On the last month of 2011 Madeira received several vagrant birds from which a big group of Glossy Ibis, a rare vagrant to this archipelago and the numbers seen are not common at all... Below are the most interesting bird records in Madeira:

27th December 2011 at Caniçal
Hen Harrier Circus cyaneus - presumably the same seen on the 10th November 2011 which was the 1st confirmed record for Madeira

22nd December 2011 at Funchal marina
Yellow-crowned Night Heron Nyctanassa violacea - observed at 7:30 am by Bruce Hansen from Norway.

November was good for migrating birds to stop by Madeira Island. Some European species and an American one made our birdwatching month with the 1st confirmed record of Hen Harrier for the archipelago:

The Madeira bird news of October include some rare vagrants and some more common while the Yellow-crowned Night Heron, on the 2nd of October 2011, was still around Funchal marina but now with its best plumage!

September is normally a good month for vagrant birds and this year, 2011, was not an exception. From American to European vagrants Madeira was visited mainly by sandpipers, though the highlights were the 1st record for Citrine wagtail and the 2nd for American Golden Plover.

Although the wind this time did not blow much on our Zino's Petrel Pelagic Expedition, we did get several vagrant seabirds species on the chum and passing by. Blainville's beaked whales and Bottlenose dolphins were also some of the species seen and a fantastic sunset surprised us on the 1st day...

It seems seabirds migration has started earlier this year as during our Zino's Petrel Pelagic Expedition on the 8th, 9th and 10th of August several migrating birds, which we would expect to the end of this month were already observed, such as Great Shearwaters.