Mallorca day 2: a first on Formentor

To my surprise and delight, my proposal to make an early start to the Formentor peninsular on the second day of our Mallorcan holiday met with approval from the rest of the family who, perhaps shocked by the heat of our first day, agreed to join me in search of cool morning air. With the switchback roads to the Formentor lighthouse successfully negotiated, we arrived shortly after sunrise to a scene of quite breathtaking beauty.

Balearic Warbler showing the paler throat compared to the similar Marmora's Warbler of Corsica and Sardinia

A similar species to our more familiar Dartford Warbler

As with the previous day's excursion to the Boquer Valley, the first notable bird of the day was a Blue Rock Thrush - a pair frequented the lighthouse compound on all three of my early morning visits so I would recommend it as a 'banker' site for this species. Unfortunately, the male of the pair had suffered some feather damage to the face so he wasn't the prettiest of specimens.

Blue Rock Thrush was quite tame around the Formentor headland

This female was on the lighthouse wall

Quite a few other visitors had made the effort to get to the lighthouse for dawn but fortunately the birds at this location seemed a little more habituated to human presence than compared to the Boquer Valley. Nowhere was this more evident than in the case of a Balearic Warbler, which I was amazed to see foraging on the ground just below the viewpoint, almost at the feet of the visitors milling around. I sat down and filled my boots photographically.

This male Blue Rock Thrush was a case of 'nice body, shame about the face'!

Compare to this, the Stow-on-the-Wold bird from 2016 - my only previous Blue Rock Thrush. And some said this shouldn't be accepted because of some tatty feathering on the breast!

A note on the ethics of wildlife photography seems appropriate at this point: it seems almost impossible these days to post a half-decent picture of a bird on social media without someone suggesting that some kind of improper or unethical behaviour was necessary to acquire the image. Clearly there are some people who overstep the mark, but I hope I am not among them. For the record, then, all of the images posted here were taken from public viewpoints, hides or paths, and none of them involved playback, harassment or otherwise inappropriate action towards a bird in the search for a picture.

A rare view of a Sardinian Warbler out in the open

Another unusually obliging Sardinian Warbler at Formentor

As my friends will tell you, I always bird with a camera at the ready slung over my shoulder, and if you are quick on the draw it's possible to get decent pictures through sheer opportunism as well as via the more traditional routes of waiting patiently for ages or deploying careful fieldcraft (both of which I also do). And sometimes the bird isn't remotely bothered anyway, as in this case - the Balearic Warbler pictured was unconcerned by the tourists around whose feet it was scuttling, oblivious to its significance as a Balearic endemic.

Even some normally sceptical members of the family got into birding at Formentor - but, as you can see, it was not embraced by all of them!

A glimpse of the switchback roads to the Formentor lighthouse

Of additional significance for me was the fact that, having heard but not seen one in the Boquer Valley the previous day, Balearic Warbler was my first 'world tick' of the trip - it wouldn't have been a few years ago before the split from the closely related Marmora's Warbler as I'd seen one of those in Wales in 2010! Balearic Warbler is resident on the islands after which it is named, while the Marmora's which breed on Mediterranean islands further east is a short-range migrant. So a special bird to see both globally and for me personally.

A typically perky Balearic Warbler pose

Spotted Flycatcher at Formentor. Not a very streaky one - could this be of the Balearic race, split by some authorities as Mediterranean Flycatcher?