is so small that it slips out of conventional seed-feeders far too easily. You can make your own niger feeder quite easily, though, by using a clear plastic tube, or even an old lemonade bottle, and puncturing some small holes (large enough to get the seeds out, but small enough that they don’t fall out.

Add a little perch at the base, hang it up and you’re away!

over the page Six species to look for at the seaside

Crossing continents Almost a quarter of the world’s bird species migrate. But why? And how? Matt Merritt and Mike Weedon explain all…

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hy do birds migrate? It would be trite to use the same answer as to the question about why dogs lick their most intimate parts: because they can. But this is the essential nub of why birds migrate; their powers of flight make seasonal movements across sometimes enormous distances possible. And whenever there is a possibility to explore a certain way of life, nature will explore that possibility and natural selection will determine its feasibility.

But what are the driving forces that would lead to evolution of a migratory way of life. In essence, and at its simplest, yet most profound sense, it all boils down to availability of food and living space and particularly breeding space.

Take the Wheatear, for instance. This is the most widespread species of a genus of chats centred mainly around the Mediterranean and North Africa. Our ‘Northern’ Wheatear probably evolved in Africa. Wheatears, perhaps resembling the ancestral stock, from East Africa are sedentary, and have relatively short wings.

However, migrant Wheatears have long primaries, twice as long as the African birds.

These migratory Wheatears now breed as far away as Greenland (many passing through the UK in May on the way) or even east to Alaska, while others are spread across Europe.

One proposed initiation to the mechanism to this great diaspora of Wheatears (and other species), is that birds will naturally spread out in search of new breeding and particularly feeding areas. In an area overcrowded with a particular 20 Bird Watching 2011

bird, individuals will be forced to look further afield to find new food or breeding areas.

The first wanderers will find a new Eden, but the next wave will find it occupied and will be forced to go that little bit further to an unconquered new world. Now, there could come a time when the wandering travellers gain advantages in finding more food and more space to breed and fewer predators. These get selective advantage and become more successful survivors, and more importantly breeders, than the sedentary stay-at-homes. The species itself, given time, becomes migratory.

One major factor allowing spread into these previously uncharted lands came with the shifting of the great glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age. This allowed our Wheatears to move into Europe. But their genetic make-up never forgot their roots, so, despite the distance involved being several thousands of miles, all the world’s Wheatears return each autumn to spend their winter in sub-Saharan Africa, such as the Sahel. Indeed Wheatears can spend more than eight months of the year simply migrating.

Heading north

Just as, each spring, millions of birds head north to Europe and beyond, out of Africa, so a similar, parallel, northward movement occurs from our temperate region of Europe to the far north. The theorised reasons for this movement to the sub-Arctic and Arctic regions are intimately tied up with the Ice Ages. One idea is

that the ancestral temperate wintering areas for birds such as grazing wildfowl became overcrowded and over-predated. As the ice retreated, land to the north of these areas became available – offering plentiful food, space and very few predators and diseases and parasites associated with close-packed living.

So, generations of pioneers headed to the open tundra, returning to the ancestral home in winter. But, as it was still overcrowded, they began venturing a bit further south in search of new wintering territories. Hence, each winter, areas of the UK bristle with northern-breeding wildfowl, only to see an exodus each spring.

An alternative explanation is that the birds were in the far north before the Ice Age, but forced south by the Ice Age, as were their large mammalian predators. After the retreat of the glaciers, man had wiped out the big predators and the wildfowl was free to return north unhampered by predation.

We are blessed on our cluster of islands with summers boasting abundant daylight and feeding time for insect loving warblers, swallows and breeding seabirds, and winters of great mildness, welcoming vast hordes of wildfowl and waders, winter thrushes, finches and so many more.

Whatever the specific mechanism, the causes of migration are predominantly to chase the food and breeding areas. And with birds, blessed with the gift of flight, the limiting factor has been the size of the planet!

migration Nick Upton (Nature Picture Library)

Wheatears can spend up to eight months of the year migrating

Oliver Smart

It’s estimated that 1,855 species of bird (19% of the world’s total) make regular movements away from their breeding grounds, to predictable destinations, at predictable times. In other words, they migrate.

We know where they’re going, and when, so it has been possible to discover exactly how they travel from A to B, by means of ringing recoveries (of which more later), close observation by professional and amateur birdwatchers, and increasingly, by more hi-tech means such as satellite tracking.

In simple terms, the majority of birds (except seabirds) prefer to avoid lengthy sea crossings and to migrate over land where possible, for the obvious reason that this allows them to touch down to rest and refuel if necessary.

Even many larger birds, such as raptors and storks, prefer to avoid the sea, because heat rising from the land creates thermals for them to rise on, allowing them to fly great distances while expending minimal energy.

Three main migration flyways have been identified, although within each there are other, narrower mini-flyways, as well as bottlenecks.

Let’s look at the big three first...

The least known is the East Asia-Pacific Flyway, which extends from Siberia to Australasia, right across the most densely populated part of the world, as well as vast expanses of empty ocean (over 38 million sq km, an area three times larger than

Record breakers

An Arctic Tern ringed as an unfledged chick on the Farne Islands, off Northumberland, in July 1982, reached Melbourne, Australia, in October of that year after a journey of more than 14,000 miles in just three months.

■ A Manx Shearwater ringed as an adult (at least five years old) in July 1953, on Copeland Island, Northern Ireland, was retrapped in July 2003, making it at least 55 years old.

Other ringing recoveries have shown that the species flies more than 12,000 miles on its winter migration, meaning the bird would have covered at least 620,000 miles on migration alone.

■ A typical Swallow migration was one recorded as taking 27 days to fly the 6,200 miles from Umhlange, Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa, to Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear, an average of 230 miles a day. This relatively leisurely pace reflects the fact that Swallows feed as they migrate, and stop to form roosts each night.

■ A Black-headed Gull was ringed as a fledgling in June 1996 in Hämeenkyrö County, Pirkanmaa, Finland. It was spotted again in January 2000 in Fort Worth, Texas, more than 5,000 miles away, and again at its wintering quarters in Texas in November 2000.

■ Among the weird demises recorded by the BTO’s ringers were a Mute Swan killed by tigers at Chester Zoo, a Reed Warbler found dead in a spider’s web, and an Osprey ringed in Strathclyde found in the stomach of a crocodile in the Gambia.

www.birdwatching.co.uk 21

go John Miles

TOP TIP presented by

This site repays repeat visits, from winter seawatching to summer warblers.

Site guide Grid ref: NX 422 360 Difficulty

1 Dumfries & Galloway

St Ninian’s Cave

Follow in the saint’s footsteps and find great birds

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ccording to the Anglo-Saxon historian the Venerable Bede, St Ninian was the founding father of Christianity among the southern Picts (who lived in the south-west of modern Scotland).

A pilgrimage to see his cave actually allows you to see a rare feature of the modern-day wildlife of Britain – natural House Martin nests. At this site, many of these nests look more like Swallow nests, being deeper in the cup with a flat top. Some of the

nests are actually at the entrance of the cave.

Besides the wonderful walk to the cave, you pass through several habitats, with farmland, woodland, open scrub, rocky shore and the open sea offering you a range of birds from summer migrants to winter divers on the sea.

A mixture of warblers can be found in spring and summer with Blackcap, Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler and Whitethroat, while raptors include

Buzzard, Peregrine, Sparrowhawk and the rarity of winter 2010/2011, a wintering Golden Eagle.

Seawatching is well worthwhile on a coastline which is rarely watched, so take your scope.

The botanical interest includes many salt-tolerant plants, Kidney Vetch, Seaside Century and Portland Spurge. Look out for the prostrate Hawthorn, Blackthorn and roses on the beach. Amazing!

John Miles

V5 OS 1:50,000 Region 5 Southern Scotland www.memory-map.co.uk 0870 743 0121

LOcal guide Organisations: The SOC, The Scottish Birdwatching Resource Centre, Waterston House, Aberlady, East Lothian, Scotland EH32 0PY. Club contact: SOC Stranraer branch, Secretary Geoff Sheppard Roddens, Leswalt, Stranraer DG9 0QR, 01776 870685, geoff.roddens@btinternet.com Galloway RSPB members group, Cynthia Douglas, 01644 420605, cynthia@cdouglas.plus.com County recorder: Paul Collin, pncollin@live.co.uk Maps: OS Explorer 311, OS Landranger 83.

Stranraer, 30 miles

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Park in the car park provided by the farm. There is a 50p charge. Walk around the farm buildings via the path provided, looking out for Collared Dove, Pied Wagtail and Barn Owl. This woodland is mainly Sycamore with the odd Ash and Wych Elm. Look

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58 Bird Watching 2011

How to get there: Leaving the A75 you head for Wigtown on the A714, changing to the A746 to Whithorn. Follow on to where the A746 joins the A747 and turn left for a mile to the sign for the cave. You drive 1.5 miles down a track into the car park. Follow the A747 from Port William coming from the west.

Postcode: DG8 8JU Where to park: The main car parking area is by the farm.

Distance and time: The walk from the car park is approximately a mile and a half miles there and back. Allow two hours to see all the birds. You can carry on along the coast if needed.

Terrain: The main path to the cave is quite hard underfoot but with some wet areas during rain.

The beach is stone covered.

Walking boots are suitable for most areas.

Facilities: Toilets are found at Isle of Whithorn.

Public transport: No direct services, but use Traveline for information on 01387 260383.

Sites nearby: Burrow Head (Go Birding, May 2010), Isle of Whithorn, Garlieston.

out for (and listen for) Treecreeper, Great Spotted Woodpecker and various warblers and tits.

The open area here is mainly gorse, with the stream running through it to the sea. Look out for Linnet, Song Thrush, Yellowhammer and Grey Wagtail.

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This cobbled beach is used by waders such as Curlew, Oystercatcher, Turnstone and Redshank in winter.

Seawatching can add many species which nest at Burrow Head, but also look out for Gannet, Manx Shearwater and divers in winter.

SUMMER 2011

Brian Unwin

TOP TIP presented by

With a wide area to cover, an early start is recommended.

Set your alarms!

Site guide Grid ref: NZ 504 233 Difficulty

2 Cleveland

Saltholme RSPB

Crowd-pulling new wetland reserve specialises in late summer thrills

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his near-1,000-acre reserve has open-water pools, reedbed and wet grassland complex. Year-round potential, but late summer/early autumn is regularly eventful.

The star of the site’s awesome species list is August 1982’s Longtoed Stint. For over a decade it was officially Britain’s ‘first’ – only to be dropped to second after a Least Sandpiper recorded in Cornwall in 1970 was reidentified as this similar Siberian breeding species.

Further Saltholme AugustSeptember highlights include Great White Egret, White-rumped, Baird’s, Pectoral and Buff-breasted Sandpipers, Lesser Yellowlegs, Wilson’s Phalarope, Bonaparte’s Gull and Caspian Tern, and the trend has continued since the reserve’s 2009 launch.

In August 2009 a juvenile Citrine Wagtail was on show around the Visitor Centre lake. Twelve months later a juvenile Whiskered Tern was

V5 OS 1:50,000 Region 4 Northern England www.memory-map.co.uk 0870 743 0121

centre stage for four weeks, a quick follow-up to the first-ever Teesmouth/ Durham record – two adults at, where else, Saltholme in April 2009.

But the reserve’s 80,000 visitors annually enjoy much more than rarities. Site management has boosted struggling breeding species, notably Lapwing, Redshank and Yellow Wagtail, and it also holds mainland Britain’s biggest Common Tern colony.

Brian Unwin

Middlesbrough, 3 miles

How to get there: Access road from A178 just 300 yards S of Seal Sands roundabout. Also, reserve can be reached from A19 via A1046 (junction just N of A19 Tees flyover) which connects with S end of A178 at Port Clarence.

Postcode: TS2 1TU. Where to park: Visitor Centre car park (grid ref: NZ 504 233) holds 100 cars (overflow space for another 50).

Distance & time: Reserve paths total five miles (8km). Saltholme Pools and Paddy’s Pool Hides, 15mins walk from Visitor Centre.

Haverton Viewpoint (25mins).

Terrain: Solid paths, all level apart from mild incline to Haverton Viewpoint.

Accessibility: Reserve open daily except Christmas Day (10am-5pm, April-October; 10am-4pm, November-March).

Entrance free to members, walkers, cyclists and bus-users (£3 per car for non-members).

Cycleway across reserve links to routes outside. All wheelchair accessible and two mobility scooters free, advance booked.

Dogs not permitted on reserve.

Facilities: Visitor Centre has first floor cafe (lift access), shop, toilets, wildlife garden and children’s play area.

Public transport: HartlepoolMiddlesbrough bus service (No1) stops by reserve entrance.

Sites nearby: Go Birdings: Greatham Creek/Long Drag (February 2006); Seaton Carew/ Seaton Common (September 2008); Cowpen Bewley Woodland Park (September 2009); Hartlepool Headland (October 2009); Portrack Marsh (July 2010).

LOcal guide

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Phil Stead Hide: Reserve’s newest, commemorating Teesmouth Bird Club’s late first chairman. Beside car park, it overlooks Bottom Tank, which – due to managed water levels – is noted for waders. Little Egrets often present too and Spotted Crake is among past visitors, so scan carefully for hidden rarities.

SUMMER 2011

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Saltholme Pools Hide has capacity for more than 100 birders and provides a 270° view, which takes in both Saltholme West and Back Saltholme Pools. This is prime passage wader habitat – so you never know what might turn up. It’s usually well stocked with waterfowl, gulls and, in summer, terns.

Well worth an extended visit.

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Paddy’s Pool Hide: Overlooks island supporting Common Tern colony.

Also good for scoping gull roost, west.

Haverton Viewpoint: The highest point, with panoramic views across site. North, Marsh Harrier hunt over reedbeds. Check Allotment Pool to south for Garganey, Little Gull and marsh terns. Migrants like the nearby scrub.

Organisations: Saltholme RSPB, 01642 546 625.

Teesside Environmental Trust 01642 454953.

Teesmouth Bird Club, secretary Chris Sharp, 20 Auckland Way, Hartlepool TS26 0AN, 01429 865163.

County recorder: Tom Francis, 108 Ashton Road, Glebe Estate, Norton, Stockton-on-Tees TS20 1RE, mot.francis@ntlworld.com Maps: OS Explorer 306, OS Landranger 93.

www.birdwatching.co.uk 59

Azores

Bullfinch

bonanza Sheena Harvey lands in the middle of the Atlantic where the familiar meets the unfamiliar

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alf way up the side of the volcanic caldera at Lagoa Do Fogo in the Azores, I dearly wished I’d brought along a pair of walking poles and left my scope in the car. The walk down that morning had been more of a stride-stride-jump on the zigzag path. Wooden rails have been cut into the steep hillside to hold the earth back in deep steps leading from the rim to the lake that fills the centre, 45 minutes’ walk below, so coming back up carrying the extra weight of a rucksack and scope is very taxing on the thighs.

I had appreciated my scope atthe Yellow-legged Gull colony where there were hundreds of fluffy, grey chicks on this day in late May. If we got closer than about 50 metres from where the young were pottering about in the scrub, the parent birds dive-bombed us, so we made an effort to watch them from a distance at which we were mutually comfortable.

The steps had been cut by a Dutchman with much longer legs than mine. Gerby Michielsen has been responsible for the creation, mapping and marking of dozens of walking trails of all grades around the islands of the Azores. He was right that the views are amazing, although the Yellow-legs dominate over a lot of other potential birdlife.

The previous day, Gerby had taken us to see the rare Azorean Bullfinch – the Priôlo – on a trip to the north-east of the main island, Sao Miguel. May is possibly not the best time of year to visit the Azores for birding because the many wading birds that we might have seen at Lagoa Do Fogo and elsewhere had departed for the summer, but there’s still plenty to see, and the Priôlo are there all year round.

The volcanic islands of the Azores, positioned in the middle of the Atlantic, have become best known in birding circles for rarities. Corvo and 92 Bird Watching 2011

Flores are the closest of the islands to mainland United States so are first base for those blown over.

Rarity-chasing is not everyone’s cup of tea. Local variations of birds we see in the UK can be fascinating. The Chaffinches, for instance, have much more royal blue and deep pink in their plumage, there are three different species of Goldcrest, sub-species of Blackcaps and Woodpigeons, and Blackbirds which have shorter tails than ours, and a totally different alarm call.

Abundant and colourful Canaries, form vast flocks in hedgerows, and Quail scuttle through the stubble of harvested crops. The agriculture on the Azores is not high-tech. You will often find a single cow tethered in a small field, or come across them being loaded into the back of a trailer to be trundled, one by one, to the nearest mobile milking bail. Farmers are heavily subsidised because employment is not abundant; farms are simple and small scale.

The lack of huge monoculture ‘deserts’ and mechanisation has, of course, made things good for the birds.

Our trip to find the Priôlos took us high up into the cloud forests of Serra Do Tronqueira in the area called Nordeste. Here, the importation of a lot of non-native species of plantlife that have swamped the local flora in some places. The cloud forests now have tall conifer trees from Japan and Australia – brought in to make fast-growing crops for timber and hedging. They host Goldcrests, Goldfinches, and the Azorean Bullfinch but where they have been planted they have driven out the native Laurel forests with their wealth of ferns and spongy mosses.

The Priôlos’ favourite food, though,

Many Azores birds are recognisable, like this Common Tern.

Azorean Chaffinches are like ours, but more boldly coloured. These pink flowers are loved by Priolo, top left

is the flowers of the alien Knotweed (Polygonum capitatum), whose tiny pink balls of blossom line the verges of mountain roads, stone walls and piles of lava rubble. We kept a look-out for the birds descending to the road to peck at the flowers of this originally Himalayan species and caught some distant views but our best encounter with Priôlos came in the mist as we rounded a bend. Four small avian forms, diving over the road into a clump of white Hydrangeas, were Priôlos, munching on the juicy flowerheads.

Every now and then they would pause to check us out, bills stuffed with white petals, but they clearly didn’t see us as a threat.

Another magical moment happened on the island of Faial – the next stop on our tour. We took a whale-watching trip with Norberto of Norberto Diver and were fortunate to see five adult Sperm whales and a calf

world birding Photos by Alan Harvey

Need to know

sounding, and were accompanied by a school of Bottlenose Dolphins.

The waters around the Azores host most of the main species of whales during the year so a whale-watching excursion will almost invariably be rewarding – spectacularly so, if you’re lucky to be there when a Blue Whale makes an appearance.

Birding on Faial is just as rewarding.

We met up with top ornithologist Joel Bried of the University of the Azores Department of Oceanography and Fisheries. He is working on the conservation of Cory’s Shearwaters, known locally as Cagarros. Two thirds of the world’s population are found in the Azores. Unfortunately, modern light pollution is taking its toll on the Cagarro fledglings, around 3000 are rescued each year from grounding when they are drawn towards the towns’ street lighting. Local people are being educated in rescuing grounded fledglings and moves are being made to switch night lighting from intense white to yellow. At White Castle Rock, Joel, and his colleague Rogerio, showed us nesting Cory’s Shearwaters tucked

into burrows in the rocky promontory.

Back on Sao Miguel we joined Gerby Michielsen for our last day – a trip to the west of the island and the coast around the fishing village of Mosteiros. On the cliffs at Mosteiros you can hear Little Shearwaters singing at night, and the bay south of the old harbour is the best site on the island for waders in winter. This area is the first landfall for many passerines from the US in the migration season and the local gardens are refuges for the tired and hungry birds.

After a walk along the west coast we headed up into the hills again to the village of Sete Cidades. Here, a collection of crater lakes attract lots of wildfowl in winter. We parked on the bridge between the Lagoa Verde and the Lagoa Azul and scanned the margins of the water. Gerby had seen a Pied Billed Grebe on the larger lake quite a few times and he was keen to establish if it was still there. As we watched, we were distracted by six or eight Grey Wagtails, darting under the bridge and perching on the parapet, catching the little flies that were

Above: The volcanic crater lake of Lagoa do Fogo is home to a world-class colony of Yellowlegged Gulls

■ Flights to the Azores can be arranged through SATA, the national airline. Visit www.sata.pt/en for details of flight times and prices.

■A trip to any of the islands of the Azores can be arranged through Archipelago Azores.

Visit www.azoreschoice.com or call 017687 75672 or email info@azoreschoice.com for information on all their tours and tailor-made holidays.

■ Guided bird trips on the islands can be arranged with Gerby Michielsen. Visit www.gerbybirding.com or email info@gerbybirding.com ■ For whale watching trips on Faial, visit Norberto Diver at www.norbertodiver.com hovering over the surface of the lake.

With no sign of the Pied Billed Grebe we decided to talk a stroll round Lagoa Azul through the picnic area and on to the reedbed. The trees were full of Chaffinches and Goldfinches, and a brightly plumaged Robin followed us as we walked. By the side of the lake, four colourful Waxbills came down to a puddle formed between a tree’s roots. It was only on the return journey to the bridge that we saw the Pied Billed Grebe at last, slipping out of the reeds to feed. Its continued appearance, and the fact it’s not the only bird he has seen on that lake, raised Gerby’s hopes that one day they will be breeding in the Azores.

The islands seem to have a tradition of accommodating non-natives, so although rarities come and go, eventually some of them stay. www.birdwatching.co.uk 93