Portugal.

Day4 17th May 2011

Our last day in Portugal bird watching today. We left Tavira and headed towards Faro airport and then on to Quinto do Lago for some golf course birding. A hide that looks over a big reed fringed lake on the edge of an exculsive '150 euro a round' golf course gave good views of purple swamphen, little bittern, red crested pochard, pochard, gadwall and black headed weavers. The surrounding area had crested tit, nightingale, turtle dove, cettis warbler, hoopoe, marsh harrier and many azure winged magpie. A good variety of waders on the pools and salt pans also. A spectacled warbler in the scrub and an Iberian chiffchaff heard here but not seen .

 We then headed into Faro for some lunch and a Macdonalds was my sons choice. We had a nice pair of melodious warblers in a flowering tree close to the harbour before I dropped my son off at the airport for his flight home and I then travelled on into Spain. I arrived at El Rocio in the Donana about 9pm after a 2.5 hour journey. During the journey I had 2 montagu's harriers beside the very quiet motorway, one of them flying down the hard shoulder towards me.This motorway must be the most 'beautiful' road in Spain as the central reservation is just mile after mile of pink flowering shrubs.

A real tangle of legs and toes as a couple of purple swamphens sort out a dispute

The introduced black headed weaver? was nesting in the reed beds.

A pair of Melodious warblers in Faro city centre

Spectacled warbler