Tuesday, 17 December 2019

Foreign Projects and Travel Review 2019

Here's a personal review in pictures of this year's travel with friends and family both to Little Oak Group birding and nature conservation projects HERE and some jollies to do a bit of World and WP ticking.


 JANUARY- FUERTEVENTURA 
A family holiday (4 WP and World ticks)

 Juvenile/first-winter Allen's Gallinule 

 Adult Dwarf Bittern 
 Canary Island Stonechat 
 'Canary Island ' Houbara Bustard (More on Fuerteventura endemics HERE)

FEBRUARY- GHANA

A visit to the Manso Nkwanto region to set up an ebird hotspot and look into establishing a recording project for birds, moths and butterflies and to investigate the possibility of purchasing a small forest reserve. 
 Black Dwarf Hornbill 
 Black Bee-eater
 African Piculet
 Marsh Tchagra
Honey Buzzard 

APRIL/MAY -MAJORCA
Family holiday (3 WP/World ticks) 
 Balearic Warbler
 Mediterranean Flycatcher 
 Moltoni's Warbler

JULY- UGANDA 
World listing trip: We had 476 species of which about 200 were world lifers TRIP REPORT HERE

 Eastern Gorilla 
 Shoebill 
 African Grey Parrot 
 Grauer's Broadbill 
 Green-breasted Pitta
 Chimpanzee
Our Birding Group

THE AZORES NATURAL HISTORY TRIP (JUNE) AND THE BIRDER'S PELAGIC (SEPTEMBER) 2019

I was away for both of these this year so both trips were led by Vincent Legrand. More on this HERE

 Band-rumped Storm Petrel (Presumed Grant's). Both Monteiro's and 'Grant's' Storm-Petrel can be found on the birder's pelagic.
 Wilson's Petrel 
 Common Dolphins
Sowerby's Beaked Whales 
 Spotted Dolphins 
Azores Pelagic Birders 2019 

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER- EURO ROAD TRIP TO THE BALKAN ECOLOGY PROJECT

As alternative modes of transport (to flying) was a theme of 2019 we drove in our camper van to Bulgaria. We put on offer in for a small 2000m2 piece of land where we plan to build a bird/moth recording observatory and develop some habitat , did some recording and visited the main Balkan Ecology Project (of which the Black Sea project is a satellite)  in Shipka HERE

 Male Pied Wheatear
 First-winter Citrine Wagtail
 First-winter Black-headed Bunting 
 Found this Terek Sandpiper - a Bulgarian rarity 
 Marsh Warbler
 Montagu's Harrier 
 Jersey Black Arches 
 Pale Shoulder 

OCTOBER- CORVO 2019

Did a week on Corvo (a birding community founded by Little Oak Group) 

 Hermit Thrush-a WP lifer 
Northern Parula 
We published the 2016 Azores Rare and Scarce Bird Report just in time for the Corvo season 


No comments: