Towheeblog

In the salt ponds at Alcohete, east of Lisbon.

Unmistakable profile of a Flamingo.

Pair of Great White Egrets striding along in unison.

The Common Buzzard is soaring near a Lesser Black-backed Gull, on the right.

Speaking of gulls, here a full loaf of them. Black-backed in foreground with Black-headed beyond, in the slat ponds at Alcochete.

Here’s a Ruddy Turnstone along the Tejos riverfront in Belem, a suburb in western Lisbon. The tragically decrepit and rundown tropical botanical garden in Belem was full of Peafowl, Muscvovy Ducks and European Blackbirds. Austerity and government priorities in Portugal have left some public facilities like this garden to disintegrate. Portugal is currently exercising an E.U. dictated austerity program that has increased unemployment and helped empty office buildings and housing.