Last days in Slovenia and the journey home 9th - 20th June

Until this trip I hadn't realised that Slovenia had a coast but then it's only around 20km long so it's easily overlooked.  We stopped in Piran at the Campsite Fiesa which is on the coast and next to a small lake. The lake had singing Reed Warbler and the sparrows here were both House and Italian.

Piran central square

After an evening meal in the old town of Piran we visited the nearby Parco Naturale delle Saline di Sicciole which are working salt pans. It was very hot when we were there, 34°C, and it's a large area that would be worthy of several days rather than our few hours but we saw Kentish Plover, Avocets and Black-winged Stilts, more Italian Sparrows, breeding Yellow-legged Gulls with young and quite a few Little Terns.

Italian Sparrow

From Piran we drove in to Italy and to Camping Realto on the outskirts of Venice. A 5 min bus ride took us into Venice, our first visit since stopping here in 1979 on our overland trip to India and Nepal. We took a 20€ boat trip which lasted about four hours and visited the islands of Murano and Burano.

Venice Grand Canal

Burano

After Venice we drove to the Italian Lakes stopping at Camping Orta by the beautiful town of Orta San Giulio but still no sign of the Muscovy Ducks there. Crossing in to Switzerland via the Simplon Pass we saw Water Pipits and Whinchats but as the temperature here dropped to 12°C and the wind picked up we moved further in to Switzerland and stopped in the hills above Sion. In the morning during a short stroll I could here the distinctive cho-eet call of Western Bonelli's Warblers and after some time I located a male that was also occasionally giving short bursts of their trilling song. The plumage was a little worn but I can put up with that for one of my favourite warblers!

Western Bonelli's Warbler

More Red-backed Shrikes and several Black Kites were in the area.

From Sion we drove in to France via Chamonix and onward to Samoens for a few days with my brother and his wife.

A trip up the Col de Joux Plane produced a nice pair of alpestris Ring Ouzel feeding young in the nest. 

Ring Ouzel - male of the alpine race alpestris with very scaly underparts

I had heard that the Bearded Vultures at Salvagny had been unsuccessful this year so I decided to have a look in the Fer-a-Cheval. As I walked down the track I met a shepherd who asked me what I was looking for and if I had seen the Gypaete. I mentioned the birds at Salvagny but he said no here in the Fer-a-Cheval to which I replied no. I wondered on and about 15 minutes later caught a glimpse of a Bearded Vulture flying close to the rock face before it disappeared. I walked to the area I had last seen it and after several minutes scanning the rock face found it on the edge of a large cave. Frustratingly it was only visible from certain places on the track and there was no way to get closer but I got some record shots of what is perhaps a second breeding pair in the area.

Bearded Vulture

 Finally we left the Alps stopping overnight south of Chaumont and again near Calais before taking the Tunnel back to the UK and bringing another European superb trip to an end.

Corsica 2nd - 9th July

Pam and I travelled to Corsica on the Moby car ferry departing Livorno at 08:00 and arriving in Bastia at around 12:30 on 2nd July. The ferry crossing was fairly quiet with just half a dozen sightings each of Scopoli's and Yelkouan Shearwaters. We immediately headed for Corte in the mountains where we stayed for 3 nights.

The following morning I headed south stopping for an hour at the Fortin de Pasciola accessed from just beyond Vivario which quickly provided the calls of both Moltoni's and Marmora's Warblers but rather poor views of each. I carried in the direction of the Col de Sorba stopping about 3km from the T20/D69 junction. 

Corsican Pines

It was very quiet by the roadside but a short walk south on a rough track and I soon heard the distinctive almost Jay like call of the Corsican Nuthatch (42 .1497222 17.30556). The call is difficult to describe, so here is a recording made at the time (this doesn't always play with Safari as the browser but works fine with Google Chrome).

I was surprised at how small they were, smaller than Kruper's Nuthatch and looking particularly small in flight. Getting photographs proved tricky as they stayed close to the top of the pines and were hidden much of the time. Watching a male for a prolonged period he spent much of the time hunting on the underside of the branches and I was surprised when it stopped and spent several minutes preening whilst hanging upside down, bat like!

Corsican Nuthatch - male

Whilst watching the nuthatches several Crossbill flew over as did several parties of Corsican Finch and I decided to try for photos of these and return to the nuthatches later. 

Corsican Finch - male

They are much yellower on the underparts and browner on the back than their mainland counterpart the Citril Finch. The mantle of some males is the colour of a Linnet. 
The following morning I returned to the nuthatches and quickly found them again in the same area. There were at least 5 but could have been more. Other birds in the area included Jay, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Cirl Bunting and Blue, Coal and Great Tits plus several Mediterranean Flycatchers.

Corsican Nuthatch - female

I then followed the track further up the hillside, which after another 400m revealed a scrubby area off to the right which looked ideal for Marmora's Warbler, and so it was. I spent several hours in the area and had at least 7 birds with several males in song. They spent most of the time deep in the scrub and were often invisible, even when only a few metres away but eventually I managed some rather distant photos of a male bird which stood briefly on a rock. Although I have seen Balearic Warbler several times on Majorca these were my first Marmora's Warblers since I saw Britains first record on Midhope Moor in 1982. It would be something to find one on my local Beeley Moor.

Marmora's Warbler - male

Leaving the mountains we headed to the coast at Calvi. It was very warm, with day time temperatures in the low 30's, so between around 10:00 and 17:00 it was difficult bird watching and generally unproductive. On the way we stopped at a beach just to the north of Calvi where a pair of Red-rumped Swallow were nesting in a beach cafe.

A Jay at the campsite came to visit the bins and proved more co-operative than many of that species, it is a separate race on Corsica but like many of the races looked very similar to the birds in the UK.

European Jay 

In a 500m stretch of pines by the coast I found at least 3 pairs of Mediterranean Flycatcher, another recent split and Corsica/Sardinia speciality. I spent several hours watching and photographing them and will do a separate blog post on these observations.

Mediterranean Flycatcher

A bushy area at the edge of town held at least one pair of Sardinian and Moltoni's Warblers with the latter still singing.

Moltoni's Warbler - male

Moltoni's Warbler - female

Sardinian Warbler - female

Further up the coast we stopped at Saint-Florent, on the way a female Red-backed Shrike with at least one juvenile was seen on roadside wires.

Saint-Florent

The campsite had both Nightjar and Scops Owl calling but I didn't see either. A late afternoon walk in to the hills to the west of town produced almost nothing but the same walk in the early hours of the following morning yielded Nightingale, Moltoni's and Dartford Warbler plus Cirl Bunting, Common Buzzard, Woodlark and Blue Rock Thrush.

Cirl Bunting - adult female

The other feature of Corsica, unlike the rest of France is that all the sparrows are Italian and the starlings Spotless.

Italian Sparrow - Male upper, Juvenile lower

The commonest dragonfly was Southern Migrant Hawker which were anywhere with a bit of standing water.

Southern Migrant Hawker

All in all a very successful and enjoyable trip, a bit cooler and fewer flies and mosquitoes would have been perfect.
We left Corsica again on the Bastia - Livorno ferry and again saw a small number of shearwaters.

Scopoli's Shearwater

The ferry was so well camouflaged I'm surprised we didn't see more from it!

Moby Ferry