The Blog
Here you can find all the posts we’ve added so far, for you to read and share if you dare. Search for a certain species, topic or location or just enjoy scrolling down and pick up a post of your interest. Also, feel free to contact us if you want to comment or contribute!
Moult in early spring Saunders’s Terns in Oman
Little and Saunders’s Terns are very similar even in breeding plumage but at least there are some keys to follow. In wintertime, however, the identification relies mainly on the moult of flight feathers and still little has been done in that respect. The presence of a large flock of mainly Saunders’s Terns in Khawr Dhurf, Oman, in February 2019, provided prolonged views and photographs of this species, which were then used to perform this moult analysis.
South Polar Skuas at a Glance
We now know South Polar Skuas migrate south following a more easterly flyway but records from this side of the Atlantic are still scattered. However, according to recent experiences, the species could well be regular off Galicia, where some birds have been positively identified in recent years. I thought it could be useful to share here a captioned collection of ‘big-skuas’ photos taken during my surveys across this area, starting with the most obvious Great and ending with the real SPS, trying to depict pretty much everything in between.
Crakes on the scope I: Baillon’s Crake
It’s not that often that you get several Baillon’s Crakes showing off that well during migration. It happened in early spring 2019 and it provided a very rare opportunity to study their plumages. Why do some birds have such a dull appearance in spring if there’s no sexual dimorphism? Can they breed in wintertime? And, if so, where are our Baillon’s Crake hatched? Too many questions and only one post to shed some light on the subject.