Macedonia 2013

The trip report from last week's visit to Macedonia and northern Greece is now available from the usual place, with the photo gallery up on flickr. Enjoy!

Macedonia 2013, a set on Flickr.

Wildlife News: 10th June 2013

Just back from a week in Macedonia, of which more to follow. Meanwhile, a random New York Ovenbird and a catch up on some news...

• Amazing news from Portugal, where an Iberian Lynx has been photo-trapped in the west of the country, the first confirmed sighting for decades.

• Similar news from Morocco, only this time involving video footage of North African Wolves.

• While in Germany, European Bison are roaming wild for the first time in 400 years.

• Are Kelp Gulls killing Right Whales?

• 60% of UK species in decline. Meanwhile, the trial badger cull is underway and Natural England is licencing the destruction of Buzzard nests and eggs to "protect" a pheasant shoot and a poultry farm. You might like to contact your MP and let them know what you think of the government's priorities...

• Hula Painted Frog rediscovered in Israel, previously thought extinct. 

• Little Bittern are again breeding on the Avalon Marshes, an amazingly successful wetland creation project in Somerset. Big really is beautiful.

• And some Wildlife Travel news: our November trip to Iceland is now confirmed, as are our October holiday to Chile and September trip to the Algarve: plenty of spaces left for those wanting an autumn break.

Macedonia 2013: some cool insects

Another quick update from Macedonia, with some of the rather nice beasts that we've bumped into along the way.

 Russian Heath

 Ascalaphus libelluloides. We have also found the blue-winged Ascalaphus ottomanus

 Twin-spot Fritillary

 Nemoptera sinuata

 Another handsome black and red longhorn beetle, this time Stictoleptura cordigera

Yellow-banded Skipper

Macedonia 2013: 2nd to 4th June 2013

A quick update from the first few days of our Macedonia trip. Based in the central town of Kavadarci, we've been exploring the drier hillsides, gorges and steppe habitats of the area (as well as a rubbish dump or two, which have rewarded us with five Eastern Imperial Eagles). We've also enjoyed a fly-past group of Rose-coloured Starlings, four species of shrike and a good range of warblers: Eastern Orphean, Eastern Subalpine, Eastern Olivaceous, Sardinian and Olive-tree.

An early start tomorrow, but hopefully worth it... the vulture restaurant has been primed!

 The super-impressive Bradyporus dasypus, a massive cricket (this is smaller than life size!) that is very abundant in the dry grassland, chomping its way through the vegetation.

 Eastern Spectre Caliaeschna microstigma, Europe's smallest hawker and something of a Balkan speciality.

 Nose-horned Viper Vipera ammodytes

 

 Lattice Brown

 Heermann's Tortoise. We've seen both species of tortoise (this and Spur-thighed) every day so far.

 Purpuricenus budensis, an impressive longhorn beetle, one of several species found so far.

 Balkan Marbled White, a very common grassland butterfly

Eastern Lizard Orchid

Natural History Museum on the Isles of Scilly

"Happy but exhausted."

That was Rosemary Parslow, leader of our visits to the Isles of Scilly and 'local legend', after her week on the islands with a team from the Natural History Museum. Dwarf Pansy, Blue-ray Limpets, rare lichen and the wonderful Clingfish were amongst the finds during their week.
Read more on the NHM blog

 

Wildlife Travel news, May 2013

Believe it or not, the spring is almost over! We have just two more spring trips left to run: to Macedonia next week, and Mull the week after. The last few days have seen Wildlife Travel groups returning from trips to the Burren, Poland and Romania, where the group not only enjoyed the Danube in full flood for the first time in several years, but were also amazingly lucky in the Carpathians and saw not only Brown Bear but also two Wolves... I am, of course, incredibly jealous.

A couple of new trip reports are now up on our website, from our visits to Costa Rica in February and Crete in April.

With our October visit to Chile now confirmed (still plenty of places if you want to join us for flamingos, Mediterranean botany and Diademed Sandpiper-Plover!), the Algarve looking set to be confirmed in the next few days and our trip to Turkey almost fully booked the autumn is already looking to be a good one.

And plans are well underway for 2014 and beyond... Western Australia in September 2014 anyone?

Outer Hebrides: North and South Uist and Benbecula, May 2013

I'm just back from a long weekend on the Outer Hebrides: good company, some surprisingly good weather and plenty of good birding.

My weekend started with a train journey from Glasgow through to Oban. The harbour walls are home to some very photogenic Black Guillemots, with several adults in nesting crevices, on the rocks or on the sea, calling to each other, a delightful trilling call. One particularly boisterous adult was sitting on the top of the harbour wall, chasing pigeons across the pavement, seemingly oblivous to passers by.

From Oban, our ferry took us up past the end of the Ardnamurchan Peninsula, around the top of Mull and across the Minch to Lochboisdale on South Uist. During the journey we saw an amazing five White-tailed Eagles, including a couple talon-grappling and cartwheeling down through the air; a pair of displaying Goshawks; a distant Golden Eagle; hundreds of Manx Shearwaters out in the Minch; a single Basking Shark and a handful of Harbour Porpoises, as well as a glimpsed (not by me) Minke Whale.

During our three days, we pretty thoroughly explored South and North Uist. A particular target of the trip was to be the northward passage of skuas, an event which is pretty much dependent on just the right weather conditions. Alas, for us, the wind was in exactly the wrong direction for almost all of our time on the islands, so it was quite a surprise to have a spectacularly beautiful adult Long-tailed Skua drive lazily over our heads while we were walking across the machair near Sollas, in the (unsuccessful in both cases) hunt for a male Snowy Owl who has been in the area for the last year or two, and Great Yellow Bumblebee (which I suspect just isn't out so early in the season.).

From nearby Aird an Runair headland we saw a handful of breeding plumaged Pomarine Skuas and another couple of Long-tailed Skuas: a relief to see, but slightly gutting that the last few days have seen a spectacular passage past the same spot of thousands of both. Ah well, we can't have everything...

There's definitely more to the Uists than skua passage. A highlight for me was the presence of so many breeding waders: displaying/singing Dunlin, Redshank, Snipe and Lapwing were a constant soundtrack, with good numbers of Turnstone around the coast in breeding plumage, together with a couple of Purple Sandpipers. Whimbrel passed by frequently, and at a traditional site we found at least three Red-necked Phalaropes, a windswept male and, a couple of days later, two boisterous females. The other famous breeding bird of the outer Hebrides is the Corncrake, and we heard several singing males, with one showing well in a patch of irises. We also found at least a couple of pairs of Whooper Swans, while Twite and Rock Dove were also good to see, not birds we're used to down in lowland England.

No visit to the Hebrides would be complete without an otter encounter or two. We enjoyed a long lunch break with the female below, as she hunted very successfully along a short section of rocky shore, catching crabs and a lumpsucker. On our final evening we had two separate animals fishing just off shore from the (highly recommended) pub where we ate our farewell meal.

The ferry journey back to the mainland was pretty successful, mammal-wise as well. We encountered three pods of Short-beaked Common Dolphins, a couple of very brief Bottle-nosed Dolphins and a small pod of White-beaked Dolphins, the latter a world 'tick' for me.

And as well as the Hebridean specialities, we also enjoyed our fair share of rarities. We 'dipped' the male Snowy Owl, which was present on the machair near Sollas two days before we arrived and was there again two days after we left the islands, but was certainly nowhere to be found on our two visits to its favourite corner of North Uist. But we did find the male Green-winged Teal on South Uist and the Lesser Canada Goose at Balranald on North Uist, both of which had been present for some time. We also bumped in to a young Iceland Gull feeding on ploughed machair. Almost the final bird of our visit to the Hebrides appeared as we were walking back from Aird an Runair on our last evening. A small buffy bird flew across the path and landed nearby on an area of ploughed machair. Something about it attracted all our attention, and it was very soon clear that we had found a Short-toed Lark, most definitely something of a surprise!

 'Our' Short-toed Lark, at Balranald. digiscoped photo by Jo Thomas

The trip finished with a short detour on the drive back to York, and a Thrush Nightingale putting on a show at Hartlepool: a 'lifer' for two of our group (including myself).