Eccleston Mere

Pochard 4 males
Tufted Duck 4 (3 males, 1 female)
Mute Swan 3 adults
Oystercatcher 1


Obviously the 3rd Swan wasn't welcome, and was chased around the mere by an irate cob, despite the fact that I've not known swans to breed at the mere in any of the last 24 years!


Four Pochard.

Corfu

Corfu is a beautiful, lush island, in many ways most un-Greek like, with few ancient ruins and architecture influenced by the Venetians and British. This was my second visit to the island, and I was so impressed the first time that we decided to stay in the same resort and even the same hotel this time. We stayed at the Romanza Hotel in San Stephanos on the North West coast of the island, and despite having now seen most of the famous views on the island, I think that it would be fair to say that in my opinion none surpass the view from San Stephanos, and the Romanza Hotel in particular.


Cape Drastis on the North West tip of the island is about 4 miles from San Stephanos and easily walkable from the hotel, through beautiful countryside.


Many of the Olive groves are dark, dull places, and they're not helped by the annoying practice of putting netting down around the Olive trees in order to catch the olives at harvest time. This may help them collect the olives, but I wish they would roll the nets up after the harvest to allow wildlife back in.


Here are two Olive groves with the nets rolled up (you can just make them out around the base of some of the trees). What a difference a bit of colour makes!


The Romanza Hotel is set in a spectacular location, on the edge of a cliff, with the Albanian mountains as a backdrop.


Spectacular sunsets are a feature of the hotel!


The monastery at Cape Kanoni and Corfu Town. Don't be fooled by the apparent idilic setting at Cape Kanoni, it's right next to the airport and planes almost land on the monastry roof! The start of the runway is about 100m to the right of this photo!

Birds of Corfu

Spotted Flycatchers are common birds on Corfu. This House Martin was nesting right over the reception entrance.



Red-rumped Swallows collecting mud.


I found this Woodchat Shrike nest at Paleokastritsa.


Woodchat Shrike

Olivaceous Warblers are fairly common on the hillsides, and have a very Reed Warbler like call. Other birds seen included Alpine Swifts, , Hoopoes, Turtle Doves, Sardinian Warblers, Sub-alpine Warbler and there were at least five Scops Owls singing around San Stephanos.

Butterflies of Corfu

Cleopatra is a common species on Corfu and is like a brightly coloured Brimstone, with a an orange patch on the upper forewing.


Bath White and Clouded Yellow.


I think that the skipper is Lulworth Skipper, and Painted Lady.


Silver-washed Fritillary and Swallowtail, both fairly common on Corfu.

Herps of Corfu

The commonest lizard on Corfu, Dalmation Algyroides. Notice the blue throat of the male, and the extremely long tail.


I think that these two are Green Lizard and Erhard's Wall Lizard (thanks to Mike Brown for helping me out with the latter). Balkan Green Lizard also occurs on Corfu, and is quite difficult to separate from Green Lizard, except that it is usually larger, with a relatively larger head and males often have a yellow throat. This green lizard is, I think, a young animal so size is not really helpful, but it does have a blue throat. However, other photos I have may suggest that it is in fact a young Balkan Green Lizard. We did see a large green lizard at Paleokastritsa which I've put down as Balkan Green Lizard.


Turkish Gecko and Greek Marsh Frog.  The Marsh Frog group is a very difficult group to separate to species level, but fortunately geographical range is usually the key feature, as in this case!


European Pond Terrapin and a youngish Balkan Terrapin.

Dragonflies of Corfu

Balkan Emerald. You can just make out the yellow spot on the side of the thorax.


Scarlet Darter and Southern Skimmer.

Albania

Photo: Balkan emerald.

We caught the ferry from Corfu Town and travelled the 8 miles or so to the port of Saranda in Albania. From here we travelled south for about 10 miles to the World Heritage Site of Butrint. Since Albania is very under developed, even compared to Greece, I was expecting wildlife to be abundant, but if that is the case then it was keeping a low profile when I was there. For example I expected to see stork nests on roof tops and an abundance of raptors and egrets, but they certainly weren't in evidence during our brief visit, though I guess that midday in the middle of summer isn't the ideal time to get to know the avifauna of a Mediterranean country. In fact I only saw one White Stork in flight, several Little Egrets and a single raptor.

The latter however, was the bird of the holiday, a superb Levant Sparrowhawk, only my second ever and my first for nearly 30 years! It was in classic Levant habitat, a flat lowland river valley, lots of agriculture around and we were having lunch in a restaurant in the middle of a broad-leaved woodland oasis. The bird flew from near the top of a tree and flew away over the valley.

At Butrint, Nightingales and Spanish Sparrows were numerous,  the latter with an impressive colony of at least 100 nests in the trees at the entrance to the site. Other species included Red-rumped Swallows, Alpine Swifts, Pallid Swifts and Hooded Crows. From the ferry I saw two Cory's Shearwaters about midway between Corfu and Albania, and a Purple Heron flying along the Albanian coast.

Butterflies seemed to be pretty much the same as those seen on Corfu, with plenty of Cleopatras, Swallowtails, Clouded Yellows and Bath Whites. The only two species of odenata I saw were Balkan Emerald and Beautiful Demoiselle.


Beautiful Demoiselle. This species occurs in southern Britain and is very similar to the Banded Demoiselle we get on the Sankey Brook.This is the southern Balkan race of Beautiful Damoiselle festiva, which has completely blue wings.


Cricket and Dalmatian Algyroides. This is another male with a blue throat.


Saranda, Albania.


Part of the World Heritage Site at Butrint. I like the photo of the view across the river, but this is an estuary and we're less than a mile from the sea and there's not even a gull on the posts???