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April 2008 bird watching visit to Portugal

Landed at Faro airport, collected rental car and transferred to Moncarapacho.
The small village of Moncarapacho is only 30 minutes from Faro and so easy to find.
It is a tranquil rural location very much different to the tourist Algarve.
Casa Rosa, our base accommodation, was going through an improvement project on our arrival all of which was to our benefit and definitely to the benefit of future guests.
This is a wonderful location for those interested in visiting the real Portugal and is a central location for the many bird watching areas.

Our choice was to self cater; our hosts guided us to a great little supermarket in Moncarapacho centre. This little place had everything we needed including quality fresh fruit and vegetables.

From our base at Casa Rosa in Moncarapacho we visited the following sites.

Castro Marim
Site just before border with Spain. Big site of marsh and saltpans.

Quinta do Marim
Just to the East of Olhao
Great reserve of salt pans, shallow lagoons, beach, scrub and small umbrella pine tree area. (My favourite site)

ludo Farm
Situated between Faro airport and Quito do largo.
This is a big area best covered by bike.

Quinta do largo
West of Faro airport, best place to park is on hotel Quinta do lago car park near the wooden bridge complex and golf coarse.

Faro airport area
Drive to the west of airport following road to praia de faro.Park just before bridge by end of runway. A visit to this site can be combined with Ludo farm.
Note that Ludo is a saltpan farm.

All of these areas are easy to find and very accessible.

We also ventured further a field by going up to Castro Verde in the Aljento area. Fantastic area, villages and scenery but not brilliant for birds.

This part of Portugal is a great place to visit to bird watch. Many of the species seen are similar to those to be found in Coto Donana in Spain. Portugal can never live up to the reputation of Coto Donana but is a very good alternative area to visit.
If you plan to combine a trip to Portugal and Spain I would highly recommend a visit to the Odiel Marshes in Spain just on the outskirts of Huelve. Odiel is a fantastic site for a wide range of waders.

Finally you will find your hosts Kjersti and Jan-Ketil extremely friendly and helpful.There English and other languages are perfect.

Roger Morgan
RSPB, Dee Estuary Naturalist and Worcester Wildlife trust member.
Specialist visitor to Coto Donana, Spain.

Some of the Species Seen