This morning we said our final au revoirs to Glen and Pete, our boating friends from St. Jean de Losne.  It has been a great trip this time and we have spent many happy days together, walking, birdwatching, just generally “hanging around” together,  meeting up and parting quite frequently in a haphazard manner! However, they are moving back east along the Algarve to meet up with some other friends before heading back mid March to their boat in Bourgogne whilst we are heading up the west coast of the Algarve to visit another few of our favourite beaches. Then we plan to see another couple of places we’ve not been before, after which we will head North East for a quick dash through Spain and France and back through the tunnel on 10th March.

We’re on a little campsite at the moment. very pleasant and basic run by a French couple. We’ve spent the majority of our time “wild camping” near beaches and by lagoons of which we have several favourite spots. We have heard though that the Portuguese police are clamping down on this and randomly turning up at 2.30 am where lots of vans gather and moving them on. One Dutch couple told us they were fined 200€ at one spot, moved on at 3 am but still went back the next day anyway! Must have more money than sense. We’ve been lucky so far, touch wood!

Dash going nowhere fast!


The birdwatching has been so good this time and we have continued to extend our list. We are not twitchers by any means but we like to look at and for birds whilst doing other things. Any we do see are a bonus like this booted eagle who soared over our heads this  morning.


Booted eagle…..what a beauty


Every Thursday at A Rocha, between Alvor and Lagos a couple of kilometres from our lagoon spot there is an open morning where there are various conservation talks and bird ringing takes place. We went along last week and saw some of their work and listened to a talk about moths. We saw some birds being checked, they had already been ringed previously so were checked for weight and muscle condition. It was an interesting and different way to spend a morning and after tea and cake we pottered on back to our motorhomes. The next day the weather changed and became wet and stormy. On Saturday we had such a downpour, so we headed for the campsite for a hook up and wifi. It meant saying goodbye to our favourite wild camping spot where each morning we looked out of the window to see flamingoes, spoonbills and black winged stilts. Two avocets put in an appearance on some days too. 


Not a bad bedroom view!
Female blackcap just about
to be released
Greenfinch being weighed!
Not very dignified!!