April 27, 2007
Fri 20th - Bonifacio
Today was our last long-haul trip, a two-hour drive to the clifftop town of Bonifacio.
It was already quite hot on our arrival late morning (not so good for finding skulking Sylvias), but we did get good views of a migrant male Montagu's Harrier (Busard cendre), plus a few Alpine and Pallid Swifts (Martinets a ventre blanc et pale) up in the stratosphere. We took an afternoon boat out to uninhabited Lavezzi island.
During our 90 minute stay I recorded 2 dark brown snakes (species unknown) and several of these lizards.
Given the relative lack of vegetation, the Sardinian Warblers (Fauvette melanocephale) sing from exposed rocks. Heat haze made photography tricky, but I managed some reasonable photos of Shag (Cormoran huppe),
Peregrine (Faucon pelerin, one of a pair)
and Blue Rock Thrush (Monticole bleu).
The sea was flat calm, and the only Scopoli's Shearwaters (Puffin cendre) we saw were a group of 15 sitting on the water. An excellent end to the day was a pale morph Eleonora's Falcon (Faucon d'Eleonore) seen flying along the cliffs at Bonifacio on the return leg of the boat trip.
Posted by rjhall at April 27, 2007 4:11 PM