Madeira- Friday 19th

 Friday.

Up around 7.00 breakfast on patio. Packed up and drove down to the Levada in Machico. The Plan was to go the bottom and walk back, in bits. It was so busy we decided to go back up the levada and find a parking place and look at what was there. We found a spot by the football pitches, and went across to the levada. There were lots of Muscovy ducks of many colours and sizes. The levada  supported plenty of plants, many looking quite exotic. As we peered over the edge, a couple of Grey Wagtails were strutting around in the water and on the stones. Sean and I walked slowly downstream, stopping to admire a spider, which had an amazing web structure and egg cases dotted about. There were also other spiders using the steps down to catch prey. Meanwhile, David walked upstream. It wasn’t long before David called us to say he had Waxbills. We walked fairly swiftly back, but the birds had disappeared in the reeds. A short wait and the waxbills flew out and over the road into some fields. 

We had lunch in a restaurant near the Levada, it was very pleasant watching people go by. We then got ready for the boat, found a parking place, again quite close, enjoyed another icecream before the boat. Boat out. The boat ride out was choppier and we went to the north of the island, passing through a gap between the Ileu da Cevada and the Ilheu do Farolat the end of the archipelago, the sea was choppier, which gave us more hope but the birds were very sparse. We did see Cory’s Shearwaters and a Gull followed us out and kept us company, but not much else. We motored back into the sunset, had some food and went back to the house.