On The Rock Again...

So I'm back on 'the rock' - Corvo; landed this afternoon (24th October). It was straight off, after dumping the bags off at Manuel's place, and up to Fojo. The guys yesterday had located a Summer Tanager at Fojo following the rough weather that moved through on Saturday, though they'd not looked for it today. So after getting the directions from Monticelli at Flores airport, and then from Peter and Eric on landing on Corvo, I had a pretty good idea of where it was seen yesterday. Arthur and I made our way up there, joining the couple of Norwegians (we'd all arrived today and are now the only 4 birders here), but there was no sign after an hour's searching. Lots of those pesky Blackcaps, Chaffinches and Canaries of course.

So off to Cantinho for a bit of a mooch, showing the other guys the score around this place. But with the tanager playing with my mind, it was back the short walk to Fojo. Lots of activity and then bang, there it was in the bottle brush trees where it'd been yesterday. Real orange undertail coverts on this individual... a real nice start to my stay on Corvo and to complete the tanager set in WP terms.

Walking back briskly, and catching a ride with one of the locals, we all wanted to get down to the lower fields as the boys that left had seen a Yellow-billed Cuckoo there earlier in the day. We had a look around in the last hour of dark, but everything was heading to bed anyway. See what happens in the morning.

So, at this point, you were probably expecting some gripping shots of White-tailed Tropicbird from Fajazinha, Flores? Wrong... to cut a long story short, I was there from from 1.30pm on 23rd and then til midday today and sweet f*ck all. I made friends with several locals, all telling me they'd seen it but not for a couple of days. And I can even recommend that you get a good night's sleep in the car at the bottom of the valley (slept non-stop from 9.30pm until 7.20am when my alarm woke me).

Fajazinha, Flores - nice place but no tropicbird

I suppose that I managed an upgrade on Wood Duck though... so not all bad by any stretch of the imagination.

Cleansing one's WP list... drake Wood Duck Lagoa Lomba, Flores

And for those of you Midlands gull roosters, here is what Azorean Yellow-legged Gulls look like in October... this one taken today in the higher fields on Corvo.