Reporting from Portugal: Birds and Culture.

We just wrapped up a wonderful tour of Portugal led by the incomparable Helder Cardoso! The group recorded seeing 184 species including some rarities inlcluding this Red Footed Booby, only the third ever recorded sighting in mainland Portugal! 

The tour began in Lisbon, where the group spent the first three days exploring different habitats from intertidal flats to mixed pine and cork oak woodland. Among the many wonderful birds seen during this first portion of the trip were hundreds of Greater flamingos, Pied flycatcher, Yellow-crowned Bishop, along with seabirds and waders like Curlew sandpiper, Dunlin, Ruff, and Common snipe. 

The group then moved on to the vast open landscapes of Alentejo, heading to Castro Verde and Mértola, where the group would stay for the next four nights, comfortably exploring Guadiana Valley Natural Park. In this area the group saw some of the tour's main targets like Great Bustard and Iberian Imperial Eagle. Other highlights included raptors like Bonelli's eagle and Short-toed eagle, as well as eye-catching Black storks and flocks of black-bellied Sandgrouse. 

At Portugal’s southern tip lies the Algarve — known for its vast sandy beaches and rocky coasts. We began in the Castro Marim Nature Reserve, right on the border with Spain, explored additional marshes and saltpans, and enjoyed a pelagic trip offshore of the Sagres Peninsula. Some highlights from our days in the Algarve region included Red-knobbed Coot (A rare sight in Portugal), Stone Curlew, Black-headed weaver, Purple swamphewn, mutliple species of Storm-petrel and Shearwater, Common and Bottlenose dolphins, and Honey Buzzard, as well as the aforementioned Red-footed Booby.

On our final day, we made our way back to Lisbon, stopping en route for memorable views of a migrating flock of about 30 Red-rumped Swallows (Cecropis daurica) overhead.

The tour concluded in Lisbon with a farewell dinner, celebrating an impressive 184 species recorded by the group.