Saturday, 9 December 2017

Azores Nature Review 2017


Another great year, in fact one of the best ever with a record breaking vagrant autumn  SEE HERE with an astonishing 48 Nearctic species and 155 individuals recorded. The birding on Corvo just seems to get better and better. Plans are still in the pipeline to expand the birding effort to the neighbouring island of Flores so that more people can get involved in the best autumn birding in the Western Palearctic.

Yet again more success on the annual Pelagic trips, this year led by Pierre-Andre Crochet with Swinhoe's Petrel recorded again in addition the usual excellent suite of the regular seabird specialities and marine life. See itinerary of the pelagic HERE.

......and another successful natural history expedition led by Josh Jones (see below for details on an amazing discovery).

Thanks to everyone involved in the project, both project partners and participants for another exciting and successful year. For more details on the project SEE HERE

Hooded Warbler (Vincent Legrand) 

NATURAL HISTORY TRIP 2017

The highlight of the trip was the discovery of a Grey-tailed Tattler at Cabo da Praia. See finder Josh Jone's blog post HERE. The aim of these trips is to introduce guests to the natural history of the Azores while also collecting records and looking for interesting discoveries- so a great success. For an itinerary of the trip SEE HERE. If you would like to join next year's trip please email littleoakgroup@btinternet.com for further details. 

Long-tailed Blue. In addition to looking for the endemic birds, marine life, botany and volcanic origin of the Azores, the natural history trip also looks at the island's entomology for a complete INTRODUCTION TO THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE AZORES
Grey-tailed Tattler, Cabo da Praia (Josh Jones) Finders account HERE


BIRDER'S PELAGIC 2017


For the background to these trips see the Birding Frontiers article HERE.

Another successful year with Swinhoe's Petrel recorded again. For the world lister this is the best way to see Monteiro's Petrel and for the WP lister there are several WP specialities . 

Swinhoe's Petrel - now seen on every trip since 2012. 

AUTUMN VAGRANTS 2017

READ ALL ABOUT IT HERE and for a daily log through the autumn HERE

Highlights in the record breaking autumn included Bay-breasted Warbler (David Monticelli) and Blackburnian Warbler (below) 

Redhead (above) and Temminck's Stint (below) were highlights for WP and local birders on the way to Corvo through Terceira 


If you are interested in being a participant in any of the main events 1) The natural history trip 2) The Birder's Pelagic or 3) Autumn Vagrants  please email littleoakgroup@btinternet.com.


For more information: AZORES NATURE 

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