8 September 2024: Day 2, birding close to Chipiona, WINGS Spain in Autumn. Pelagic eBird Hotspot = Salida Pelágica desde Chipiona Click on right here to see (usually) the place I’m right this moment.
This morning we’re on the coast in pretty climate. However out to sea, past the continental shelf, the wind is blowing laborious and the ocean is simply too tough for our deliberate pelagic birding tour within the Gulf of Cadiz in a ship that comfortably holds 12 folks.
No drawback. There are many birds to see from land, a few of which we might have seen on the boat and I’m keen to go up a chance to study seasickness.
One in all birds we can’t see from land is the critically endangered Balearic shearwater (Puffinus mauretanicus).
The Balearic Shearwater is among the rarest birds in Europe, being one among simply two species there to be listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Crimson Listing. Its profitable conservation would require appreciable effort, throughout nation borders. As its identify implies, as a breeder this shearwater is confined to the Spanish-owned Balearic Islands within the western Mediterranean, the place its inhabitants is normally estimated at simply 1,800–2,500 breeding pairs (of which about 50% nest on Mallorca).
… Counts at sea (particularly by way of the Strait of Gibraltar) counsel it’s presumably extra quite a few, which has led to a revised estimate of 24,000–26,500 people.
This chook could be actually uncommon. Or there could be 10 occasions as many as we thought.
Balearic shearwaters are repeatedly seen in autumn within the Gulf of Cadiz as they go away their breeding grounds on the Balearic Islands within the Mediterranean …
… and transfer to the Atlantic and the North Sea for the winter.
To me shearwaters all look the identical so I might by no means have recognized I used to be taking a look at a Balearic shearwater with no information. They’re a bit like complicated fall warblers. 
