Fuerteventura Endemics

Here's a few notes on some of the endemic forms (subspecies and species) that I encountered on Fuerteventura. Would welcome any comments on taxonomic updates etc.  

 'Canary Island Houbara Bustard' C.u. fuertaventurae. Present on the eastern Canary Islands and differs from nominate (which occurs across North Africa) in more heavily vermiculated upperparts

 Canary Island Stonechat - Endemic species confined to Fuerteventura 

  'Canary Island Egyptian Vulture' N.p.majorensis According to Clarke 2006 this subspecies differs from nominate in the rufous on the head, tail, coverts and breast which appears to be shown well in this individual

 'Canary Island Common Buzzard' B.b. insularum. To my eye a very distinctive Buzzard with light brown colouration and less contrast than nominate. Forsman (2016) doesn't make much fuss of either Egyptian Vulture or Common Buzzard on the Canary Islands. 

 'Canary Islands Great Grey Shrike', L.e. koenigi. According to Shirihai and Svensson (2018) this insular race is rather small and dark with a contrasting white throat. This form differs from Iberian Grey Shrike in less distinct (often lacking) supercilium and grey (not pink) underparts. Similar to Desert Grey Shrike (L.e. algeriensis/elegans) but smaller with shorter wings and tail. 

'North African Raven' C.c.tingitanus. According to Shirihai and Svensson (2018) this is the smallest race of Raven within the WP, with the tail shorter than the primaries, with a deep well arched culmen. The strong nasal bristles help to separate from Brown-necked Raven in North Africa. 

Other Canary Island endemic forms that I saw but didn't photograph include Canary Island Kestrel F.t. canariensis , Eastern Canaries African Blue Tit C.u. degener and Canary Island Linnet C.c. herterti and other Macaronesian endemic forms seen include Plain Swift, Berthelot's Pipit, and Atlantic Yellow-legged Gull. I didn't see Canary Island Robin, Goldcrest, Chaffinch or Chiffchaff on Fuerteventura so presumably they don't occur there? 

RERFENCES:
Tony Clarke, Birds of the Atlantic Islands, 2006, HELM
Hadoram Shirihai & Lars Svensson, Handbook of Western Palearctic Birds, Vol 2, 2018, HELM
Dick Forsman, Flight Identification of Raptors of Europe, North Africa and Middle East, 2016. BLOOMSBURY

Fuerteventura Sounds

A few typical sounds from Fuerteventura 

 Comparison of songs of Sardinian (above) and Spectacled Warbler (below) 

Fuerteventura Day 7- ALLEN'S GALLINULE!!

Today was a planned family day on the beach at Costa Calma but two days ago an Allen's Gallinule was found at the local park there. It's quite a large park and the precise location of the bird was uncertain so I thought the chances of seeing it were small. Lars Mortensen had checked the area this morning and yesterday where a Red-breasted Flycatcher and Yellow-browed Warbler had been found this winter but there was no sign of the gallinule. Despite these poor signs and after our day at the beach I managed to convince Holly to do a 'walk round the park' and much to my genuine disbelief we found the bird within 10 minutes walking through the wooded area not too far from the footpath. Also had the RB Flicker and the Yellow-browed plus a few other migrants (Ebird list HERE )

In short- RESULT!

 Juvenile/first-winter Allen's Gallinule . Pic on Birdguides HERE

 Red-breasted Flycatcher 

Costa Calma Beach 

Fuerteventura Days 4-6

On Saturday morning Olof picked me up at 630am and we first went on a Barn Owl dip (the endemic island form) and then we went to Barranco de la Torre to look for migrants. Ebird list HERE.  Barranco de la Torre looks a great place to get a vagrant- best we could muster up was a Yellow-browed Warbler, 12 Chiffchaff, 1 Reed Warbler, 1 Willow Warbler, 2 Song Thrush and 1 Robin- so clearly a lot of migrant potential even in winter. The barranco (a gorge in Fuerteventura) also held good numbers of Spectacled and Sardinian Warblers and last year, Harry Hussey found Tristram's Warbler here too.

Yesterday I spent an hour or so in the morning photographing the Yellow-browed Warbler at the shopping centre in town and then we drove through the mountains in the afternoon to Ajuy and then photographed some tame Barbary Ground Squirrels in the afternoon back in town.

Today I checked out a couple of sites including a Sewage Farm at La Oliva (Ebird list HERE ) and the pools around Rosa del Taro (Ebird list HERE).  Best bird again was another Yellow-browed Warbler at Rosa del Taro reedbed. Seems like there is a Yellow-browed in every suitable piece of habitat out here.

 Yellow-browed Warbler (above and below) at Rosa Del Taro reedbed

 Yellow-browed Warbler in the shopping centre by the beach at Caleta de Fuste

 Cattle Egrets at the Sewage Farm at La Oliva- also about 20 Moorhens here but despite my best efforts- no rare African Crakes. Another Allen's Gallinule has been discovered on the island, in the south at Costa Calma so we are heading there tomorrow 

 Spectacled Warblers (above and below)- a common resident 

 Ruddy Shelduck- a surprising characteristic bird of Fuerteventura- present in gorges and widely across the landscape prominent with its clown like calls 

 Barbary Ground Squirrels 

 Rosa Fel Taro- an interesting complex of pools and a reed bed in this area 

View looking north 

Fuerteventura Day 3- Houbara

Spent this morning at Tindaya Plains (Ebird list HERE )and the afternoon with the family on the Beach which was actually quite productive including Yellow-browed Warbler, Chiffchaff, a flock of Spoonbills and some other shorebirds.  (Ebird list HERE).

 'Fuerteventura' Houbara Bustards - typically this island form is much more heavily marked on the upperparts than the nominate form in North Africa

 Barbary Partridge 

 Berthelot's Pipit 

Lesser Short-toed Lark

 Ruddy Shelduck 

Black-bellied Sandgrouse 

 Tindaya Plains - Houbara country. Also at 6 Black-bellied Sandgrouse and full of Lesser Short-toed Lark and Berthelot's Pipit 

View over region 

Fuerteventura- Days 1 and 2 - DWARF BITTERN!

Spent yesterday travelling and setting up base for the week but was out pre-dawn this morning. Met up with Olof Jonnson and we went straight to Barranco del Rio Cabras to look for the long staying Dwarf Bittern. I've missed this species in Africa several times so it's been top of the wish list for a while. All went to plan. Full Ebird list HERE

Dwarf Bittern above 

Fuerteventura Chat, male (above), female (below) 

'Canary Island' Buzzard (above and below) 

'Canary Island' Egyptian Vulture , adult (above) and juvenile (below) 

'Canary Island' Great Grey Shrike (koenigi) 

 Male Spectacled Warbler

Male Spectacled Warbler above in song 

Olof at Barranco de Rio Cabras

In the afternoon we travelled north with the family and visited the sand dune complex south of Corralejo, photo above with Lanzarote in the back ground 

A PRODUCTIVE NEW YEAR TO YOU!

I actually fell asleep through the new year yesterday so welcomed this new year in slumber- hopefully that is not an omen of energy levels this year. So new year, new pile of mud to throw and see how much of it sticks. So here's the plan for myself and Little Oak Group in 2019:

THE LOCAL PATCH 

LITTLE OAK ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

What with this being the main cash cow, I'm cautiously predicting a slow year, what with the uncertainty around Brexit- the ripple effects of this even has impacts on small local businesses. So the plan through 2019 is simply to keep going. With costs up and our profit margin down to 16% (should be around 25%) we entered a slow down last year already. With larger council contracts last year our turnover was the highest ever which offsets the reduction in profit margin in terms of actual profits but all that means is that we are working more and more for not as much. Obviously an unsustainable situation, so will be good to get through Brexit and see what we are playing with here. There's certainly a squeeze and important not to abandon principles when the chips are down (although not so easy to convince partners and colleagues of that!). It could just mean less work to do, tightening the belt and more time birding. It may also mean trying to monetise our projects more so that they are not so subsidy dependent- so a win win whatever happens. 

BEDDINGTON FARMLANDS NATURE RESERVE and THE HACKBRIDGE PROJECT

2018 was pretty much a disaster for the farmlands. Delays in the restoration continue with next to nothing of the 2018 Viridor plan of works completed, I got booted off the Conservation Science Group for rocking the boat too much and public access through the year was completely restricted by pipe works that ripped through restoration habitat too. 

As always the resilience of nature is the greatest defence agaisnt eco-vandals like Viridor and despite Viridor's neglect and oppressive behaviour it was still pretty good for birding with the highlights including an autumn Richard's Pipit, a spring Hoopoe and flocks of Spoonbills! The conservation target species however remain in critical condition, the breeding bird population was held up again by an apparent explosion in species like Wren and Reed Warbler and the total annual bird species list of 156 was pretty reasonable- although we generally consider 160 to be healthy. It was a good year for insects during the hot summer particularly for moths. 

The plan for 2018 is basically all defensive legal and campaigning strategy involving applying maximum pressure on Viridor and the council to progress with the restoration. The only hope to reverse the declining situation is the development of the habitats and the establishment of strong local natural history community. Also plan to re-shuffle the Bird and Wildlife Report this year with spreading out the effort more to be able to focus on the Viridor-Council campaign.  

Good news on the Hackbridge Project front- after 7 years the nieghbourhood plan was finally adopted. The plan for 2019 is now to start implementing it.

THE FOREIGN PATCHES 

AZORES NATURE 

A really good year in 2018 with two papers published in Dutch Birding (Here), the publication of the 2015 Rare Bird Report, another successful Pelagic trip and a great Corvo season Here, Also things progressed in the Portuguese Rarities Committee with the establishment of a new Azores sub-committee and progress also made on the Azores List. Also a good year from our friends and partners in other projects in the region.

Plans in 2019 include the publication of at least the 2016 Rare Bird Report (and hopefully also the 2017), the completion of the Azores Bird list (and taxonomy updated to the latest IOC version), the Natural History Trip will run again this year, the 2019 Pelagic is almost full and hopefully it will be another great autumn season. 

THE BALKAN ECOLOGY PROJECT

A good couple of visits to the project this year (run by brother's family) and also an excellent recee in November with Dimiter from Neophron Tours in scouting out an area to set up an autumn observation project involving buying some land to create some habitat and build an observatory/lodge. Planning on spending 6 weeks there in autumn to get things going if we manage to secure a land purchase this winter. 

GHANA

Had a great trip in January with Isaac and Co scouting out a project area in the Ashanti Region. We are returning in early Feb to do some further exploration and set up some preliminary recording systems. 

OUR MINISTRY OF PROPAGANDA 

THEE BRYANS

We had our best year ever with this and managed to put together some campaign songs with the kids to promote the situation at Beddington Farmlands. Who knows in 2019- make this up as we go along. 

TRIPS

This year got trips planned to Fuerteventura (tomorrow), Ghana in February, Belarus in May, Uganda in July, Bulgaria in September and Azores in October. 

GET INVOLVED ! 

Please support us by following the projects on social media etc, joining one of the tours or please contact me if you would like to volunteer or can offer freelance services and can help us in some way.  We particularly need help with more social media, marketing, data inputting and probably most of all - someone to complete funding applications.  Please contact me littleoakgroup@btinternet.com if interested.