Monday, February 20, 2012

Nasal saddles on ducks with David Rodrigues, Sao Jacinto, February 13 & 14, 2012




David Rodrigues traps ducks near the coast in Sao Jacinto and provides them with marked nasal-saddles. After I read off several of these saddles on Tufted Ducks and Mallards in several ponds near the University of Aveiro, David invited me to assist for two days in the catching and marking.


The ponds were absolutely packed with waterfowl; many of the birds were already wearing saddles, so we spent a few hours of resighting.

Catch of the day... (well, part of it)







We managed to catch and mark > 80 Green-winged Teals (which was a record, I believe) and fewer Mallards and Tufted Ducks. More on: http://www.pt-ducks.com/nasalsaddles.htm

Road kill Barn Owl Tyto alba

Road kill Barn Owl Tyto alba found on February 18, 2012 on the A25, just NE of Aveiro, Portugal.
A common bird of the roads in this country. Carcass collected and donated to the Aveiro University.



Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Birding at Taboeira landfill, Aveiro, Portugal; December 2011 - present




Taboeira landfill panorama, December 2011


Living and birding in Porto and Matosinhos, including Leixoes harbour, Portugal; September - November 2012. Some highlights.

View from our balcony at Rua do Bonjardim, resembling the state this country is in.

Leixoes harbour (middle dock), October 14.





The 40.000 - 50.000 gulls that I'd guess are present in the whole area around the harbour in fall, primarily lesser Black-backed - and Yellow-legged Gulls, were obviously attracted by the fish that was available to them. In Porto, Yellow-legged Gulls also eat garbage and there appeared to be a small resident population of them nesting on the roofs around our apartment.



There were many colour-rings to be read in Porto. Most successful locations were Leixoeis and Matosinhos beach.








Mortality: it appeared that many gulls get trapped in fishing nets. This occurs offshore, when the birds are following fishing boats, as well as in the harbour, where the birds get trapped in fishing nets that are laying around on the docks. Some of these unfortunate birds only lose a leg, but many of them probably drown. The number of birds that die this way remains unknown to me, but I suspect there are many. Additionally a number of birds die on the docks, when these are run over by speeding forklifters that transport the fish from the boats to the market. I observed about 5-7 birds to die this way on each of my visits to the docks.



'7TH', a British bird, got trapped in a fishing net on one of the docks and could later be released. I've started to suspect that especially ringed birds run a high risk of getting stuck in fishing nets...