Madeira is pretty small island with 750 square kilometers area. It lays in Atlantic ocean and goes up to 1862 meters with the highes peak Pico Ruivo. The island has extremely rich nature habitats, you can walk through hot rocky area at Ponta de Sao Laurenco and then after 20 minutes of driving to the mountain area you'll find mild climate of laurel forest. It is a paradise for all landscape photographers.
Focusing on birds, you can find a few interesting resident species, including three endemic - Trocaz Pigeon, Madeira Firecrest and Zino's Petrel. First two are pretty easy to find in suitable areas, the third bird is very hard and you have to hire a guide to help you, if you want to observe this species. The island has great conditions for seawatching, but for me it was impossible to do any seawatch because of the lack of great scope.
During the week I saw 39 bird species, including 11 lifers. Some abundant birds were hard to be found because of bad period of the year (birds were mainly silent), but we had the advantage of autumn migration, which brought us for example Whichat, which is uncommon in this part of the world.
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| A view from a path to Pico Ruivo |
