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.

5th - 12th September

Holiday in Corfu, where there were still plenty of swallows and, if I am not mistaken, some of the red-rumped variety.  Also a number of very large birds of prey gliding at high altitude that I could not identify.  They weren't buzzards.

A couple of light-hearted attempts to catch fish off the rocks on sweetcorn (!), the second of which was looking promising as I could see the fish scouring around the bottom and taking the free offerings - until a huge wave from an ocean liner introduced storm conditions into the microcosm. Once they had subsided and the bottom cleared again, the fish had moved on.

Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to fish for the large numbers of mullet hanging around an outlet from the nature reserve next to St Spyridon Beach, as a sign in Greek and Italian said no fishing.  No rule against feeding them though and I could conclusively prove that mullet will eat sweetcorn, making it to my mind a better potential bait than bread, which they just knock to pieces most of the time.  On Rhodes, I saw the Greeks catching them on houmos paste, float fished at distance, and was duly impressed.

Previously had been watching out at home to see if my theory that swifts will not be sighted or heard after the end of August is true. I think I did hear a couple yesterday, so perhaps sighting a swift in September is just about possible. Swallows are also suddenly scarce around the estate, although tonight I was out with some people who live in farming areas and tell me there are still plenty around.