The title of this post refers not to the topical political news of the day but to the much delayed final post from our Mallorcan summer holiday. The important business of getting it done has been rudely interrupted by some other important business lately, but with that now resolved, I was determined to rediscover the time and space to gather some words and pictures from our last day, despite it being all the way back in August.
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| Eleonora's Falcon |
The trip was in danger of fizzling out on a low as, having packed ready for an early morning departure the following day, we had done little more than mooch around Port de Pollenca looking for somewhere shady to shelter from the searing heat. Fortunately we found a tree on the beach beneath which there was enough space to park a towel.
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| Eleonora's Falcon |
Just as we were starting our second gallon of Fanta Limon, a vision in brown and sunburst orange floated past: although I had never seen one before, I knew instantly it was the upperwing of a Two-tailed Pasha butterfly. Unfortunately it didn't linger, rendering any attempt at photography impossible. It seemed a fitting end to the holiday, especially as I had wasted quite a few hours making banana skin and booze concoctions to attract this species to stake-outs in likely looking locations on several days without success.
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| Eleonora's Falcon |
Despite this undoubted highlight, after a couple more hours trying and failing at being a beach bum, I was going stir crazy again, and decided to nip down the coast to
Cala Sant Vincent behind whose pretty beach I was fairly sure I had seen a colony of Pallid Swift skimming around a distant crag on our previous visit. Parking above the town I followed a dirt track around the coast on foot. Before I got anywhere near the distant crag, an Eleanora's Falcon appeared around the corner of a low cliff above me and stooped after an unseen insect. I had camera at the ready and fired off a few shots but it was always looking away from me. To my surprise it then repeated the manoeuvre, this time jinking half way through the dive in my general direction before resuming the hunt for food.
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| Eleonora's Falcon |
It was the best view I'd had of an Eleonora's Falcon in the whole fortnight, despite spending many hours in suitable habitat, so after the good fortune with the Two-tailed Pasha it definitely felt like my lucky day. I posted a back-of-the-camera shot on Twitter and, Twitter being Twitter, there was a suggestion from some that I had somehow 'provoked' this bird to acquire the image. I'm not sure what they thought I was doing - swinging a songbird on a lure? - so, for the record, it was a brief, chance encounter with a bird nowhere near a potential nest site which was far more interested in food than it was in me! That aside, the final day's bonus butterfly and bonus bird made for a fitting crescendo to an excellent trip.
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| Leaving Mallorca for home, 13th August |
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