Bulgaria - Day 5

As it was our last morning in Tehsel, I decided to take an early morning walk down to the village where it was reported that eleonora's falcon was being sighted daily in pursuit of hirundines.  Typically it only appeared briefly and I didn't see it and also only heard the serin that was calling nearby.  Later in the day we were also to hear a cirl bunting calling.

Hirundines were around in plenty, as there were througout the trip.  Crag martin, pallid swift, barn swallow and red-rumped swallow were all seen often and the house martins were certainly not confined to residential areas.  In the mountains, alpine swifts were also to be seen.

 Transferring to a new location took us through the lowlands in splendid weather and resulted in a bonanza of sightings though I did miss the ilex hairstreak, which was quick to fly off and my great banded grayling was

seriously out of focus.  I was happier with the photographs I managed to get, though not with my recording skills which meant there were again some things I couldn't identify and others where identification may be inaccurate.

Of course there is a lot of variability between genders and amount of wear.  I got one shot of the map butterfly that looks nothing like as it should and this black-veined white is a good example - so worn that it has become semi-transparent.                   
The grizzled skipper is  a good example of an identification problem in another way.  In the Balkans there are something like twenty different varieties as opposed to our one, so at times you have to give up unless there is an expert to hand. 

It was a day of headlines and star acts.  There were numerous beautiful scarce coppers in the morning, and even when we settled down for a picnic lunch, there was a giant beetle almost the size of my brown rat scurrying around. Unfortunately I forgot the name but it only occurs within the Southern Balkans in Europe.

We caught up with both eastern festoon and in the afternoon swallowtail, the latter being first recorded on video before it finally came into land:

In one meadow, the elusive large blue was spotted.  It disappeared, hard to track because of its dark pattern, but I hung around and felt quite proud when it reappeared and I managed to follow it for thirty or forty yards before it landed. Just afterwards, we came across a male cardinal fritillary, the biggest fritillary in the Balkans.

This was quite exciting but I think that the best photograph I took at the riverside location was this shot of the beautiful demoiselle as the detail has come out so well:

The whole group was excited when, further upstream, we found a group of whites and blues 'puddling' i.e. absorbing salt from the muddy banks.  As you can see there was a whole mass of them, including some of the rarer species like escher's blue and chapman's blue, all in a great profusion:

Apparently only male butterflies do this.

Then further along, we found a couple of bushes that were swarming with silver-washed fritillaries, including the grey female form (valezina).

It was quite a day indeed:

               

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

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.

Tuesday 26th June

Thankfully better weather for last day of holiday.  Took bus up the Zemmerbachtal (by accident) and had a lovely walk back to Ginzling along the valley, plus a run over the Innerboden lower hill walk in the afternoon.  A lot of butterflies that I started to photograph so I have confirmation of alpine blue and picture of an eyed brown I can't identify.  Large trout and others seen under first bridge at Ginzling.

On Innerboden walk a yellow bird landed briefly on a fence than scuttled off into the trees making discontented noises.  A dogwalking lady told me it was a serin, which I first doubted but later got a good look at one one the telegraph wires at the end of the walk and confirmed.  More encounters with black redstarts, the coal tits that look like marsh tits and butterflies, one of which was I think a female alpine blue - looked dark blue when flying but seemed very dingy grey with slight white marking when landed.

All throughout the holiday, the extra variety of species available made for increased interest but also inceased frustration as it makes identification much more of a challenge.  But I'm very happy with the new additions to my birdspotting list and to have seen such a variety of plant and insect life as well. And the scenery itself was of course fantastic.