Anyway.... back to the job at hand... After our brilliant day on the boat we enjoyed a couple of day's being shown around Funchal by my parents, no real time for any birding & thwarted by limited bus timetable (& mainly where the buses travel to), and the extortianate taxi prices getting to any key sites looked to be just too awkward (we needed to get high into the mountains for any chance of Trocaz Pigeon & Rock Sparrow)...
I did have a pipit sp. fly over calling one day which was most probably Bertholot's Pipit, but as I was in no way certain I couldn't possibly count it.... However...
I was sat relaxing outside my condo, enjoying a cold beer & a smoke when I saw what looked to be an egret sp. fly off the sea & land in a tree just beyond the complex boundary wall.... As my bins were rarely more than 2ft. from me I grabbed tham & looked into the tree where I saw the bird land, & to my utter surprise there was an adult. Squacco Heron!!! A lifer for me & also quite a rare bird for Madeira (since arriving home I have contacted the Madeira rare bird recorder & submitted my report & the piccie below....)
Not brilliant, but a fairly okay pic of the Squacco Heron I found just off my complex!! The bird remained around 1 hour before vanishing!! Nice bird though & always a great feeling 'finding' your own lifer!!!....
The only other bird of note was one day myself & my Dad after some effort trying to get up to the 'higher ground', managed only to get to the Botanical Gardens, however this was a worth while trip as after a half hour wait or so I got pretty good views of 3 Madeira Firecrest!! My 1st real endemic & obviously another lifer!!!
So, how do I sum up Madeira? Well, it aint really a young persons place nor somewhere to go birding as there are very few bird sp. on the island & even then you need to travel, which is at best awkward on Madeira, in order to stand a chance to get them...
However, it's a very clean, tidy island, weather is sound and the people exceptionally friendly... the food is excellent and the boat trips a must!!!
I didn't get a Trocaz Pigeon, Bertholot's Pipit, Madeira Storm-petrel nor Rock Sparrow, but hey ~ as with Florida last year, I was totally green, my first visit & not on a birding holiday....
Well, I guess it's back to the county birding scene for me now.... July is normally a pretty dead month for birding, but as I have done such a spectacular job of dipping stuff recently (Gropper now dipped seven times!!!... Plus Nightjar now on the dip list too!!...), not to mention that the 2 Common Cranes seem to have returned to the county, I have some stuff to chase after & attempt to grip back!!!
Half way trough 2009 & my county yearlist is at 158 species, which, at the start of the year I'd have been ecstatic with, but I could so easily have been around 165+ mark now.... so I'm actually kindda disappointed....
That said... this is now the 2nd best county yearlist I've achieved, plus 3 more year ticks will make it my personal best.... so, that cant be too bad can it?
I have also decided that this shall be my final year of 'listing'!!! The reason? Well, I simply dont have either the spare time to chase across the county nor the finances to fund it!! As I went into 2009 knowing this I wanted to set myself a 'gettable' goal... Obviously doing a notable UK yearlist was well out of my reach, so that's why I decided to do a decent county list (if only my luck was as keen as I am!!).... I shall therefore, for the forseeable future at least, be a non-listing county birder... & as with all ex listers/twitchers (the 2 go hand in hand really, listing & twitching that is, I've already travelled around 5000 miles around Shropshire chasing 'ticks' this year!!! Whats that if not twithching?), I shall no doubt be one of those bitter & twisted birders that go around moaning & slagging off twitchers!!! ;~)
(Me!!! Moan??!!)...
To all my fellow county listers, birding buddies & regular blog readers..... thanks & cheers!!! :-)
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