Madeira 2009.

Hello all... not long arrived back from Madeira, so thought I'd do a quick intro-write-up-type-thingy, as Mand is currently catching up on a weeks worth of 'Come Dine With Me'!!...

Basically I knew that Madeira wouldn't give me many bird species (I'd had a chat with a few of my worldly knowledgeable birding buds!), however the island does hold a few endemics & hard to find birds elsewhere in Europe... Wether I'd see them or not was another thing entirely...

Arrival at our 5 star complex (£5 a pint!! in other words) did reward me with an instant lifer - Canary!! There was a flock of 60+ that would visit the garden area outside our condo...

Couple of shot's of the group of 'daily' Canary's that were ever present outside out condo....

Again, not a birding holiday, but I was hoping to find a good bird or two.... Madeira however held a surprise for me!!... More about that later....

Plain Swift was my 2nd lifer on day 1, not very numerous, biggest flock I saw was only 9 or 10 strong, but they're widespread across most of Funchal.

My main hope's for a tick were due on Wednesday where we'd got ourselves booked onto a boat trip out to sea... This trip would prove waaaay better than we would ever have dreamed of!!! Again, more about that to come later...

For now, I'll leave you with a jammy tick that I cant have!!.... Late evening I was seawatching when I saw a what I first thought to be a shearwater, quite dark on the back, but the flight seemed different to me, quite regular, fast wing beats, the bird turned & I could see dark undrwing, white belly & a fairly obvious all-pale head - a Fea's/Zino's Petrel!!!! Sadly, no possible way to def. ID which one it was, although a local guy I spoke to did tell me that Zino's was more likely... But as no positive ID can be made, no tick can be had!!! Oh well....

More to come later in part 2!!...