A complete checklist of all birds that have been recorded in the Algarve up to April 2022.
It is an update to Birds of the Algarve and Southern Alentejo: An Annotated Checklist. This new version does not cover the Alentejo region, so it focuses totally on the Algarve. Additionally, it has been thoroughly updated with all relevant information from the last six years. It includes some details about the first colony of Greater Flamingo. Several species that showed up in the Algarve for the first time, such as Sora, Yellow-crowned Night Heron, Green Heron, Greater Sand Plover, Lesser Grey Shrike, and Blyth's Reed Warbler, among others, have been added. Additionally, the number of known records of all rarities has also been updated.
Gonçalo Elias was born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1968. He started watching birds seriously in December 1987. He has wide-ranging field experience and a good knowledge of Portugal’s territory, having visited all the counties on the mainland and almost all the islands. He has also explored over 30 different countries on four continents, in order to watch birds and has taken part in nine ornithological atlas projects in Portugal, Spain and Tanzania. He has authored or co-authored twelve books about the Portuguese birds and the best places to watch them, including: Guia das Aves de Lisboa, As Aves do Estuário do Tejo, Atlas das Aves Invernantes do Baixo Alentejo, A Birdwatcher’s Guide to Portugal, As Aves do Estuário do Sado, Aves de Portugal: Ornitologia do Território Continental, Aves de Portugal: Lista Anotada, Aves do Alentejo and Birds of the Algarve and Southern Alentejo, along with several papers and notes in specialized journals. He is a founding member of SPEA – Sociedade Portuguesa para o Estudo das Aves, and was a member of the board between 1999 and 2002. He was the coordinator of the PRC – Portuguese Rarities Committee between 2002 and 2006. Since 2007 he has been actively promoting birdwatching using the new information and communication technologies; he is a founding member and administrator of Forum Aves (the largest online community of birdwatchers in Portugal), which was launched in July 2007, and also the founder of avesdeportugal.info, a website launched in January 2008. Within the scope of this website, he has been organizing, since 2011, free online courses, aiming at promoting skills in the identification of the wild birds occurring in Portugal.
He has a degree in Electrotechnical and Computer Engineering (IST, 1991) and has an MBA (UNL, 1996); additionally, he is a professional trainer, certified by the IEFP.