Birding at Porto

beyondblueskies wrote:

Hi,

Could anyone suggest me places for birding at Porto? Would appreciate it.

Thanks in advance,

Cheers,
Kartik

Hi, one of the best places we have visited for birdwatching in Northern Portugal is the Peneda-Geres National Park and for Birds of Prey, you cannot beat the Douro National Park, if you want any further details about our sightings etc, give us a shout!

Hi Paws2Claws. Thanks a lot for your reply. Great to know about birding places in Porto. I love wildlife photography. Do you guys often go for birding? I'm located in Rua de Dom Pedro V. Let me know more, would like to meet people interested in birding and photography. I'm a wildlife biologist. Let me know more about you. Cheers and thanks again for the info

Good morning!  If you just want to take a walk or a bus ride, Parque Ecologico de Gaia, The mouth of the river, the north being easily accessible, Parque de Cidade.  I hope this helps!

Thank you Marius. I am planning to visit the park. I am on this side of the river and have to find a way to that one

Cheers!

beyondblueskies wrote:

Hi Paws2Claws. Thanks a lot for your reply. Great to know about birding places in Porto. I love wildlife photography. Do you guys often go for birding? I'm located in Rua de Dom Pedro V. Let me know more, would like to meet people interested in birding and photography. I'm a wildlife biologist. Let me know more about you. Cheers and thanks again for the info

Hi, we actually do pet boarding but in between bookings as often as we can, we go off to birdwatch to lots of different places and my husband is a very keen wildlife photographer (you can see some of his pics here...www.garylakinphotography.com). We love all nature and wildlife and are lucky to live in a very quiet spot on the Serra da Lousa in Central Portugal near to the top of a mountain surrounded by wonderful pine forests and nature in all its glory, we get all types of wildlife here and loads of different types of birds and perhaps you can help us with something, in the last few months a bird has started to appear in the trees at the edge of our garden and has recently had babies, we cannot seem to get a close up shot of them as they are skittish but this is the best description...

olive greenish the main colour with red and yellow wingbars with a red finch like beak - about the size of a greenfinch.

We are members of loads of bird societies and the RSPB etc but despite extensive research in our books, we cannot find out who he is! The nearest we can find is a firefinch but it is definitely not that bird!

Any suggestions? Thanks, take care.

Hi Paws for claws....

I'm so sorry about the late reply. I do not check this site that often. You can contact me easily at anaturalist@gmail.com. Firstly, I loved your husband's photography. Would love to meet him some day and go for wildlife photography with you guys. You can check my photographs on www.kartik.co.nr (under photographs section).

About the bird, will be very helpful if you can mail me a pic or two, even the pics of the parents is good enough. I am not at all good with European birds, I have not seen many as this is the 1st time I'm here. I can identify most Indian birds though Many by listening to just their calls. But I think I could identify the family for you and we can investigate further if you can mail me a pic or two of the bird.

Because you mentioned you live near the montains, I was wondering if you have seen any snakes around? (lataste's viper in particular). I work on snakes and on the molecular evolution of their venom. Would love to catch some snakes around as well.

Thanks a lot for the interesting info. Would love to meet you guys someday and go on a wildlife trip or something.

Cheers,
Kartik

I think it could be a Carduelis chloris - Western / European Greenfinch. They are olive green and they do have a yellow green bar on the wing and of course, a typical finch beak. But I am not sure if they have a red bar on the wing. Check and let me know if this is the one (http://www.google.pt/images?hl=pt-PT&q= … CCIQsAQwAA)

Else you can always send me a pic so that we can look further into identifying this one

Cheers,
Kartik

beyondblueskies wrote:

I think it could be a Carduelis chloris - Western / European Greenfinch. They are olive green and they do have a yellow green bar on the wing and of course, a typical finch beak. But I am not sure if they have a red bar on the wing. Check and let me know if this is the one (http://www.google.pt/images?hl=pt-PT&q= … CCIQsAQwAA)

Else you can always send me a pic so that we can look further into identifying this one

Cheers,
Kartik

Hi Kartik,

Thanks for your reply but it definitely isn't a Greenfinch, they are a very common bird especially in the UK and indeed we have 100's on the feeders in our garden everyday! We know almost every bird in Europe/UK etc but we have never seen this one before, it has a very distinctive red finch like beak really deep red colour and we do not know of any other finch with this colouring on its beak. Will have to try and get a pic and send it over. Cheers anyway. Oh, yes, we have lots of snakes etc, we were lucky enough to see a couple of Horseshoe whip snakes mating last year in our garden! Wonderful spectacle. Cheers.

Hi Kartik, we have identified the bird we were talking about! It is a Red-billed Leiothrix which is native to SE Asia and also lives on Hawaii and in the Himalayas. Apparently, they are a common cage bird with some small feral populations in Europe (mainly Portugal and Italy) that originate from escaped birds.

http://www.birdforum.net/opus/Red-billed_Leiothrix