Lagoa dos Salgados – last day

Looking at today’s photos. I wonder if five days at a place automatically means a lot of repetition.  Wandering over the same area (with slight daily variations) means we are seeing some different things, but not necessarily able to photograph them.

Another zitting cisticola, spent several minutes preening in the early morning sunshine before disappearing into the scrub.

It’s easy to watch ospreys here.  Unfortunately the places they find the fish aren’t usually the bits of open water where you can photograph them doing it – until they take off with their catch.  Having found an osprey with rings the other day, we’ve been trying to get better photos so we can read the letters on the rings.  Today’s osprey wasn’t wearing rings – which just proves there is more than one even if you see only one at a time.

Most days we have crossed the stream to have lunch in Armação de Pera, but usually there weren’t quite this many birds on the water.

As we made our way back along the beach, we discovered something had changed.  Until today, we had walked along the dry sandy beach.  Now the sand had been bulldozed out of the way, so the water flowed out to sea (previously it seeped slowly through the sand).  That probably changed the conditions enough to attract the extra birds.  So, so we paddle across or go back the long way?  We decided to take our shoes and socks off, and paddle.

We’d just about got our shoes back on when some fairly raucous calls announced the arrival of two Caspian Terns.  They hunted over the stream for a while, coming in close overhead, and at last giving us plenty of opportunity for photographs.  Having apparently caught a couple of small fish each, they headed back towards the Lagoa dos Salgados.

While the area between the stream and the Lagoa is fairly low and flat, there is a rocky knoll covered with pine trees.  Excellent area for finches and other small birds, but we were reluctant to hang around there too long as there were also several hives and lots of honeybees.

Sheep and goats in various colours and shapes, and sizes of flock, were grazed on the drier areas.

One bird we hadn’t seen was the penduline tit, so we made a special effort today.  Other people had seen them, and told us the birds had been obliging for a while not far from the bird hide.  I had heard them a couple of times in this patch of reeds, and heard them again this afternoon.  I heard them again in this dense patch of reeds, but saw nothing.  Bob had a glimpse, but neither camera go a look in!!

Our last day at the Lagoa finished with a spectacular sunset.

We stayed in a hotel at the Praia da Galé.  Our accommodation was really an upmarket bed-sit – a single room for eating-cooking-sleeping-etc, with a nice bathroom.  The only complaint would be that the fridge kept us awake at times. The hotel had a good, but pricey, restaurant, so we ate there only on this last evening.

Nearby, there was a good supermarket, and a Chinese restaurant that did very reasonably-priced meals.  Most other eating places were either closed in January, or open for limited hours. The resort is tucked away in a corner, and isn’t easy to get in and out of without a car. But from the aerial photos, we could see that access to the lagoa was easy. (Google maps showed the bridge across the outlet, but the Armacao end was an open stream).

If we stay in this area again, we would probably find a hotel in Armação de Pera – it’s no further away from the lake, and has the advantage of being on a main bus route, so other places would be more accessible.   Neither place, however, is within easy walking distance of the railway line.

Resources for the naturalist in the Algarve