I am affiliated with the Seixal magazine, it is very interesting because monthly it has some sections of areas of ecological interest destined for us Biologists, in this area the practice of bird watching is very common, more between the months of September when we enter migration ! I found out that there was a reserve where flamengos live 8 kilometers from my home so I decided to take this adventure!🤔😮

I had no loss, getting to the site was very easy, it was enough to see images of flamingos in many places, the corroios area is known for being the perfect place for many populations of sporadic flamingos, who come here to feed! I decided to do two samplings, at the tide mill and on the other side of the river! I wanted to compare what habitat or ecological condition was preferred by the species!😮😮

This was my observation area I divided it into two points, my first sampling area was passing the river in an abandoned factory where I had already seen that flamingos had been sighted, and my second observation point is in the area of the tide mill, here it is more common to observe the birds in flocks! As you can see with my equipment I could cover the river, everything was less than 1km away! bring my two telephoto lenses and my powerful 60mm telescope!😏😏

My wife is my assistant, this is a job that I just can't do, so it's normal to see her in many of my posts! The first thing that caught your attention at this point is the ecology of the river, it is a body of water with changes in the tides, when there are low tides it is more possible to get birds than when the tide is high! It is a perfect place for the habitat of many crustaceans and fish, so I would expect many herons, and wagtails! do not observe many flocks, some birds in small groups others solitary! the area was barren and abandoned there were no people living nearby!🤗🤩

The first species I saw were the ones that I already knew in advance would be here! some gulls and some Ichthyaetus melanocephalus are the famous black-headed gulls! These species live in groups, they are not very territorial so it is normal to see them share territory!😶

At about 250 meters from point 1 to the bank of the river, observe a small flock of Egretta garzetta. They are the white herons, they are very common in Portugal and we can almost find them in any river, estuary or lake! Due to their diet they take advantage of catching small fish! was to move to another area!🦃🐦🦉🦚

I had high expectations for having moved from place to place in search of the famous flamengo, this area had very different characteristics, it was in front of a beach, so there was a lot of anthropogenic intervention, more contamination, when we go to carry out bird watching in contaminated areas it is common see opportunistic species, and a great example of this is seagulls! this area is much richer in terms of biodiversity!🙂🤔

While in my first stop I only saw two species, already here at 150 meters I observed some species of the Anatidae family (ducks), large agglomerations of Laridae (seagulls) at much more distance Ardeidae (Herons), I was surprised to see here Ciconia ciconia ( Storks) because this species is indicative of contaminated bodies of water! *"Jaime Garzia Martin, (2021) tells us:" It is being affected not only by climate change, but also by the constant presence of food*. The increase in food is due to the proliferation of garbage dumps and landfills and rice fields. The author in this scientific publication supports what I already knew from my old experience, such as storks stop migrating due to the proliferation of food that pollution leaves this over time affects the migratory cycle of the species! (https://www.vidasostenible.org/por-que-las-ciguenas-han-dejado-de-migrar/)😶

As here I observed a greater biodiversity, I decided to make a small observation post (to settle down for a few hours) to expand my number of records! I placed my portable camera to record everything I observed, it was a great experience to see many flocks of birds of different species sharing the same area, with the exception of the herons that were isolated, by nature they are very territorial species, among themselves they do not share their feeding territory! I already have many records of white herons attacking each other so as not to share ground!😁😁

I saw a large population of the species (Limosa limosa) belonging to the Scolopacidae family, it is a wetland bird whose beak has evolved to capture small crustaceans in areas with dense and humid sand, it is permanent resident in Portugal and it can be verified what the scientific reference and to register it outside the migratory season! remember that we are in July so in cold countries it is summer, at this time the migratory ones reproduce and come here is in winter!😊😊

Bird watching requires a lot of patience, sometimes I spend more than 8 hours observing a particular species waiting for a particular species, we have to do this in migratory times when we are looking for a particular bird! Although it seems easy in this small project I invested more than 10 hours! to create a post about how some birds behave!🙂🙂

Again I get myself with storks but here I am going to add the sighting of a (Himanopus himanopus), (Platalea leucorodia) beautiful birds with a very easy to recognize appearance for their red legs and their paddle-shaped beak, they are very common and specialists feeding on wetland areas too!😎😎

And not all my records are of waterfowl, also notice some (Pandiun haliaetus) are raptors that can feed on fish, or small mammals like lizards! These are less shy and can be seen in areas of the city, and it made sense because it was very close to an area that was a beach!🙂🙂

The observation point number consisted in the area of the river behind the tide mill, here there were numerous records of observation of flamingos, and well I was very lucky because I saw a population of more than 200 individuals, I have to emphasize that this area is very crowded by people, so it was normal to see the species at a great distance! They are shy birds that do not usually approach people!😶😶

Seeing flamingos is something that every observer of nature has to experience once in their life, they are very beautiful species with their pink coloration due to their diet! but they have a great secret they are too sociable, several experiments have been carried out and it has been discovered that many individuals within large flocks prefer to be with "friends"! They are not randomly have a moment to socialize🤩🤩

The species that is observed in this river is (Phoenicopterus roseus) it is a resident bird in the river but that moves in different areas in search of food, in other parts of Portugal it is not a resident instead it is migratory! Let's say it will depend on the place where you photograph it! nests of it have already been seen in the algarve!🤩🤩

Flocks of flamingos with more than a million individuals have been seen, although they are highly sociable, everything is also determined by the individual behavior of each specimen! Imagine? there are some who are very territorial and who do not share the territory with other flamingos, some do not prefer to get together with other individuals because "they do not get along" is a very complex social structure!😶😶

I read many articles before coming to this area to study flamingos but something caught my attention, there was no mention of storks in this area, and as I had already mentioned this species is an indicator of contamination! I quickly went to interview the Biologist who works on the site and confirmed my suspicions with her words "currently the river is so polluted that the blind women who weren't here before are now common" I have proof of it in this video!😍😍

I saw that both sides were separated and isolated, the storks and the flamingos, this caused me a lot of concern because the former are opportunists, and the flamingos are more sensitive, I am afraid that due to our cause and all the pollution that reaches the river daily, it will displace these communities of flamengos to other areas as they are displaced by species such as storks!😥😮

You can visit my sighting and scientific record on the EBIRD page, here I recommend you write down every time you get something interesting with birds, why? easy .... To provide support and content to future scientists who wish to expand this topic much further and learn about bird behavior!