Madeira Day 1

This year's attempt to hasten the arrival of Spring was a holiday in Madeira from 30th March to 6th April. It was fortunate that I planned for the whole week as the original Day 1 turned into Day 0 after heavy winds forced a detour and overnight stay in Fuertaventura (Canary Islands) only arriving at my designated hotel one day late at 4.00 pm. There was just time for a quick walk to find a speckled wood butterfly - which turned to be the first of several hundred during the week.

Fortunately I had nothing planned until a birdwatching tour the next day.

This required getting up at dawn to catch the bus to Funchal.  I don't really do sunrises and scenery but the view over Cabo Girao was quite impressive.

Madeiran Sunrise

After a quick breakfast I had time to take a quick look in the Municipal Park, where I was impressed by the brightly-coloured flowers produced overhead by some of the trees.  There was also a waterfall catching the low sun to show a small rainbow. 

Colourful Tree

Waterfall

The birdwatching took place to the East of Funchal.  On the coast nearby we found several of the noted trocaz pigeons, the nearest of which never fully emerged from the cacti, and a sample of the local kestrels.

Trocaz Pigeon

Kestrel

However the star turn was this Atlantic Canary, singing its heart out:

Atlantic Canary

Just a pity I thought it wasn't going to!.. Apparently this is the forerunner of the domesticated canary.

A brief visit to a levada near Camacha produced a good number of madeiran firecrest sightings as well as some madeiran chaffinches.

Firecrest

On some examples the crest on the Madeiran version is quite spectacular.  Gere you can't see it at all.

Then it was back to a rugged piece of coast near Canico where I was pleased to get my first sighting of a clouded yellow this year.

Clouded Yellow

This was also a known location for spectacled warbler, which I was keen to see as I only heard them on  a previous trip to France in 2015  Unfortunately it proved to be tricky as they were plentiful but weaving in and out of the undergrowth and I was cursing myself for not having brought the lens hood for my camera as it was hard to focus in the bright and windy conditions.  After some patience (others' as well as my own) I did manage to get a fairly acceptable shot.

Spectacled Warbler

You can actually see it has a bit of nesting material in its mouth.

There was also a brief distant sighting of bertholets pipit - another first for me - as well as of a couple of hoopoe.

After the tour I got dropped off at the Parque de Santa Catarina on the promise of a sedge warbler on the island, for which however I had no interest.  By now the wall lizards were out and about and there were a couple of the larger examples quickly apparent as soon as I reached the lake.

Wall Lizards

The slightly smaller one however is technically still a juvenile as it retains a stripe on the upper body.

I was to learn in coming days that the appearance of wall lizards signifies that butterflies may be around.  Just after I saw them I noticed that a monarch butterfly - one of my key targets - was fluttering past the island on the left hand side of the lake.  Anyway I decided (rather coolly, I thought) to snap the lizards and meet the monarch when it reached the other side of the lake.

This duly occurred but it refused to settle until I pursued it into a children's play park, when it did settle high up in a bush. I focused on the exact branch and took the shots, only to find later that they did not show the butterfly.  No idea what happened there.  The only other thing I saw on going round the lake was a bunch of very lazy muscovy ducks snoozing under a tree.

Muscovy Ducks

I then decided to return to the Municipal Garden as I'd noted that the wee restaurant had scabbard fish on the menu.  There was some time to sit around and observe during which I spotted a red admiral and this interesting looking hoverfly - later identified on iNaturalist as an epauletted hoverfly

Epauletted Hoverfly

The even better surprise came when another monarch turned up and posed reliably on a flower bed near some teenage girls.

Monarch - upperwing

Monarch - underwing

Overall, a pretty successful day.

Holiday in Paphos Cyprus 21 April - 1st May

This was mainly intended as a chillout holiday but of course I had some ideas about possible wildlife sightings, which in fact worked out very well - at least in respect of birdlife.

Early success

An early wander around the coast at Chloraka area showed that there were still some healthy flower meadows to investigate - in spite of the fact that the whole area is clearly marked out for immediate further building complete with the roughcast for the access roads.

Pied Wheatear

There were larks and swallows and a good few butterflies, though these were of only two kinds - painted ladies, of which there must have been thousands over the course of the holiday, and whites.  Neither were keen to settle and the painted ladies were markedly more hyperactive than when they appear in the UK in late summer.

On a longer investigation of the coastal path, I was delighted to quickly discover one of my key targets, the pied wheatear hanging around a rather desolate area of perimeter fencing, then later perching helpfully on a nearby rock.

From the balcony of our apartment there were also swifts, hooded

Lesser whitethroat?

crows and feral pigeons.

On a morning forage further inland the day after it was the same story for butterflies, but I did get a rather unclear shot of what I think may have been a lesser whitethroat on the telephone wires.

Pleasant and unpleasant surprises

I went on a visit to the Paphos Archaeological Park with my daughter.  I hadn't realised how nature-friendly it is and wished I'd taken binoculars as, apart from lizards, crested larks and some slender looking northern wheatear, several other species were missed.

One day I managed a bit of time fishing near the Municipal Swimming Pool.  Most of the bites were also missed but I did manage to catch three tiny ones next to the rocks.

Revisiting the coastal area at dusk one evening was productive, proving the crested lark is particularly common but I also stumbled on a group of hoopoe and found a moustached warbler in an area of rough ground.  Cetti's warbler was singing nearby, but, typically, not seen. I also thought I'd found a blue butterfly but it turned out to be a day-flying moth.

Hoopoe

Moth

Moustached Warbler

Unfortunately we chose a poor day to visit the Troodos mountains.  It rained and made the tricky climb to a waterfall hazardous, resulting for me in a heavy fall, a seriously twisted knee and a couple of days enforced rest on a sunlounger.

A strong finish

Cyprus Warbler

Fortunately I was by the penultimate day fit enough to attempt an e-bike ride to the Asprokremmos Dam area in pursuit of the indigenous cyprus warbler.  This proved much easier to find than expected once I could recognise its distinctive song, though it took a good long time to get a half-decent photograph as they wouldn't stay still.

It's funny how the different light conditions can affect sightings.  I found I was often wondering about the swallows I was seeing.  On the way up to Asprokremmos I took the chance to photograph one of them and it was only from looking at the results that I could see they were red-rumped swallows.  Perhaps the ones at the coast were too.

Similarly, it was only examining a photo of a suspected warbler that I realised I'd seen my first woodchat shrike.

Red-rumped Swallow

Woodchat Shrike

After being delayed by around a thousand domesticated goats crossing the road, the area near the Dam also revealed the definitive photo of a crested lark and a brief encounter with a very bright blue butterfly that only settled briefly with its wings closed.  I wondered about adonis blue or even false eros blue but neither would realistically have been on the wing so early in the year.

Goats on road

Crested lark

On the last day, just before leaving, I glimpsed three clouded yellow in flight and equally disinclined to settle as most of the other species.

Wednesday 3rd December

Two week holiday based in Puerto Rico, Gran Canaria where the temperatures (around 25 degrees) were well above average although overall weather untypically stormy at times.

Spot The Serin (hard)

Early appearances at the hotel pool were the Canary Islands chiffchaff and hoopoe, the latter in silhouette only as it landed occasionally on the railings at sunset.  There were also several blackbirds, whose song patterns were different to the UK version.

After a couple of days I got a good sighting of a couple of serins on the way to Amadores beach, although not at all sure where the second one went in the photo I managed to take. This is a pity, as there is a serin called the atlantic canary and it would have been nice to check.

I didn't spent much time walking in the hills - all rock and rubble - but a brief stint above roque de l'este produced good views of bertholet's pipits anongst the cacti and a number of painted lady butterflies. However I did attempt an ambitious bike ride up the Barranco valley towards Soria and, before it got stupidly steep, fleetingly saw the one bird I was keenest to spot. A blue chaffinch that was singing in a low tree flew on to the next tree, providing an unmistakeable inflight profile.  I didn't manage to see it after that.

Increasingly visible en route were more painted ladies, plus a couple of milkweed-type butterflies that are apparently known as the monarch, and a few blue dragonflies.  There was also a bird that looked like a wood warbler but didn't sing like one, and up in the heights another small finch I couldn't identify.

Spot the parrotfish (one - easy; two - less so)

A fishing trip out of Puerto Mogan was disappointing, as all I caught were a couple of small fish known as loreto though others did better and a few rays were taken.  More interesting were the fish visible in the harbour at Mogan including many mullet, some of which looked over 4lb,, colourful wrasse, white sea bream, two lurking parrotfish and a wahoo-like effort that was probably a yellowmouth barracuda.


But the greatest mystery was the large, multicoloured bird of prey we saw from the transfer bus as we passed by Maspalomas on the way in, flapping and guiding like a harrier over the coastline.  There was no time to observe closely, and another example never appeared.