Corfu with Naturetrek (18-25th April 2024)

It is a long time since I've posted anything on this blog, so dates may be out of order😢

I've just come back from a trip to Corfu (with a day trip to Albania) with Naturetrek. Despite the weather not being particularly brilliant I did see quite a lot including some new orchids which I mainly found myself, a small selection of butterflies and some good birds.

The hotel was nice even though two nights we had a gang of rowdy UK girls who decided to roll in to the hotel in the early hours and proceeded to keep me awake with their banging, clattering and chatting in loud voices.

Outside the hotel was an area of scrub and trees which yielded Wryneck, Scops Owl, Woodchat Shrike and a display by Fireflies every night.  One night I managed to call in a Scops Owl right outside my room with my bad impersonation.

Although the hotel didn't have a bar or serve evening meals we went to a couple of local restaurants which served good meals (and lots of it) and beer!.

Birds of the holiday were Roller (x2), Eastern Subalpine Warbler, Eastern Orphean Warbler, Collared Flycatcher, Wood Warbler (a migrant on the south of the island), c30 Gull-billed Tern and Black-eared Wheatear.

Here is a selection of photos:

Pennington to Keyhaven Marshes (1st October 2022)

While in the middle of moving house, did a quick tour of the marshes.

Not a great deal seen.   The best waders were 2 Ruff, 2 Curlew Sandpiper and 7 Little Stint.

A brief Peregrine made an appearance and a Sparrowhawk landed on Fishtail Lagoon.

3-4th September 2022 (various sites)

3rd September

Went to Noar Hill for Autumn Ladies Tresses which I found in reasonable numbers.  Also a few Autumn Gentians were seen but very small examples.  Little in the way of butterflies.

A nice lady pointed me at a site for Marsh Gentian to see tomorrow.

At Tice's Meadow no sign off any Willow Emeralds but a couple of very flighty Clouded Yellows was nice.  A Migrant Hawker posed nicely but my pictures are pretty awful.  Before leaving it was nice to see a Hobby perched on an electricity pylon and some extremely distant Whinchat

4th September

Back to Lymington to meet my prospective landlord/landlady (now are!) after which I went to Pennington/Keyhaven marshes which was very gloomy.  So gloomy in fact that I overlooked the Pectoral Sandpiper until told where it was.  It was also nice to see a few Little Stints and Curlew Sandpiper.  Also a nice Winchat which showed much better than the Tice's Meadow ones.

Based on the lady from yesterdays help I went to King's Hat in the New Forest and found about 20 Marsh Gentians.