Vilamoura, Portugal - September 2024

In September, Kev H, Gary and I travelled to Vilamoura on the south coast of Portugal for 10 days. We joined ringers from the West Midlands, Leicestershire and Greater Manchester to monitor birds on passage migration before they cross the Mediterranean over to Africa. Our ringing site acted as a refuelling station, with new birds continuing to filter through each day to feed up.

After a very wet start setting up the nets, the weather for the rest of the trip was a sunny 25 degrees, and at times quite breezy. Our catches were quite variable, with 27 on the slowest day and 144 on the best. Our trip coincided with extensive storms across Northern Europe which will no doubt have affected birds' ability and willingness to travel.

There were large numbers of Reed Warblers, Blackcaps and Garden Warblers moving through. The Garden Warblers were notable for their weight! Low-to-mid 20g with fat scores of 5-7 were not uncommon. To put that into context, the majority of Garden Warblers I’d ringed just before I went away were 16-18g.

On a couple of nights we tried for roosts of Red-rumped Swallow and Spotless Starling (which were largely unsuccessful) and Red-Necked Nightjar with a mega catch of 6 in one evening.

There were some highlights sprinkled throughout the week such as Iberian Grey Shrike, Iberian Green Woodpecker, Woodchat Shrike, Little Bittern and Common Sandpiper.

We caught a number of Reed Warblers that had been ringed in France, Belgium, Poland, plus a Whitethroat and Bluethroat both from France.

I confess to spending some of the time trying to catch the Portuguese subspecies of Goldfinch to look at the extent of their post-juvenile moult in the field of teasels by the ringing base. I didn’t manage to catch any juveniles that appeared to be undergoing a complete moult, but we did get a handful of Greenfinch that had moulted a few inner primaries.

Huge thank you to Colin McShane from Belvide Ringing Group for organising the trip, as well as our fellow ringers Kate, Craig and Mike. Special thanks to expats Carl and Julie for clearing rides and bringing coffee, and also to Christine for scribing. 

Holly