Southern Portugal in Spring

Black-bellied Sandgrouse © Machiel Valkenburg

A springtime tour to lovely Portugal features spectacular birding and beautiful landscapes with touches of history and culture.

Lying on the western edge of Europe’s Iberian Peninsula, Portugal is a beautiful and popular travel destination rich in art, architecture, food, wine, and landscapes. Bordered on two sides by water, Portugal sits at a geographic crossroads that both people and birds have found irresistible since time immemorial.

Our tour to the country’s southern half visits the most important birding areas and landscapes of southern Portugal while providing a bit of exposure to some of the country’s vivid history, shaped over thousands of years by the rising and falling tides of some of the world’s greatest civilizations. Marvelous birding is assured, with good chances for a number of Europe’s most special and highly sought birds.

We’ll spend two days at the famous Tagus Estuary outside Lisbon, one of Portugal’s premier locations for waterfowl and shorebirds; we’ll travel to the Alentejo region of the Portuguese interior where we’ll seek a range of bustards, hawks, larks, and other open country birds amid rolling plains adorned with spring wildflowers and interspersed with Holm and Cork oaks and Olive trees; we’ll explore the granite hills and forests of the Guadiana Valley Natural Park where Spanish and Bonelli’s eagles occur; and we’ll journey to the coastal Algarve, a scenic region of bluffs, hills, salt pans, and beaches boasting protected wetland areas, nature parks, and reserves, and situated on a major migratory flyway.

Our trip is timed for the height of spring migration and the onset of the breeding season. We anticipate encounters with a wonderful variety of birds, including Red-legged Partridge, Greater Flamingo, Black-bellied Sandgrouse, Great and Little bustards, Pallid and White-rumped swifts, many waterfowl and shorebirds, Slender-billed and Audouin’s gulls, White Stork, Eurasian Spoonbill, Cinereous Vulture, Short-toed Snake-Eagle, Booted Eagle, European Roller, Iberian Green Woodpecker, Iberian Gray Shrike, Iberian Magpie, Dartford Warbler, Eurasian Hoopoe, Black-eared Wheatear, and a wonderful array of larks, wagtails, chats, warblers, tits, and buntings.

Intermingled with our natural history pursuits will be a sampling of Portuguese history, a history populated with Phoenicians, Romans, Visigoths, Moors, Christian “Reconquistas,” and the larger-than-life figures that appeared during the golden Age of Discovery. At times we’ll be joined by licensed guides who will lead us on walking tours of the historic districts of Lisbon, Évora, and Mértola, where we’ll wander winding streets through historic plazas and squares en route to an array of castles, cathedrals, museums, Roman ruins, and modern promenades and cafes.

Complementing our days in the field will be opportunities to sample Portugal’s culinary delights, including its famous wines.

Very good accommodations and food; birding activities intermingled with walking tours and visits to historic sites; moderate physical demands; mild weather conditions expected, but rain possible, along with early season heat waves.

Slender-billed Gull © Brian Gibbons