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17 years birdwatching around Madeira


17 years birdwatching around Madeira

Yes, that’s it, Wind Birds is already 17 years old! Time (as birds) flies and we have passed through so many events, world crisis, floods, fires, pandemic… but we are still here! And to tell you the truth it has been 17 official years as a company but we could say it’s 18 as it all started 1 year before with all the business planning.

On the 2nd of February 2021, to celebrate the 17th anniversary of Wind Birds, Lda and to colour a bit of this weird and paused year, Catarina & Hugo, the owners of the company, decided to go for a Big Day where they aimed to watch the greatest number of species in the Madeira island. Considering that Madeira does not have so many bird species, only 43 breed in Madeira from 51 on the whole archipelago, and from those 6 bird species are still on their winter migration, away from the island and other species that are very difficult to be seen, such as Woodcock, Quail, Owls and some seabirds, they set a target number on 35!

They birdwatched between sunrise (8:01 am) and sunset (18:40) as due to Madeira’s mandatory curfew they could only be outside between 5:00 am and 19:00. During these 10 hours of birding they observed a total of 41 species, from which 26 were breeding birds in the island and 15 species were visitors (vagrant birds).

At Madeira Birds you can check their trip report. It was a great way to celebrate Wind Birds’ 17th anniversary and a great Big Day of birdwatching!

We sure hope things will get closer to normal soon so that we can get back to work and lead our customers to watch some of these special birds and get back to our precious Zino’s Petrel Pelagic Expeditions!