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Adventurous Kate has written another blog article, this time about the day I took her birding here. It’s great she liked it so much! Above is the owl she saw, and here’s her article.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that there’d been a press article about the Quinta, and hot on the heels of that one comes a blog entry from Adventurous Kate, a “solo-female-travel-blogger” Frank met at the World Travel Market last November. Here’s her article. Have a nice read!

Great Bustard Display-0110, originally uploaded by Paradise in Portugal.

One of the great draws of spending time at the Quinta is the fact that Frank, (the owner), regularly guides birdwatching trips, and the area he thinks is the best are the Plains of the Alentejo just north east of us. He’s been doing it now for nearly twenty years and so knows the area like the back of his hand.

The Plains are famous for many species, but the flagship of the area is the Great Bustard, the heaviest flying bird in the world, and there is no better time to see this individual than right now, the end of March and the beginning of April, when they have their famous “Foam Bath” mating display.

They are a globally threatened species – a bird can’t walk around with 18 kilos of meat without having problems – and are therefore very wary and seldom let one approach close, so to get the shot above is the answer to many years of dreams!

If you want to see more pictures, visit Frank’s Birding site, www.birding-in-portugal.com

It’s always gratifying to have an article published about the Quinta and we’ve just been written about in “Portugal Life and Travel” magazine which is a great bonus for us, especially at this time of year when the birdlife around us is so spectacular.

Just for the record, our Bullfinches are still in the garden; very late for them still to be here, but a daily joy to see them every morning!