Red-rumped swallows and little egret in Portugal

Wednesday, 11 April.

In the town of Cacela Velha in Portugal, there is not only poetry; and visual arts and architecture.

There are birds as well.

Red-rumped swallows on a wire. As we would find out later, they nest under a house’s balcony. Keep reading …

At the edge of the salt marsh below the castle hill, a little egret.

A yellow-legged gull on a pole in the water.

As we go down to the beach, something special. On an old agave flower stem, two lesser spotted woodpeckers! Such a small bird, so good at hiding … it was decades ago that I last saw one. And now, two! They hammer on the agave flower stem like on a tree.

Ten sanderlings land on the beach.

This is a video of sanderlings near Tavira.

A whimbrel.

A house martin flying.

A grey plover on the beach.

This plover is starting to change from its winter plumage to its beautiful summer plumage.

Two grey plovers on the beach. A dunlin. Two Kentish plovers.

I hear bee-eaters call.

Also greenfinch and blackbird sounds from the dunes.

Two little terns dive bomb into the sea.

A great cormorant flies just above the water.

A turnstone.

Fiddler crabs.

Kentish and ringed plover.

In the coastal village, a male blackbird.

A corn bunting sings in the dunes.

A buzzard circles in the air.

Black-tailed godwits.

Back to the hilltop of Cacela Velha, where one can hear a hoopoe call.

The red-rumped swallows nest under a house’s balcony.

Often, they sit down on the house’s clothesline, happily mixing with the clothespins.

On a tree behind the clothesline, a corn bunting sings.

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