Just to the west of Silves in the small village of Odelouca (where the river Odelouca merges with the Arade) there is a large gathering of White Storks. This is a sign of the Storks gathering for mass migration southerly to Africa, but how many will actually leave?
You may remember back in February, I spent the morning in Silves photographing the returning White Storks. I watched in amazement at what seemed to be battles for nesting space. The blog post and battle photographs can be seen in This Post.
Today I was in Silves and had a few minutes to spare so went to have a look at the same location (near the prison). In the Tree-Top nest there was a Juvenile sitting on top. It wasn’t the best time to visit as it was almost 4pm and not only was the sun overhead and bright but most of the birds were away feeding. The other nest that was under attack in February had two juveniles sitting on top, however, they flew away soon after I arrived.
Juveniles are easy to spot as their beaks and legs are much greyer in colour, although as you can see they are already turning red. It is believed that the adult’s beaks and legs turn red due to the diet consumed.
Yesterday whilst on a Community Walk as part of the local Village’s Celebration Day I noticed a colony of Bee Eaters all sitting on a dead tree on the river bank at the other side of the village to the Quinta. The weather forecast promised a clear sunrise so I packed the camera, tripod, chair and pop-up hide last night and set my alarm for 6:15am.
The idea was to get to the river bank and erect my pop-up hide before the Bee Eaters awoke. I was awake before the alarm and after a quick Coffee I headed down to the river bank by just after 6:30am. It was already light, but the sun was still below the horizon, the only birds I could hear were the Nightingales. I set up the hide and waited patiently.
First up a small flock of Common Waxbills arrived with 2 of them sitting on the dead tree, unfortunately, I couldn’t quite get a clean background and this would take a fair bit of Photoshop work to remove.
{Click image(s) to view on Flickr - opens in new tab}My February Algarve Resident Newspaper Article, “White Storks of the Algarve” is available online and can be found on the Algarve Resident’s Website.
My next article is due in the Algarve Resident on Thursday 29th March.
Here is the news, literally……
I mentioned there was a reason I was in Silves last weekend photographing the White Storks, it was due to a new venture for me. Every month, I will be submitting a Nature Column to the Algarve Resident.
For those that don´t know, the Algarve Resident is a localised version of the Portugal Resident, a weekly English Newspaper available in Portugal, it is available in most newsagents and supermarkets.
Not in Portugal? Don´t worry, each article will also appear as a blog post here a few weeks after the newspaper publication.
As promised a week ago, here is a collection of shots after spending a large part of the day in Silves photographing White Storks. I won’t go into too much detail about the White Stork as later this week I will hopefully have another post explaining some news about why I was photographing these giants, so for now, enjoy the photos.
First some shots of the birds on the ground and nests. In the 2nd shot, can you see the Sparrows nesting in the bottom of the Stork Nest?:
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