22 Jan 1989 - Lagoa de Santo Andre

We say a final goodbye to Setubal this morning, then cross the Sado estuary again to follow the coast southwards. In places the road over­looks the mudflats, and with the tide only half way up there are numerous waders feeding busily. For a change we are on a road with room to pull off to the side, though the weather is so hazy we cannot see far.

The road goes through sand dunes planted with maritime and stone pines, olive groves and some cork oak. Further south there are areas of eucalypt plantation which are well enough estab­lished to have been coppiced ‑ two to four thick trunks are allowed to grow from each stool. There are also saltpans and rice fields with a few white storks and lots of egrets.

The Lagoa de Melides seems deserted except for twenty or so black-headed gulls and two cattle egrets, so we continue to the Lagoa de Santo Andre which is much larger and has a con­venient, though expensive, camp­site on its shore. There are plenty of stone and maritime pines in the campsite and lots of birds, including black­birds and serins in song, and green woodpeckers and hoopoes feeding on the abundant ants.

The hoopoes did not seem approachable for photography, but as we watch the lake from under trees a total of seven birds come to dust bathe and feed in a sunny area about forty metres away. Some are slightly nervous of us but the fact that so many turned up suggest an evening ritual. They all freeze when a pair of green woodpeckers fly over calling noisily, then resume activ­ities. They leave more or less together, and in the same direction, perhaps going to roost.

The lagoon itself is brackish, with vast expanses of reedbeds, and surrounded by dunes, pine and oak woodland, and farmland. A single connection with the sea is opened once a year to lower the water level, then the sand‑dunes are reformed by the wind and sea and the opening closes up again. There were other human in­fluences too: some of the reed and sedge beds were cut and burnt for pasture; there was pollution from urban effluent and the lake was intensively fished. Nevertheless breeding birds include a variety of herons and terns, and there is good passerine migration.

Even in winter the lagoon is not quiet, there are scores of little grebe trilling away, and good populations of coot, moorhen and water rail added their voices. Cattle egrets gather on a marshy area, eighty of them at the final count before they all fly off together to their roost site, which could be up to 10 km away. Little owls become more active and noisy as the evening wears on.