Castro Marim - February 1989

The reserve at Castro Marim takes its name from a small town nearby, and includes a series of shallow lakes and lagoons, many of which are commercially exploited for salt. It is used by many water birds on migration during the winter. The emblem of the reserve is the black winged stilt the area is said to have the largest colony of this species in the country.

We arrived in the area with just enough daylight left to find the old buildings that Glenis suggested as a campsite. This was next to an area of open water with a dozen of so little grebe fishing close by and three or four hundred coot flying in circles looking like huge moths fluttering on and off the water surface. At least half were in the air at any one time and the whole group moved slowly past us.

Five large birds flew over as it was almost too dark to see. Jim pronounced flamingos, so I grabbed my binoculars for a look and saw strange shaped pinkish birds with dark flight feathers.

The next morning we drove around the saltpans and found one with a track nearby so we could watch from the van. From our vantage point we could see that people jogging or walking dogs along the road caused more problems for birds than motor-bikes or cars. However, the greatest disturbance came from a shepherd letting his flock of sheep and goats out of the shed where they had spent the night. Most of the livestock anywhere in Portugal seemed to graze open fields, orchards or scrub during the day, with one or two people and their dogs in attendance, then all were shut up at night.

Amongst the people walking along the road was a man with a cat and a dog. Apart from climbing a tree, the cat acted more like a dog, following its owner and coming to heel when called. When they got back to the village the trio climbed a path up a hill to what looked like a chapel and sat down on a bench outside in the sun.

The birds were, as usual, more interesting that the people. The saltpan we were watching contained two black-tailed godwit plus ruff, redshank, spotted redshank and a few stilt. In the next pan there was a flock of about thirty godwit. If any of the flock tried to land in the first saltpan they would be vigorously chased off by the two resident godwit. One of these was particularly active, he stopped feeding and crouched in readiness to attack if another bird even flew over, and if it looked like landing the bird would chase it off with a war cry of ee ya da cha cha cha (according to Jim).

The second godwit occasionally chased others off, especially if several tried to land together. Even when all the waders in the first saltpan were put to flight the two godwit would be the first back and defending their patch again. They also expelled intruders venturing into the small saltpan next to the one they were feeding in, but showed no interest in any of the other wader species. A godwit who tried to sneak in on foot was also chased off.

Two ruff caused us some problems in working out their plumage. They were slightly bigger than redshank which made them both males, and both had the pale fore face indicative of adult birds, but one was buff and the other grey. The buff bird had feathers with brown centres, black subterminal marks and broad pale fringes, with the grey bird had dark feathers with narrow grey-white fringes. It also had white underparts when compared with the other; the variability of ruff obviously extends to winter as well as summer plumage.

There were more and more people about with dogs, motorbikes etc so we moved on, and found ourselves another track among the saltpans. Some dis¬tance along this track Jim saw a godwit in a wet area farm effluent on his side of the road so we stopped to photograph it. It was in winter plumage and close enough that we could see the dark feather shafts quite clearly. The day was quite windy, the bird seemed to have its legs braced and was reluctant to move.

Going back along the track we found another godwit in a more pleasant area of water. This one was in summer plumage. It spent some time preening and oiling: wiping the middle section of its bill on the preen gland then wiping the oil onto its breast feathers. Its toilet complete the bird yawned, scratched its head and flew off.

We moved on down to the coast, to where a long sea wall protects the mouth of the Guadiana River from wind blown sand. There was a force six westerly blowing during the afternoon and even with the windows closed, a lot of fine sand worked its way into to the van.

Two dozen little terns were feeding off the mouth of the river. Seeming to make slow progress into wind, they allowed it to toss and flip them back to the beginning of their feeding run. Then they bobbed up and down like yo yos to pick items from near the water surface until they were ready to do it all again. The nearby sandwich terns looked huge and cumbersome by comparison.

Other birds out in the gale included thirty balearic shearwaters, sixty common scoter, a handful of razorbills, two bonxies and a variety of gulls.

We headed back for another night at Castro Marim, to get some shelter from the wind and sand. This morning we found a little egret that had taken shelter in a burnt out shed. Its white plumage was covered with fine soot, and it looked generally quite miserable. It was almost reluctant to leave the place, but eventually we persuaded it to go out into the sun, where it stood outside the building as if waiting to go back in. There was nothing obvious wrong with it, and we left it to its own devices.

A pale phase booted eagle flew high overhead; followed later by a dark phase bird, flying much lower and showing off all flight identification points.

Time to move on again, and we were looking forward to the Coto Doñana.

4 Jan 1989 - Tagus Estuary

Tagus Estuary

The Tagus estuary upstream of Lisbon is a vast intertidal zone of mudflats, bordered by 2,800 ha of saltmarsh, saline marshlands, mudflats, shallow lagoons and over 20,000 ha of reclaimed cultivated land. Beyond this is a hinterland of dry grass­land, cornfields, stone pine and cork oak wood­land. To the east some of this polder landscape has been somewhat modified by indust­rial and mili­tary instal­lations which pose a serious threat of pollution, but the estuary is still frequented in winter and migration time by over 70,000 waders including 75% of Europe's wintering avocet, plus calidrids and curlew and several thousand duck.

Some 22,850 ha of the saltmarsh, mudflats and islands are included in a reserva natural, where shooting and other forms of exploitation, except fishing, are forbidden. Access to the reserve for visitors is by road to perimeter then by footpath to points of interest, however there is no entry to three strict nature reserves ‑ Reserva Integral areas that are left for nature to get on with its own business and even scientists are allowed in only to monitor the situation.

We have a plan of action for the Tagus area, mapped out last night from the information in our books. Since we are coming from the north, we start with Lezeiroland, a vast area of cultiva­tion, and try to get to the estuary itself at Ponta da Erva. The road to this point is not signposted but we ask and are told we were going the right way. The road is a wide, solid farm track ‑ it needs to be for the tractors we meet on it are huge four‑wheel drive with double wheels affair, pulling an equally huge set of disc harrows. The farming here comes like a culture shock after several weeks of pocket handkerchief fields on mountainsides.

Cultivation is on a scale similar to East Anglia or the Netherlands, and the drainage ditches go hand‑in‑hand with huge irrigation sys­tems. Since Portugal joined the EEC in 1986 there has been a national urge to develop ‑ fast. The recent avail­ability of EEC funds now ensures the feasibility of many agricultural, industrial and other large scale development projects that could never have been attempted previously.

We keep following the track, guessing which way to turn at T junc­tions and, after about 10 km, we do reach the Ponta da Erva.

There are larks, finches and linnets in good‑sized flocks, plenty of house sparrows and thousands of common starlings. Snowstorms of gulls follow tractors in the distance. Half a dozen little egrets fly out of a ditch as we approach, and join others in the fields together with lapwing, golden plover and godwit. Three cattle egrets stalk through another field, occasionally one stops to stir up invertebrates with its foot, the way little egrets do in water. These birds have a peculiar rolling, goose‑like gait which distin­guishes them from little egrets at some distance.

A great grey shrike hunts from the tops of weed stalks in a dry‑look­ing pasture, and, having heard a crested lark call nearby, Jim studies the larks in that field until he finds it ‑ even with its crest down it looks a dumpier bird with buff outer tail feathers compared to the skylarks.

Until now we have seen cows used both for milk and as draft animals ‑ they don't bat an eyelid when traffic zooms past. Here we find bulls being reared for the bullfights and bull-running which are a traditional part of local fiestas ‑ and a field full of bull makes quite a lot of noise!

In one of the drainage channels we find moor­hen and little grebe, and near the sluice gate at the estuary end there is a kingfisher. Out on the mudflats are thousands of avocet, distinguishable in the evening gloom by their striking plumage, while other, browner, waders scurry about incognito.

3 Jan 1989

There is a campsite ‑ open and with very hot showers ‑ next to where we were watching on the dunes yesterday so we made use of it. Jim spends this morning sea watching ‑ gannets, sandwich terns, two divers, common scoter, arctic and pome­rine skuas etc. Two arctics were harrying a sand­wich tern when a third arctic joined in, the tern does not give up anything. It seems an uneconomical way for skuas to hunt, but the more skuas there are, the more likely the victim is to give up a meal, so one at least is bound to be lucky.

Much of the rest of the day is spent talking to a German couple who had also stayed in the campsite. They are seasoned travellers and give us tips about getting the most out of camping in Portugal. In particular they warn us about bandits and break-ins in the tourist areas, and suggest we get any servicing or other work done on our van in Portugal where the labour is cheap, but the mechanics have still been trained by Volkswagen in Germany.