Two good days in Peniche

During this last weekend, Portugal was affected by a low-pressure system that hit mid-country, producing periods of heavy rain and moderate to strong wind from the SW.  I went to Peniche on Saturday morning, Sunday morning, and one hour Sunday afternoon, resulting in 6:30h of observation in total. On Saturday morning I had the pleasure of the company of Pedro Marques, António Gonçalves, Nelson Pereira, and Pedro Ramalho. On Sunday morning from António Martins.  

Beyond seabirds, the Peniche area was swarming with migrants, Flycatchers, Yellow-wagtails, Tree pipits, Whitethroats, Willow warblers, Cuckoo, Wryneck, and flocks of Turtle Doves, were a joy to see. Saturday morning two Eurasian spoonbills flew overhead, near the lighthouse and a Glossy Ibis pass the cape during the counting.

On Sunday afternoon, before I go to the cape, I stopped at the Sewage treatment pond, to find a young Flamingo roosting (Pedro Ramalho had found two a few days earlier, I assume that this one was of them). Scanning the nearby fields, that were alive with Yellow wagtails, a grey head and neck popped on my scope: A Great Bustard! A lonely, and apparently, young male. A few minutes later, I also found, the more regular Little bustards, a flock of 7 inds. 

Here are some of the numbers of the seabirds counted this weekend (6,5 hours):

Sandwich Tern 1443
Balearic shearwater 1467
Cory´s shearwater 999
Sooty shearwater 81
Manx shearwater 47
Great Skua 345
Pomarine skua 50
Arctic skua 67
Gannet 2533

For the full list and totals, plese go to the project page in trektellen: www.trektellen.org/site/totals/1621/2020

All photos by António Martins:

Cory´s shearwater

Great Skua

Oystercatcher

Pomarine skua

Pomarine skua

Sooty shearwater