Thursday 5th May

I'm playing catch up again here.

Not much more happened mid April until I departed for my planned holiday in Naples.  This should have included a couple of nature outings, but inconsistent weather and poor local cycling limited the scope to get outdoors a little.  The main trip I did manage was to the Parco Virgiliano along the Naples peninsular at Posillipo. This is pretty much an urban Sunday stroll but on the 24th, cooler

Stone Pines

temperatures and occasional showers perhaps reduced visitor numbers.

The approach to the park is lined by rows of massive conifers that I was pleased to identify as stone pines, though I had less luck in identifying subsequent local species of tree apart from some almond willows and some lemon trees already in fruit.

During some intermittent spells of sunshine, a couple of wall butterflies and a red admiral showed themselves but, curiously, it wasn't until I was sheltering under a disused ice cream stand that I started to pick out some of the bird species.

A serin parked itself on top of an unpromising bare treetop a few yards away and shortly afterwards, a pair of hooded crows settled briefly in roughly the same area.  Apart from a very dubious possible

Callistemon

sighting at Balcary some time back, this is the first time I've seen them, so it was a pity they couldn't stay to pose for the camera.

I had been seeing some sparrow like birds creeping around in the hedgerows and tree foliage. Whilst again sheltering briefly next to the ladies toilets (!), I found I was seeing them again while looking up into a shrub with spiky red flowers that I believe was a callistemon.

A little bit of book work in my German Book of European Birds revealed that it was in fact an italian (cisalpine) sparrow, an

Italian Sparrow

interesting species or sub-species depending on your point of view.  The opinion of the German Book of European Birds is that it is a cross between a house sparrow and a spanish sparrow (Weidensperling). Little matter - it basically looks like a house sparrow with a totally brown head.

More italian sparrows and serins turned up at different times and I also identified a couple of mail blackcaps. They looked a bit slimmer and more agile than UK blackcaps, but I decided they weren't sardinian warblers (Samtkopf-Grasmücke). These matters get very complicated in mainland Europe!

Two days later I was visiting Pompeii and, although not on nature alert, was pleased to see a swallowtail and a couple more wall butterflies on the wing, as well as a few wall lizards creeping over the remains.  I didn't allow myself to check out the birdlife, as there is more than enough to see at Pompeii in a day.

Altogether a pleasing result for what threatened to be a non-nature holiday.

Spot the wall lizard