Thursday, April 2, 2015

Signing off from Portugal, off to Israel!

Last day in the field today in northern Alentejo. Worked in Torre de Bolsa, and the situation for Great Bustards was grim. In fact it is possible that we witnessed the extinction of this once-prominent sub-populations. We found no Great Bustards today in the over-intensified SPA. Very sad.
However, good numbers of Little Bustards were present in several sites - they seem to be more resilient to over-intensification, and manage to utilize smaller patches of suitable habitat.


Other birds included the usual suspects - Montagu's Harriers, Black-winged Kites etc.
After thoroughly cleaning my dirty car, I returned to Lisbon. I am at the airport now, waiting for my flight back to the UK. But I am hardly touching down in the UK - I continue almost straight away to Israel. My wife and kids already traveled to Israel a couple of days ago. I am joining them for a quicky in Israel. Expect to be occupied with family and friends most of the time, but hope to get some birding done. There's a very patient Hypocolius still waiting for me at Ashkelon. Will it still be there on Saturday? Stay tuned!

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