More wind than birds

As I type this the wind is absolutely howling outside - the storm is well and truly here. Looking at the forecast this isn't even a patch on what's coming in on Thursday!

So it's all very exciting being on a tiny island in the mid-Atlantic when the wind is blowing like this. Surely the birds will come? It's been surprisingly quiet today despite intensive coverage. The east side of the island is nice and sheltered, particularly at lower altitude, and the occasional sun today gave us hope that there'd be a few new discoveries. As it turned out Pierre's Northern Parula in Lapa late afternoon rescued a generally disappointing day (though I didn't see it). Three White-rumped Sandpipers and a Wilson's Snipe crash-landed in the old harbour were also new in.

Earlier in the day, the Wilson's Snipe that I'd photographed on Sunday was seen again around Fojo and later Poco de Agua. We chased it round for a bit attempting flight shots before leaving it be. The under and upperwing only confirm it as a classic Wilson's Snipe; sadly my handful of pics are awful (in poor light and at distance) but others managed far better of the underwing especially. Still, you can get an idea of the restricted white on the secondary tips from the image below - as well as the heavily barred outer tail feather if you squint hard enough.

Wilson's Snipe in flight

Hopefully more news to bring you in the next few days. Currently looks touch and go with regards to getting off the island on Friday. High seas today.

Another slog for not a lot

When I woke this morning it was clear the weather had changed overnight - it was altogether windier and there was quite a bit of murk above the Miradouro. Still, I took the early taxi up in to the fog with a bunch of other optimistic souls and opted to head for Lighthouse Valley, as no one else fancied it. It turned out to be a long old morning with heavy rain ensuring I spent an hour sat under a rock while waiting for the weather to pass.

Eventually it cleared and I gave the valley a good thrashing but to no avail. I got back to the middle road about midday and ambled back to within phone signal range - Northern Parula and one or two Red-eyed Vireos had been found. Shortly after, bumped in to Hugues who'd also seen a probable Wilson's Snipe flying around near Fojo.

Went down towards the parula at the picnic site and as I ambled down the road I inadvertently surprised a snipe, which had evidently been feeding along the roadside. It only flew a little way but was immediately striking in appearance, despite the split-second view. Calmly rounding the corner, I found the snipe settled on the edge of a track. Slowly edging in to position, some great views (down to 10 metres or so) were had and it also afforded great photo opportunities. I'll let the photos below do the talking in terms of appearance but I can confirm that the axillaries were heavily barred and the secondaries showed only inconspicuous white tips when it flew off, flushed by the taxi coming down the road! For me, it's a really good Wilson's Snipe - incidentally one thing I noticed was that the bird routinely bobbed as it probed around in the track, rather like a Jack Snipe but less pronounced. Apparently V Legrand noticed this on the Ouessant bird of 2005 - is this behaviour a feature of delicata?

Wilson's Snipe, Fojo, 12 October 2014

The rest of the afternoon was spent working Lapa, the reservoir and the west side of the island. Best bird was a Pectoral Sandpiper flying around high above Lapa, but we couldn't relocate it up at the res - as I anticipated we would.

Lots more new birds today - Northern Parula, Common Yellowthroat, a number of Red-eyed Vireos etc etc.

Final full days on Corvo (weather permitting)

The sun is slowly setting to the west this evening on what is my last full day on the island. Today has been a little quiet, although yesterday ended up producing yet more great birds.

I started yesterday morning in Cantinho, spending four hours up there until I started to lose concentration and talk to the trees. Heading out on to Lighthouse Road, heard that David had relocated the Wood Thrush in Cancelas so spent some time scrambling around the top of the valley there, but saw nothing. Meeting Eric at da Ponte, we decided to head back towards the village when PAC alerted us to a couple of snipe in Lapa - turned out to be nothing interesting so the three of us ambled back along the road towards the miradour. Pierre then picked up a distant thrush in a cow field which transpired to be an American Robin; he called it just as I was about to speculate on the possibility of Eyebrowed Thrush...! The twitch soon formed and the bird showed well - below are my digibinned efforts:

Leaving the thrush, PAC and I once again continued back towards the village only to be called back by a mystery passerine flushed by Eric and David from the roadside. The bird proved to be a Lincoln's Sparrow - seen well only by me (the flusher from the field) for two hours until it finally returned to its favoured tamarisk and most enjoyed decent views. My final act of the day was checking out the American Herring Gull, which was still blogging about at the west end of the runway and looking decidedly healthier than the evening previous.

This morning, there were big blue skies and the wind had completely dropped, so Eric and I headed up the caldeira. I flushed a Wilson's Snipe twice from the north side and, having never seen the taxon before, was genuinely surprised at how obvious the bird was. The white trailing edge to the wing was almost non-existent, the underwing was so heavily barred it looked dark, and the flanks were also extensively and densely barred. I also saw the bird land on the deck, and had decent views of it running around on the floor before it found a little hole to creep in to - remarkably cold-looking compared to the 40+ Common Snipe seen in the caldeira during the morning. The upperwing was very dark with very pale, crisp fringing to the upperparts. Eric and I later flushed a possible second bird which, although not as obvious, had plenty of features suggestive of delicata.

Other birds in the caldeira included a couple of useful Azores ticks - Pink-footed Goose and Osprey - as well as a drake Black Duck, 25+ White-rumped Sandpipers, the juvenile American Golden Plover, 5 Wheatears and a couple of female-type Teal although no sign of the recent Great Blue Heron.

The rest of the day proved pretty lazy in the pleasant weather conditions, with very few bits seen. Tried for the Parula/Yellowthroat combo and also the Lincoln's with no success, although the latter was still around. I checked the dump for the smiths but no sign, and didn't see much else around the village aside a Wheatear.

Willet on Sao Miguel today. Just hoping that we can fly tomorrow.