We’re on the move again, after doing not so much at home for a week. We’re back on the Azores, the island of Terceira which hosts the best wader spot in all of WP. The pond close to Cabo De Praia, also known as the quarry. We have spent two days here on Terceira before going to Corvo where we’ll search for lost Yanks together with quite a few other WP birders.
The first bird we went for was a Redhead who had been lingering in a pond in the city of Praia Da Vitoria since end of August. The bird has been moulting heavily, however the wings look fresh now so the bird is ready to go. We were probably lucky to get it now before it leaves.
Next we went together with Catalonian birder Rafael Armada to the pond. The Grey-tailed Tattler that had been in the pond since summer appeared to be gone. We did find two Blue-winged Teals though, that was tick number 715 for us.
The number of species of waders in the pond was staggering, of the more exotic it’s worth to mention: Two Temminck’s Stint (apparently rare on the Azores we learned today), 7 Semipalmated Sandpipers, 4 Pectoral Sandpipers, 1 White-rumped Sandpiper, 4 Lesser Yellowlegs, lots of Semi-palmated Plovers and one Baird’s Sandpiper.
We spent quite some time scanning through flocks of Yellow-legged Gulls, looking for that one American Herring Gull. No luck. We revisited Lago da Junco where we last time saw quite a few Common Snipes, this time we went back looking for Wilson’s Snipe. There were no snipes at all there this time.
We also searched hard in various little patches of forest on the western side of the Island searching for lost American songbirds. Exciting type of birding, walking slowly by your self listening attentively for that odd call. Mostly found Atlantic Canaries and odd sounding Chaffinches.
Checked the pond in the city late in the evening and thought we found a Spotted Sandpiper, apparently Rafa had already found it earlier today. Great bird anyways.
Tomorrow, Corvo in October – pretty famous WP birding spot.