Wildlife spectacles in Portugal
8 spectacles through the year, ordered by when they peak. Open Portugal in the interactive calendar for the map and listening times.
Douro Internacional: griffon and Egyptian vultures on the canyon wallsMostly visual, but the canyon is a natural reverb chamber: griffon wing-rush as they pass the viewpoint at eye level, hissing and grunting at the nests carrying across the gorge, alpine swifts screaming along the walls, blue rock thrush and the river far below.
Castro Verde steppe: great bustard display and the calandra lark dawnA wall of calandra lark song over the cereal steppe at dawn, the dry 'prrrt' snort of little bustards, lesser kestrel colonies chattering on the farm buildings and, with luck, the low booming grunt of a displaying great bustard — mostly this is a sight: white 'foam-bath' males on the ridge lines.
The Sado's resident bottlenose dolphinsA visual spectacle above water — blows and the slap of a breach — but a hydrophone over the side of the ferry or a kayak in the channel catches the clicks and whistles of a small, closely studied pod; the estuary is otherwise ferry engines, the Setúbal docks and the Atlantic swell at the bar.
Zino's petrel calling over Pico do Arieiro at nightOne of Europe's rarest sounds: the long, mournful, tawny-owl-like moan of Zino's petrels circling the summit ridge in the dark, answered from the nesting ledges, with the occasional whimper and the quieter cackle of Manx shearwaters lower down — above a sea of cloud, in total silence otherwise.
Berlengas: Cory's shearwaters calling over the island at nightHundreds of Cory's shearwaters wailing and sobbing over the island in the dark — the Atlantic's strangest chorus — with the yellow-legged gull colony grumbling, shags croaking on the ledges and the swell in the sea caves. On the mainland, the same birds raft silently off Cabo Carvoeiro at dusk.
Brama do veado: red deer rut in the Serra da LousãStags roaring from the oak and chestnut gullies below the schist villages and across the open heath of the ridge — several at once at peak — with wild boar grunting, tawny owls and the streams in the valleys; a soundscape that did not exist here thirty years ago.
Sagres: the south-west corner — raptor passage and seabirds off Cape St VincentMostly a sky spectacle, but the Sagres plateau has its own soundtrack: red-billed chough flocks (one of Portugal's few colonies) calling over the fields, bee-eaters passing in September, and the Atlantic swell under the Cape St Vincent cliffs. The raptors themselves are silent.
Tagus estuary in winter: flamingos, avocets and 100,000 waterbirdsFlamingo flocks honking as they move between the estuary and the Lezíria rice fields, avocet and godwit roosts chattering on the salinas at high tide, teal whistling on the lagoons and the great winter silence of the open marsh broken by hunters' shots outside the reserve.