The Bald Birder (and Moffer)

Sunday, 22 June 2008

15 June 2008 - Corsica Day 1 - Getting there

A 2.50am start may suit your average hyperchondriac or old people like The Bearded One, but certainly not the Good Lady Wiff and I. Consequently there is nothing to report of the journey until arriving at Bastia Airport, Corsica.
3 Cattle Egrets from the plane as we came in to land followed by a House Martin colony on the airport buildings. Transfer provided an excellent opportunity to gaze at the countryside and look for first bits and bobs - or it would have done if we hadn't fallen asleep.
Couple of Turtle Doves as we arrived at the hotel.
An early evening wander produced a juv Moorhen, Italian Sparrows and Hooded Crows (spp Sardonicus), while a post-grub walk through the camp site opposite provided us with two male Scops Owls calling to each other.

The view from the room.

16 June 2008 - Corsica Day 2 - Around the Hotel

A few short meanderings from base led us in to some really nice habitat. Armed with only 135mm lens the bird images were lacking - amongst them though, included: Red Kite, Fan-tailed Warbler, Goldfinch (spp tchusii), Greenfinch (spp madarszi), Common Swift, Jay (spp corsicanus), Great-spotted Woodpecker (spp parroti), Marmora's Warbler, Sardinian Warbler, Great Tit (spp corsus) and Spotted Fly (spp tyrrhenica).

It was, however, the butterflies that did best to attract our attention.

Corsican Silver-washed Fritillary (Argynnis paphia immaculata)

Corsican Swallowtail (Papilio hospiton)

And then there were these giants flying around, trying to knock over small children and hotel buildings.

17 June 2008 - Corsica Day 3 - Operation 'Nuthatch'

An early (well, 8.45 is early for us) morning departure to get the train to get a hire car (for 3 days) to get in to the mountains, was the start of Operation 'Nuthatch'. Clearly the main target species for the trip would be Corsican Nuthatch, the other endemic bird species, Corsican Finch occurs on Sardinia, so could be seen in the future if we didn't score this trip.

Ascending the hills, we stopped only at pretty villages to take pictures so that we could demonstrate just how beautiful this little island is (and it is, honestly).

As the hills turned in to mountains and the broadleaf vegetation turned to conifers the temperature dropped nicely. The daunting task of finding Corsican Nuthatch just seemed to get greater and greater - I had taken a few previous trip reports which had suggested that Haut Asco was one of the prime locations, but these same trip reports talked of, "My CD player failed, so clearly there was no chance," and "After putting new batteries in and getting the tapes going, we located our quarry".... Er, we didn't have a CD player, or batteries or tapes.

Many stops along the road produced some nice stuff: Rock Sparrow, Crag Martins, Pallid Swifts, Red-backed Shrikes, Mistle Thrush, Buzzard (spp arrigonii), Honey Buzzard, Grey Wagtail - but no flippin Nuthatch and no Corsican Finches.

Arriving at Haut Asco we clambered up the rocks behind the ski centre chalets - big conifers, nice looking habitat. Still feeling a little nervous anticipation of something that we didn't think would happen we gazed up.... and then.... we gazed up some more.

And then, as if by magic, movement cuaght my eye. Was it one? Then again. Was it... yes! We'd stumbled across the nesting hole - and at that point, knew that we'd be in for repeat performances for as long as we wanted.

With our boots filled, The Good Lady Wiff called, "Is that a Trecreeper of the sub-species corsa?," it was, genius (Richard Bonser couldn't connect with that island endemic race on his visit - even with tapes!

17 June 2008 - Corsica Day 3 - afternoon

Brilliant - my first world tick since Cuba, and in all honesty, all so easy.

Scurrying down the rocks, we came out in to the open once again. The views up here were wonderful - all I had to do now was kiss the Good Lady and then hop around for a few minutes looking like a pillock. I did both.

Further searching of the area produced several Coal Tits (spp sardus), Wren (spp koenigi) and Chaffinches (spp tyrrhenicus). This was all working out very nicely, thank you very much.

Could life get any better?

Further movement triggered me in to action, raising the bins, i wa looking at three Corsican Finches. A beautiful male and two female types. It was good - very, very good.

Chief Treecreeper finder and Good Lady

18 June 2008 - Corsica Day 4 - North Cape

Ah, the morning after the afternoon before. A walk round the rather nice waste area behind the hotel before breakfast showed up some expected niceties.

First up was a wee Fan-tailed Warbler, zitiing away, the way that cisticolas do.

Next to throw itself in front of the camera were several Spotless Starlings - now I'm not claiming these birds are good, or even that these are good pictures of 'bad' birds, but it's going to be some time before I see these little things again, so if nothing else, here's a naff picture of something I won't see for a while.

Anothing main reason for heading out this morning was to photograph a mantis spp that I had briefly seen on the first day. As luck would have it - there it was.

Many Clouded Yellows were seen on this holiday - as for which species they all were, your guess is as good as mine!

A species of Wall perhaps? Without greater knowledge this species is hence forth to be named, Corsican Wall - so there.

This was a very smart assasin bug, though again, quite which species, blah, blah, blah.

After breakie we did a grand tour of the northern cape of Corsica. All very untouched, clean and just nice.

This island at the northern-most point looked a bit like Round Island on Scilly - well, to me it did.

As a final treat we stopped and tried to photo one of the yellow butterflies that were flying around. Eventually, half success - a rubbish picture, but it does enable the species to be nailed - on this occasion Cleopatra or Gonepteryx cleopatra cleopatra.

19 June 2008 - Corsica Day 5 - Local villages and stuff

A 'nice' day today. Headed out up in to the hills to tour the local villages. Looking back to the hotel showed some of the more cultivated parts of the island in comparison to the past few days. Even so, it ain't bad.

First stop was Pigna - yet another lovely little hill village where the locals spill out in to the road whilst supping coffee - all oblivious to the Corsican endemic races of birds on their doorstep.

With a lack of birds in the villages, started to take more obscure snaps like door latches.

And doors.

And pots.

A small party of lemons found congregating outside a cafe that also 'did' fresh lemon juice for 2 Euros. I guess these chaps were protesting.

Finally a Hummingbird Hawk Moth put on a fine showing in some old dear's hanging basket.

Hooded Crows playing games with the Red Kites. These crows seemed very sandy coloured (in addition to the black!) - to such a point I am considering writing a paper on them as a new species.

Cirl Bunting playing hide-and-seek with me.

The village of San Antonina - yet another little gem in the hills.

Driving through the countryside, the Good Lady was trying to nail an Eleonora's Falcon. Alas, the nearest we got to it was this Peregrine Falcon that did it's best to look dark against the sunlight - just a shame it wasn't the right shape!

On our way back down the hills we came across this locust spp - a nice find - if you like that sort of thing!

Even nicerer still, a very confiding Woodlark. Other avian highlights included Raven, Rock Sparrow, Turtle Doves, Tawny Pipit, Stonechat and Goldcrest. Best, however, were fine views of Long-tailed Tit (spp irbii) and Blue Tit (spp cogliastrae)