Corvo 2023 Day Two

We started the blustery (a nice westerly storm) and wet day off at Fojo and then did the Lighthouse Valley before heading back to the village to drop Harry off to catch his flight and also to arrange where we are going to stay for the rest of the week. Rather stupidly we booked this trip without booking accommodation assuming that the island wouldn't be too busy in late October. However the guesthouse could only put us up for two nights due to a bird tour group arriving and all accommodation on the island was booked up due to visiting construction workers. Luckily the last of the Polish birders vacated a small house they were staying in and we managed to persuade the owner to allow us to stay there so we narrowly avoided being homeless on Corvo. That is the problem with the flexible strategy that I'm trying to adopt now- which is to book last minute on a good weather forecast. Obviously these logistics need a bit of tweaking because apart from the accommodation we've managed to pull everything else off without any problems (last minute flights etc) including getting a car on Corvo which is almost impossible. While we are here we will get the contact details of every accommodation provider on the island and there's always bringing camping gear with us if they are all booked- so should refine this strategy for the future. 

Anyway after sorting out not being homeless we then worked the Middle and Lower Fields and then back to the guesthouse.

Highlights of the day included three Swainson's Thrushes on the lower road around Fojo, a Red-breasted Grosbeak at Lighthouse Valley (possibly a new in bird), a fly over Ring-billed Gull there too and back in the village we had a Snipe sp in the fields, a Red-eyed Vireo , White-rumped Sandpiper and Greenshank (a Corvo mega). 

We were hoping for more in the way of new birds considering the weather but hopefully we can spend the next few days looking for any birds that have got blown in today. There's only David and I left on the island now so it will be hard work finding what is here. 

Swainson's Thrush in the rain 

Another Swainson's Thrush with a distinctive buff coloured scapular so should be easy to track this bird

First-winter Greenshank 

Juvenile/first-winter White-rumped Sandpiper 

First-winter Red-eyed Vireo