Trip Report: Madeira, October 6-15, 1995

Tuula and Juha Piipponen; juha@sihti.kcl.fi

Weather was mostly clear near the coast. 9.10. Was rainy on the north side. A couple of mornings (at least 13.10) had rainy weather in Funchal, too. Wind was not wery hard an mostly from the south (or from the sea maybe).

We had two nights in Canical, which is very good point for birding, especially the harbour and the easternmost tip of the island (Ponta de Sao Lourenco). During this time we also visited Ribeiro frio and the Balcoes (great view, I was a bit afraid) to see the endemic pigeons.

The next two nights we spent in Sao Vicente making trips to Paul da serra and Porto do Moniz. The rest of the time we spent in Funchal checking the harbour and the beach every day exept 12th on which we visited Porto Santo.

The Ship to Porto Santo was not a fast hydrofoil at this time of the year. It was an old British Steam Ship 'Lady of Mann'. The route took two and a half hours one way (1.5 with hydrofoil) and it was quite easy to watch birds from the deck although telescope (30x Kowa TSN-1) was practically of no use even though the weather was wery calm.

Only about 40 (but interesting) species were seen, so it is easy to list observations of different species:

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This page served by Urs Geiser; geiser@xnet.com; November 14, 1995 (amended January 8, 1997)