Week-long Birds & Dragonflies Programme in Southern Portugal

Algarve & Alentejo

Portugal offers a fantastic diversity of habitats and consequently of birds in a relatively small area, so the birding programmes designed by Birds & Nature Tours Portugal enable you to visit several species-rich areas without needing to travel long distances.

From Faro city centre and its International Airport, Ria Formosa Natural Park is just 15 minutes’ drive away, while Castro Marim Natural Reserve can be reached in 40 minutes. These two important protected wetland areas offer extensive bird lists that include Greater Flamingo, White Stork, Eurasian Spoonbill, Glossy Ibis, Purple Heron, Booted Eagle, Pallid Swift, European Serin and an excellent selection of ducks, waders, gulls and terns. Some of the places you will visit are unique in Portugal as sites for rare and highly localised species, like Audouin’s and Slender-billed Gulls and Lesser Short-toed Lark. These are also excellent spots for getting close views of scarce species like Little Bittern and Western Swamphen. Little Owl, Red-necked Nightjar, Eurasian Hoopoe, Common Kingfisher, European Bee-eater, Sardinian and Spectacled Warblers and Iberian Magpie are particularly abundant here.

Another short 45-minute drive takes you to complementary biotopes and consequently new bird species in the Alentejo. Here, you will visit both the rolling plains of Castro Verde (the home of Great and Little Bustards, Red Kite, Montagu’s Harrier, Black-winged Kite, Lesser Kestrel, Eurasian Stone-curlew, Collared Pratincole, Black-bellied Sandgrouse, Great Spotted Cuckoo, European Roller, Calandra Lark, Tawny Pipit, Rufous Bush Robin, etc…) and the bluffs and hills of the Guadiana Valley Natural Park, noted for species like Black Stork, Iberian Imperial, Golden and Bonelli’s Eagles, Cinereous and Griffon Vultures, European Turtle Dove, Eurasian Eagle-Owl, White-rumped Swift, Iberian Green Woodpecker, Eurasian Crag Martin, Red-rumped Swallow, Black-eared Wheatear, Blue Rock Thrush, Spotless Starling, Golden Oriole, Spanish Sparrow, Hawfinch and Rock Bunting.

All this birding activity is combined with visits to sites where we will have great opportunities to watch dragonflies, including some of the rarest Iberian specialities. For a short list of the dragonflies, please see the itinerary below.

*Photos by Pedro Marques