Another Azores update

Last full day tomorrow before coming back on Saturday and seething slightly that I have managed to miss three patch ticks while here!!! If anyone is interested in what I am doing here, I am blogging on our Biological Sciences blog.

Still not having too much time for birding and the species diversity is also really low. The last few days have been mostly dealing with plants and lab work. Glances out to sea have revealed plenty of distant Corys and lots of Common Terns as well as Azorean Gulls.

Island Canary

Lots of endemic subspecies too:

Fringilla coelebs moreletti - bad photo - you get the idea!

Motacilla cinerea patriciae

Columba palumbus azorica

A trip to Pico da Vara also yielded 6-7 Azores Bullfinch but I didn't manage a photo although a colleague did (Grrrr). We were monitoring a reforestation project for the Bullfinch.

Laurisilva forest regeneration project that we were monitoring

Azores Bullfinch (Photo - John Moody)

Plenty of good insects too including the island endemic Grayling.

Sao Miguel Grayling (Hipparchia miguelensis)

Unknown Moth - Something like a Gothic?

Unknown moth

Only pumillio - didn't get time to look for hastata

As I said, most of the last few days have been concentrating on plants - Here are some endemics and invasives.

Laurus azorica

Juniperus brevifolius

Vaccinium cylindraceum

Ilex perado

Erica azorica

Hedychium gardneranium - Invasive Ginger Lily