The Safari spent the night aboard ship at Gibraltar so the day started with a scan of the Rock before bereakfast. There wasn't much moving again but a flock of five herons heading out to sea provided the first interest of the day when the middle one of the five wasn't a Grey Heron but a Purple Heron.
Some of the guests had taken an early morning dolphin watching cruise and came back with tales of a huge pod of maybe as many as 500 Common Dolphins and smaller numbers of Striped Dolphins...despite scanning from the decks we only managed to see a couple of distant splashes close to the ships moored up offshore awaiting orders which could have been either species.
Eventually it was time to set sail across the strait to the Spanish enclave of Cueta; a bit like Gibraltar is to Spain, Cueta is a sticky-out bit owned by Spain but geographically in Morocco. Anyway it would be a new 'tick' for us, we've never set foot on the African continent before. Once we were in open water we passed another pod of Long Finned Pilot Whales and had a flock of around 30 Black Terns winging their way across the water. As we approached Cueta harbour the radio crackled, it was AB telling us there was a large pod of Striped Dolphins in the distance. We scanned and scanned but couldn't pick them up and relayed this to him...look the other side of the ship was the reply. Hazy and a long way off but yes he was right there were a lot of them. One of our grotty sequence of shots shows 22 at the surface so going on the premis that for every one you see at the surface there may be as many as six or even ten beneath there could be somewhere between 120 and 220 in that pod.
Once ashore we soon spotted African exotica like House Sparrow and Collared Dove, the Spotless Starlings were just as hard to get a pic of here as they had been in Gibraltar. We soon heard African Blue Tit calling in the trees opposite the old fort but getting a good view of one with its more strongly marked head pattern and all blue back proved frustrating...and no chance of a pic. The fort had an impressive moat but we weren't for hanging around for the culture and heritage - oh no we had habitat to find and BT's phone map was showing the way.
We still needed birds, and reptiles - none of us had seen a reptile yet apart from AB seeing an introduced Iberian Pond Turtle in one of the ornamental ponds in the Botantic Gardens. He did say last time he was there there were Wall Lizards everywhere. Sadly now there were dozens of boxes and food dishes put out for feral cats, both in Gibraltar and Cueta, no wonder we couldn't find any reptiles. Where could we go, a car park lead down the side of large building for a 'safer' view of the barranco, it turned out to be a hospital/health centre and it was closing for the night. At the back of the building was a little grassy area with a few trees where we heard African Blue Tit again and saw a Spotted Flycatcher and couple of too-quick-for-us Common Bulbuls.
The sunset over the straits was a spectacle
The hills on the far left rose up quite sharply to rocky peaks topped with view points at which we could see tiny figures enjoying the view. Above them circled dozens of raptors, probably mostly Honey Buzzards but too far away and too dark to tell for sure. Here's a pic by JC from while he was up by the reservoirs not far from those hills.
Next stop - Cadiz back in Europe.
We were off the ship immediately after breakfast and adjacent to the dock was a nice little linear almost formal park to the right of this impressive avenue leading to the city centre.
Can't believe we've not shown you a pic of a Yellow Legged Gull yet, seeing as how we'd seen thousands of them by now. Here's one on a statue on the look out for some unwary tourist with breakfast.
The park was nice and cool with lots of House Sparrows and a variety of parakeets including these Monk Parakeets, Ring Necked Parakeets and the larger Alexandrine Parakeets.
The park's water feature culminated (or started) at a large waterfall.
which you could overlook from the walkway above - or sneak through the behind the scenes passage for a look out from behind (or through) the falling waters.
There weren't many small birds about suggesting there hadn't been a fall overnight. We left the park and had a wander along the seafront. Some reef-like rocks below the seawall held a few Ringed Plovers, mostly juveniles, and a handful of Turnstones.
More Yellow Legged Gulls hung around the rocks or searched the rock pools for edible morsels.
A Spotless Starling was heard singing from out on the rocks and eventually found - what was it doing out there?
It turned out to be the only one we got a pic of all trip, they're not the easiest of little blighters to get the camera on despite them being fairly numerous in the ports we stopped at.
Ducking between the parked cars along the wall we snuck up on a Turnstone that was gleaning some invisible foodstuff from the brickwork.
Ducking between the parked cars along the wall we snuck up on a Turnstone that was gleaning some invisible foodstuff from the brickwork.
Unfortunately we also saw hundreds more feral cat shelters laid out among the rocks below the seawall, deffo no reptiles here now! A sit down on the causeway leading to an old fort gave us many more Ringed Plovers on the beach along with a few Sanderlings, they'd have to feed up quick as the beach was filling up quickly with people as the morning drew on.
After seeing a handful of Cattle Egrets going past a large flock of larger white birds flying over the bay caught our eye, our first thought was Great White Egrets but the bins showed that to be wrong, they were Spoonbills. That's the largest flock of Spoonbills we've ever seen and the pic doesn't show all of them.
It was time to wander into town passing a very confiding Yellow Legged Gull on the way.
A boaty scene reminiscent of St Ives in Cornwall we thought.
When the mediaeval architects designed the cathedral and plazza you'd have thought they'd have got their time machines out and constructed it in to a design that it would fit in the frame of a 21st Century phone camera! What numpties eh!
Successfully avoiding the pick-pockets down the crowded main drag we made it back to the park where we took some lovely shots of the Monk Parakeets, miles better than the earlier one but managed to carelessly delete them before processing - what a numpty eh!
The ride out of Cadiz was late afternoon so we had plenty of daylight for spotting. The outer harbour area held plenty of gulls including the most Mediterranean Gulls we'd seen so far. As we passed one of the last jettys JC pointed out a young Audouin's Gull sat with the other gulls on the harbour wall from his lofty perch on Deck 6. Most of those of us on the Forecastle on Deck 4 got onto it.
Once out at sea we started seeing shearwaters again. This time Scopoli's Shearwaters outnumbered Cory's Shearwater, by over 2-1. We got our best count of Balearic Shearwaters too and a weird almost Fulmar-like leucistic Cory's Shearwater. Here's a couple of pics by BT showing the difference between Cory's and Scopoli's Shearwaters.
Did you spot the difference? The Cory's always fly to the right, the Scopoli's to the left!!! Easy-peasy! Now look at the amount of white showing on the underside of the wingtip, not at all easy to pick out in real time but there was another clue, almost all the birds photographed and seen as Scopoli's were in moult whereas the Cory's weren't. Here's a trio of our pics - have a stab at IDing them.
How did you get on? We're pretty sure all three are Scopoli's. On the top pic there's just a hint of white fingers on the primaries and a little moult BUT it could be the angle the wing is being held at and there's a bit of light coming through the primaries making it a Cory's, hard to tell which on the middle pic, look closely there's a hint of moulted coverts on the upperwing which is more suggestive of Scopoli's and the bottom pic is by far the most definitive, both the white fingers and the moult are easy to see.
A big raft of mixed sheawaters and some attendent Gannets had us looking for cetaceans without success but a tiny Barolo's Shearwater did leave the flock as we approached.
Hardly any dolphins were seen just a handful of Bottlenose Dolphins and an unidentified singleton. A brief view of a Shark's fin wasn't long enough to enable an identification.
Best of the rest were a couple of Pomarine Skuas.
Once again we were off the ship as soon after breakfast as possible and took an interesting and bumpy (cobbles & potholes) taxi ride up to the top of Edward VIIth Park with the intention of a mooch about then back down the hill via the Botanic Gardens. Once dropped off JC saw there was a bit of scrubland opposite the park entrance to explore and we were soon 'pishing' the line of trees for whatever might appear, there were warbler and tit calls eminating from the foliage. A couple of Coal Tits and a Blue Tit made themselves visible and then something flew out of one of the trees and landed in a pathside bush. After some serious pishing by JC it left the depths of the bush and showed briefly in awful light. A Firecrest is always a good addition to the SD card.
The scrubby area gave way to a bit of grassland overlooking a restaurant with a water feature with a moat. The water feature was dry, it looked like it had fountains playing when the cafe was open but moat was full of water and held an Iberian Pond Turtle. A crow flew over our heads, we expected it be a Hooded Crow not realising that they don't get anywhere near this far west on mainland Europe even though they are the default crow in Ireland. Bog standard Carrion Crow it is then.
With thoughts of crossing the road into the main part of the park we ambled that way until we were waylaid by a pair of Hoopoes casually probing the short turf not far from the path. With all the stealth the four of us could muster we used every bush and shrub to get as close as possible.
After a couple of hundred shots we realised we could creep round the other side of some bushes where the light would be better, now we would be more exposed but ignoring the B*stard European Ankle Flies and innumerable ants we lay prone on the grass using toes and elboes to inch ever closer.
Only once did either of them raise their incredible crest and we missed it! Still we inched closer and the shots kept coming...and then a young lass steps up close by standing tall and bold phone in hand and began taking her own pics - did the Hoopoes fly off, did they eck - don't think they noticed her. Meanwhile we just kept that shutter button pressed firmly down.
In the end it all got too much for aging limbs or our SD cards were full and we had to get up. Once upright we took a snap of the nearest Hoopoe with our phone too. The camera on our phone is poor and we used the 2x zoom option and some cropping but you get the idea. It was no more than six feet away.
JC was still photographing them so we had a go at getting a shot of that but couldn't get him and the bird cos just at the wrong moment a family with a dog came by and the Hoopoe flew off, probably much more aware and afraid of the dog than they are humans.
Once in the park proper we first heard then saw Ring Necked Parakeets.
We're not overly happy they seem to be in every public park in Iberia, and our own Stanley Park back home, but they can make for exotic photo opportunities.
Also present were the seemingly ubiquitous Monk Parakeets and a new one for us Blue Crowned Parakeet which we didn't get a shot of.
By now we needed a brew but the cafe in the park wasn't open yet, we'd have to wait. In the trees adjacent to the cafe there was some flitting going on which on further investigation was a Pied Flycatcher busily catching flies and trying to defend its lucrative patch from a family of Black Redstarts.
At the same time what looked like another family of Black Redstarts were persitently arguing amongst themselves a few yards away. It took ages to get this shot of the male. They were zipping around here there and everywhere and only ever seemed to land in the shadiest of spots.
Looking down on all this frantic activity were some sedate Serins.
A wander round this wooded area of the park gave us a Spotted Flycatcher, a really annoying Short Toed Treecreeper that really didn't want its photo taken, we followed it from tree to tree for ages, a load of Blackbirds and a few more Serins. The park has a beautiful and impressive old building in it the Pavillion of Carlos Lopes which again was closed. Of more interest than the architecture or contents was the number of Spotless Starlings on the roof but yet again totally impossible to get a pic of. They aren't particularly shy or skittish, they just do their own thing which seems to be always somewhere where you can't get a lens on them.
Once we'd exhausted the possibilities of the park we aimed for the Botanic Gardens via a welcome glug of Cafe Corto, a big freshly squeezed orange juice and a tasty cheese n ham butty. We'd lost JC somewhere in the park, he'd become the man that walks alone!, and while we were scoffing he'd already made his way to the Botanic Gardens. We arranged to meet him there but a wrong turn leaving the cafe took us back to the main high street through Lisbon with its market and bars, the bars being full to the brim of Scottish footy fans downing beer as if it were going out of fashion - well it was quite a warm day and a cold one was very tempting. News from JC was that the gardens were quite he'd had little more than a Blackcap so BT decided to have a look at the castle where there might be some raptors soaring over the ramparts at the top of the hill while AB and us hit the trail back to the ship.
We're not a great fan of cities in general but what we saw of Cadiz was impressive, Lisbon was even better with a great feel to the place, maybe that was down to the footy fans but it did seem to have a good vibe going on. There is some lovely architecture along the waterfront.
All good things come to an end and so we left Lisbon mid afternoon for a sail down the river under the massive suspention bridge and past the statue of Christ the Redeemer, which is a more recent take on the famous one in Brazil which itself was a Portuguese colony and the Torre de Belem. No we didn't get pics of either...always forget to do the culture stuff. The plinths the bridge supports stand are were the nearest to sighting Orcas we got.
Luckily for the occupants of the sailing yacht the Orca seems more intent on ambushing the dolphins than nibblng away at their rudder. We think they've been able to sneak past unnoticed. Once out in the open sea we started seeing shearwaters quiet soon, including several Balearic Shearwaters.
There were good numbers of Cory's Shearwaters
but very few Scopoli's Shearwaters out this way.
Of most interest was the leading bird in this one - far more experienced seabird afficionadoes than us suggested it might be/likely is a 'Menorcan' Shearwater, a hybrid between Balearic and Yelkouan Shearwaters. To be honest we'd never heard of such a creature.
Whatever it is it was very different to the Balearics we were seeing and has some similarities to Yelkouan Shearwaters. Several Gannets were about, one flew past the ship carrying a fish, don't think we've ever seen that before they usually swallow them immediately after capture. It's not taking it back to a nest for youngsters cos it is still a young bird too young to breed and they don't nest this far south.
Looking closely at the pic the fish could be a Flying Fish or more ominously it could have been trapped in a bit of net and the bird has picked it up and now is tangled and can't swallow it - doomed to carry its dinner until it starves - what a sad thought/scenario. On a happier note the sail out of Lisbon did give us several pods of Common Dolphins and a pod of Bottlenose Dolphins which were fairly close to the ship.
Where to next? Overnight we sailed along the drop off - grrrr they've done it to us again - on the way to Leixeos, the port for Porto our next, and final stop.
In the meantime let us know who's the least camera shy in your outback.
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