Bottlenose Dolphins Sooty Shearwater Sperm Whale breaching Goldcrest- an endemic island form on Santa Maria Well that was a rather pleasant disaster. No Whale Sharks despite hours and hours of searching over three days. Didn’t help that the tuna fishing fleet were having a tuna festival instead of out fishing and reporting whale shark [...]
Cory’s Shearwaters off Graciosa Transfering to Santa Maria for the second leg of the pelagic trip over the last couple of days. Stopped off at Sao Miguel and caught up with the Asian Oystercatcher. Arrived at Santa Maria to find out there was a White-tailed Tropicbird back at Sao Miguel so perhaps there may be [...]
The wind and sea got up today preventing us from getting out to the Bank of Fortune so we stayed around the island. Highlight of the day was two Sooty Tern around Praia Islet.
Immature Brown Booby Arctic Skua, Brown Booby and Cory’s Shearwater Long-tailed Skua Spotted Dolphins Band-rumped Petrel – a non-moulting bird this time of year could be either a late moulting Monteiro’s, a juvenile Monterio’s or an adult Grant’s Storm Petrel. Blue Shark Another good day at sea. 1 Brown Booby (the third record for the [...]
Swinhoe’s Petrel Fea’s Petrel Fea’s Petrel Bulwer’s Petrel A good day on the bank of fortune today with 1 Swinhoe’s Petrel, 1 Fea’s Petrel, 10+ Monteiro’s/Band-rumped Petrel, 1 Bulwer’s Petrel, 10+ Sooty Shearwater, 50+ Great Shearwater, Cory’s Shearwaters, 1 Pomarine Skua, 2 Beaked Whale sp, Common, Spotted and Bottlenose Dolphin, Blue Shark, Oceanic White-tip Shark, [...]
Semi-palmated Sandpiper Hudsonian Whimbrel Spent the morning on Terceira before catching the ferry to Graciosa. A few more birds in the quarry including Short-billed Dowitcher, Hudsonian Whimbrel, 4 Semi-palmated Sandpiper, 1 Semi-palmated Plover, 2 Curlew Sandpiper, 40+ Kentish Plover, 90 Sanderling, 2 Snipe, 6 Grey Plover, 4 Eurasian Whimbrel and 1 Common Sandpiper. The Garganey [...]
Spent today on Terceira before we start our first pelagic tomorrow. Here’s a few shots of terns in Praia da Vitoria harbour. Can you the identify the species? Quite a few birds around including summer plumaged Spotted Sand, four Semi-palmated Sandpiper, 1 Semi-palmated Plover, 1 juvenile Pectoral Sandpiper, 1 Garganey and good numbers [...]
Photo by Harro Muller Following up on our recent pelagic we discovered some better images of the Pterodroma petrel we had. The images were sent to Bob Flood who has identified it as a Zino’s Petrel. More details will appear in Bob and Ashley’s forthcoming multi-media id guide of Pterodroma petrels. Geolocation studies have revealed that aside [...]
Day One 290712 Sao Miguel Azores Bullfinch- 10+ seen in the Tronqueira Mountains. Had a look around the wetlands in the Furnas area with Gerby (http://www.gerbybirding.com/en/) Day Two 300712 Terceira and ferry crossing to Graciosa Hudsonian Whimbrel at Cabo da Praia- one of two birds present. Also Semipalmated Plover and adult Least Sandpiper. Northern Botttlenose Whale (I [...]
Here’s a few extra (excellent) photos from Gareth Knass. More on Gareth’s flickr site here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/34986481@N07/collections/72157626902702896/ Monteiro’s Petrel (Gareth Knass) Roseate Terns (Gareth Knass)- four different birds feeding together Common Dolphins (Gareth Knass) Risso’s Dolphin (Gareth Knass) From left to right, Per, Tommy, Bonser, me, Bosse, Lee, Tony, Gareth, Rafa, Martin, Eric and Michael. See [...]
