Zino's Petrel: After booking a selection of Wind Bird Pelagics and land based birdwatching tours we stayed in a small village in the southeastern part of the island, a stunning little village nestled within a deep valley, surrounded by lush steep slopes that somewhat resemble the opening helicopter scenes from Jurassic Park!
Wind Birds have on offer a selection of pelagic tours including their 'flagship' three days of ultimate pelagic expedition focused on petrels, storm petrels, shearwaters and any other vagrant bird species that might be around the North Atlantic Ocean.
Desertas Petrel: We booked onto the Wind Birds Half Day Birdwatching Tour where they take you to several locations and its almost guaranteed that you will see the endemic Madeiran birds such as the Madeiran firecrest, the Trocaz pigeon and the Madeiran chaffinch.
Bulwer's Petrel: We also attended the Wind Birds Zino's Petrel Night Expedition Experience in the evening. Seeng a few silhouetted birds against the moonlight sky as the Zino's calls increased and intensified was a sensational birding experience.
The Madeira bird list is pretty small, with a low diversity of birds, however we managed to tick 40 birds through the whole trip, this included the
Madeira storm-petrel, otherwise known as the band-rumped petrel, Zion's, Desertas, Wilson's, Leach's, Euro,
Bulwer's petrel, Madeiran firecrest and Trocaz to name a just a few. T
rocaz Pigeon: From start to finish, including the Wind Bird Pelagics, I can't recommend this trip highly enough, Hugo and Catarina are friendly, relaxed and knowledgeable.
