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July 27th-30th: 2 Fea's Type Petrels & Skua Fest

7/31/2017

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Long Tailed Skuas, July 30th (Antonio Sandoval Rey)
Great days at Estaca de Bares with some excellent sightings.

July 27th: 1st Grey Phalarope of the year, and more Great Shearwaters (15 in 2 hs). Also a few Bar Tailed Godwits.
Birder at the Observatory: Ricardo Hevia.

July 28th: 1st Fea's Type Petrel at 21:00 hs. A bird feeding wih Great Shearwaters and Cory's. Some other birds watched in 2,45 hs in the evening: 6 Pomarine Skuas, 2 Long Tailed Skuas, 5 Bonxies.
Birder at the Observatory: Antonio Sandoval Rey.

July 29Th: Another Fea's Type Petrel late in the evening. Also first day with nice groups of Commic Terns: a total of 206 in 6,15 hs. Other birds: 71 Common Scoters, 7 Pomarine Skuas, 16 Long Tailed Skuas, 33 Bonxies, 2 Arctic Skuas, 2 Sooty Shearwaters, 27 Great Shearwaters, 1 Grey Phalarope, 7 Black Terns, 7 Little Terns, etc.
Birders at the Observatory: Antonio Sandoval Rey, Alfonso Valderas.

July 30th: SKUA FESTIVAL! Amazing passage of LongTailed Skuas in july - 149 birds, all of them but 6 from 16:15 to 21:00. One of the groups was of 22 individuals! Other totals in 8,30 hs: 70 Pomarines (very good number for July too), 20 Arctic Skuas, 34 Bonxies, 4 Sabine´s Gulls. 155 Manx Shearwaters, 36 European Strom Petrels, 1 Grey Phalarope, 54 Great Shearwaters, 29 Black Tailed Godwits, 276 Commic Terns and more.
Birders at the Observatory: Antonio Sandoval Rey, Alfonso Valderas, Ricard Hevia, Antonio Martínez Pernas, Antonio Gutiérrez, Pablo Gutiérrez, Carla Soaje, Dani Monteagudo.

Video of the Long Tailed Skua passage on 30th:

Long Tailed Skuas - Estaca de Bares july 30th, 2017 from Antonio Sandoval Rey on Vimeo.

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July 21th-25th: South Polar Skua, 1st LTSkuas...

7/27/2017

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Birders at the Observatory: Antonio Sandoval Rey, Ricardo Hevia Barcón, Pablo Lado, Javier Cantil, Fran Tornero.
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Great Shearwater (Antonio Sandoval)
Friday 21th, W winds. 38 Great Shearwaters in 3,30 hs provided again a nice evening count. Also 276 Cory’s and the first tiny groups of terns: 18 commics and 10 Sandwhich.  
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Great Shearwater (Antonio Sandoval)
Saturday 22th – NW winds. A South Polar Skua landed at sea close o the headland at 9,15 am. It stayed there for a few minutes and continued westwards. There were quite a lot of Common Dolphins in the area, and over them huge concentrations of Gannets, Cory’s and a few Great Shearwaters. The total count for Great Shearwaters on passage in 7,45 hs was 204 birds. Other seabirds watched moving westwards were 24 Manx Shearwaters, 22 Balearic Shearwaters, 905 Cory’s, 8 Pomarine Skuas, 1 Arctic Skua, 8 Great Skuas, 26 commic Terns, 11 Sandwhich Terns, 2 Med gulls and 6 Whimbrels.
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The Greenpeace Ship "Esperanza" sailed not far from the headland (Antonio Sandoval)
Sunday 23 – WSW Winds. The first Long tailed Skua of the season was watched at 8,05 am. The second, at 18,20. Both adult birds. Good numbers once more of Great Shearwaters: 33 in 4,30 hs. Also 18 Manx Shearwaters, 16 Balearic Shearwaters, 354 Cory’s, 1 Pomarine Skua, 3 Arctic Skuas, 6 Bonxies…

Monday 24th – NW Winds. First day of good passage of Common Scoters: 220 in 7,15 hs. Very nice numbers of European Strom Petrels too: 23; all of them in the evening. And a Scopoli’s Sherawater at 17,05 pm. Also 40 Great Shearwaters , 17 Great Skuas, 6 Manx Shearwaters, 7 Balearic Shearwaters, 573 Cory’s, 13 commic Terns, 33 Sandwhich Terns, 11 Oystercatchers, 1 Long tailed skua, 4 Little Terns (a group of 13 was seen the day before at Ortigueira, not far from the headland), lots of Common Dolphins again and a pod of Bottlenose Dolphins.

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From left to right: Antonio Sandoval, Pablo Lado and Ricardo Hevia (Antonio Sandoval)
 Tuesday 25th – Calm Winds. Nice numbers of Common Scoters again, with 81 in 3 hs. But very tiny numbers for all of the other species. Another Long Tailed skua at 08,25 am.

Here are some video images taken from the observatory during these days, including some nice (and long!) flights of Great Shearwaters:

Estaca de Bares: algunas aves marinas observadas entre los días 21-25 de julio de 2017 from Antonio Sandoval Rey on Vimeo.

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July 20th: nice numbers of Great Shearwater

7/21/2017

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Not bad for July: 23 Great Shearwater this afternoon in 3 hs. Also 323 Cory's, 2 Sooties, 9 Manxies and 2 Balearics. Other birds watched were 2 Pomarine Skuas, 3 Arctic Skuas and 3 Bonxies, 266 Gannets, 2 Sandwhich Terns, 41 Whimbrels and 1 Common Greenshank. Them all moving westwards. 

The wind kept blowing from the NW.

​Birder at the observatory: Ricardo Hevia Barcón
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The light was perfect for seawatching today (Image: Ricardo Hevia Barcon)
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July 14th-16th: Balearic Shearwaters Eastwards

7/20/2017

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The strong NE winds during these days were not the best for seawatching at Estaca de Bares in this time of the year. Anyway, they made it possible to obtain nice numbers of Balearic Shearwaters moving eastwards. On 15th and 16th more than 148 birds were counted in 9 hs, c. 35% of them juveniles.

On 14th 2 Great Shearwaters moved westwards.

​On 15th the first juvenile of Sandwhich Tern was also watched flying westwards, while the same and the following day several groups of up to 17 individuals of the same species kept moving eastwards.

​On 16th a Sooty Shearwater moulting primaries was detected during the afternoon. Several groups of Mediterranean Gulls and Common Scoters were also on the move (westwards) these three days.

​Birder at the observatory: Antonio Sandoval Rey
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Sun up at the observatory, counting Balearic Shearwaters
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July 7th-9th: Calm and foggy days

7/11/2017

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Part of the huge Cory's Shearwaters raft on July 7th (Antonio Sandoval)
It was foggy and even rainy during these days at the headland, with almost not wind. On July 7th there was a huge raft of almost 200 Cory's Shearwaters not far from land. Seabird passage included 1 Pomarine Skua, a few Bonxies and 1 Manx Shearwater. 

The following day there was a nice movement of tiny groups of mostly adult Mediterranean Gulls, with just two young birds, the first of the season here:
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Mediterranean Gulls on 8th (Antonio Sandoval)
Gannet passage was close to 150 birds/h. Just 1 Sandwhich and 3 "Commic" Terns were counted in 4,15 hs, as well as 7 Bonxies (several of them chasing Yellow legged Gulls flocks feeding on the crab Polybius henslowii), 1 Pomarine and the first Whimbrels.

On 9th 8 Harbour Porpoises (one of them a very young one) were watched in the morning, when a few groups of Scoters moved westwards, as well as more and more Lesser Black-backed Gulls, and the first Grey Plovers and Bar-tailed Godwits. The afternoon was very quiet at sea. Just check this Black redstart attitude:
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Black redstart enjoyng the absence of winds (Antonio Sandoval)
Birders at the Observatory: Antonio Sandoval, David Calleja
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July 1st,2nd: Wilson's S-Petrel, Roseate Tern, etc

7/2/2017

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Great Skua (Photo: Antonio Sandoval Rey)
 Very nice start of the 2017 counts at Estaca de Bares, with huge numbers of several species for this time of the year.

Following the appearance of 2 Roseate Terns in the area the previous day (by Antonio Martínez Pernas and Ricardo Hevia), and another from the headland on june 30th (Ricardo Hevia), another one was watched on july 1st evening.

That same day up to 8 Great Skuas and 22 Great Shearwaters were counted, as well as at least 2 Wilson's Storm Petrels together with 30-40 European Storm Petrels in a "feeding frenzy" group which included Gannets, Cory's Shearwaters, Manx Shearwaters, Sooty Shearwaters, Great Shearwaters, Yellow-Legged Gulls and Lesser Black-backed Gulls. All of them joining a pod of Common Dolphins. Not far from them there was also a pod of Harbour Porpoises. Two groups of Common Scoters were also seen. And in the last hour an ad. Pomarine Skua was watched.

On july 2nd the first juvenile Balearic Shearwater moved eastwards in the morning, with calm weather. There still were a few Storm Petrels at sea, one of them a Wilson's. Three European Storm Petrels were ringed at night (Pablo Pita, Antonio Gutiérrez). All through the day, groups of Mediterranean Gulls kept moving westwards.

During the afternoon, with NE winds, a group of 8 Common Shelducks was watched flying eastwards.

OBSERVERS at the headland: Antonio Sandoval Rey (both days), Ricardo Hevia (july 1st).
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Common Scoters (Photo: Antonio Sandoval Rey)
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Sooty Shearwater (Photo: Antonio Sandoval Rey)
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Mediterranean Gulls (Photo: Antonio Sandoval Rey)
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    Who we are

    The main birders at Estaca de Bares cape, in alphabetical order:

    - Ricardo Hevia Barcón
    - Pablo Gutiérrez Varga
    - Daniel López Velasco
    - David Martínez Lago
    - Antonio Martínez Pernas
    - Pablo Pita Criado
    - Antonio Sandoval Rey
    - Alfonso Valderas Farfante

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