Today was a day of blue skies and warm sunshine on Corvo, with a light southeasterly blowing through the day – not good for the yanks!
I started the day at the Lighthouse Valley with Daniel Mauras; our target here was a lingering Northern Parula that was still present yesterday. Not this morning though; we couldn’t find it anywhere!
We moved round to Ribeira do Cantinho although we could not find anything here apart from a Woodcock in a couple of hours searching. I will hopefully return here tomorrow or Thursday, dependent on weather tomorrow. Cancelas was difficult to penetrate and provided us with just another Woodcock. In fact, the rest of the morning and early afternoon was hard work in the warmth, with nothing seen of note.
We decided to head back to Ribeira da Ponte, which seemed to be faring better. Along the with the Blue-winged still being present, both Philadelphia and Red-eyed Vireos as well as Grey-cheeked Thrush had all been seen at various points during the day. No such luck on my part though; after a couple of hours it seemed as if I was going to go the day without seeing anything – I even spent an hour looking for the Blue-winged without success! Just as I was berating my failures to Vincent by the bridge at da Ponte, I caught sight of a bird drop down in to the famous ‘Indigo Tree’. At last, a decent bird – my first Azorean Red-eyed Vireo! The bird performed fairly well for a couple of minutes before flying back in to dense cover. Hopefully it realised it had saved me from a desperate day, as we were later unsuccessful looking for the ‘new’ Baltimore Oriole back towards the village. A Barn Swallow (probably European) was seen flying over the hillside there but we could find little else.
Forecast is for more of the same weather-wise... not promising but who knows!
Birds:
Red-eyed Vireo: 1 at Ribeira da Ponte
Barn Swallow: 1 of indeterminate race over the village
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