Natural Selection

Having visited Porto Santo Golf yesterday the birding priority was to visit Tanque Pond. This is the only other substantial freshwater on the island. As you can see it’s a lot less substantial at the moment than it can be.

It has been one of the foremost sites for migratory birds on the Madeiran archipelago over the years. At some point an interpretative sign was put up to that effect, but it must have been a while ago and it has lost the battle with the elements.

Anyway there were still some migratory birds there today. In particular there were a couple of fidgety Green Sandpipers that did stay still long enough for a picture.

A Lesser Black-backed Gull joined the Yellow-legged Gulls. I didn’t get a picture of that, but here is one of the YLGs which is presumably a local bird. I’m not sure there are any features that point towards Madeiran origin, unlike birds on the Azores that are quite distinctive.

I did drop in at Porto Santo Golf on way back to the hotel. Everything was in threes there. As well as yesterday’s Bar-tailed Godwit there were trios of Dunlin and Whimbrel. They weren’t that close so I won’t inflict the pictures on anyone.

After I had got the birding out of my system Jane and I hired bikes and rode into the centre. You can never get birding truly out of your system though, and a Sandwich Tern fishing off the pier was an addition to my trip and Porto Santo lists.