Mallorca day 5: all at sea

With the family still not ready to let me drive them around the mountain roads of Mallorca again, and my need to get better views of Eleonora's Falcon becoming more pressing by the day, a compromise was reached on day 5 of the family holiday: a boat trip to the Formentor peninsula.

Eleonora's Falcon is a speciality of Mallorca

This species fills the ecological niche, if you'll forgive the technical jargon, between 'skinny Peregrine' and 'chubby Hobby'

The approach to Formentor by sea was recommended by my pal James Lowen in his book '52 European Wildlife Weekends'. If you don't have this book you must have something against Europe (possible), wildlife (unforgivable) or weekends (unthinkable), but the picture painted in the chapter on Mallorca of falcons dashing low over the sea didn't quite pan out for us unfortunately. To be fair, it's more likely in the autumn when they are hunting migrant passerines, from which they pluck the wings and tail before stuffing the hapless, flightless victims into cavities in the cliffs - a gruesome limestone larder of fresh meat for later in the season. But the boat trip still provided my best views to date as several birds floated around the clifftops, including my first dark phase individual.

This dark morph Eleonora's Falcon was dismembering something in mid-air

Unfortunately the dark morph bird remained distant - a shame as it is a stunning and unusual looking bird in this plumage

On the return journey, we passed a series of lower cliffs which also held Eleonora's Falcon, providing even closer views, through a bit of chop as we battled against the prevailing swell made photographing them a challenge, and brought back memories of a Scilly pelagic! Yellow-legged and Audouin's Gull buzzed the boat, and we jealously eyed the homes of the rich and famous (including the fort used as the home of Hugh Laurie's arch-baddie Richard Roper in 'The Night Manager'). A highly recommended trip - but don't forget your speedos (the boat drops anchor long enough for a swim having rounded the Formentor headland).

Two falcons were perched on low cliffs on the return boat journey

Formentor by boat - highly recommended