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?

Mallorca Day 1: getting to know the locals

I've just returned from a fortnight's family holiday in Mallorca - my first visit to the island - and was sufficiently impressed by its beauty, birds and butterflies to resuscitate this comatose corner of the internet with a few posts on our time there. Stand by then, dear reader, for a day-by-day write-up, recorded not just for posterity, but also in the hope that the up-to-date gen might be of some interest to would-be visitors to the island.

Audouin's Gull - one of the special birds of Mallorca. This one photographed in early morning light on the beach at Port de Pollenca 

First the basics. The self-imposed family flying ban, which held for 17 years but for the occasional short-hop to offshore islands of the UK, had to be breached to get there - suffice to say, this was a necessary hit to the household carbon budget taken in the interests of marital harmony. We booked flights and accommodation via a local travel agent, who negotiated her way through our conflicting aspirations with the skill of a relationship guidance counsellor (thanks Jackie!). Her recommendation to base ourselves in Port de Pollenca in the north of the island was spot on, and aligned with the advice of birding friends who had been previously.

A male Blue Rock Thrush was the first bird I saw in the famous Boquer Valley

Getting to, through and out of Bournemouth airport from home in Wareham was a breeze and we arrived in an uncomfortably warm Palma late on the evening of 1 August. After some tetchy queuing for the hire car (organised independently at a fraction of the price offered by the travel agent, with insurance waiver cover procured separately at a fraction of the price offered by the car hire company) we made the 45 minute journey to Port de Pollenca before hoisting luggage and tired bodies up several flights of stairs to our apartment. This, we were relieved to find, housed a small air-conditioning unit to take the sting out of the Mallorcan night's humidity.

The greyer female Blue Rock Thrush

Day one was largely spent exploring every corner of the swimming pool, but by late afternoon I was feeling the need to explore a more natural habitat, and with the entrance to the famous Boquer Valley just a couple of hundred yards from the apartment, that was the obvious place to start. I had borrowed a copy of Graham Hearl's excellent 'Birdwatching Guide to Mallorca' (2nd edition) but this being printed in 1999, I did wonder whether the advice within it, which warned of constantly changing access arrangements, would still stand. It seemed not when I arrived at the large metal gates at the entrance to the valley as described in the book only to find them padlocked. Uttering some ill-tempered magic words (which did not include 'abracadabra') did the trick when I realised to my embarrassment that there was a small 'gate within the gate' through which the traveller could freely pass.

I soon tuned in to the rattling call of the local Sardinian Warblers, seemingly the most abundant warbler on Mallorca - more often heard than seen, this female was an exception to the rule 

With this hurdle overcome, the warning in Graham's book about needing to brave barking dogs proved out of date (the finca which they previously guarded appeared to have been abandoned, at least temporarily) and from then on the obvious path led up past olive and almond groves to two huge boulders just as described in the text. Passing through these was like entering a hidden world as the majesty of the ridges either side of the valley became apparent. The first birds to be seen just past this point - a pair of Blue Rock Thrush - also appeared as a good omen.

Male Sardinian Warbler is a smart bird - the last one I saw before this trip was in sea buckthorn on the north Norfolk coast!

It being August, the valley was not dripping with the migrants which can reportedly be seen in spring, but it was still a good introduction to the local avifauna: in addition to several more Blue Rock Thrush, the walk to the Cala Boquer at the seaward end of the valley provided an opportunity to familiarise myself with the calls of the seemingly ubiquitous Sardinian Warbler and the more elusive Balearic Warbler (a recent 'split' from Marmora's Warbler). Otherwise, Spotted Flycatcher and Goldfinch appeared to be the most numerous passerines.

The seaward end of the Boquer Valley

Mammalian movement invariably turned out to be one of the goats which roam wild throughout the island, and of raptors, for which the Valley is famous, there was unfortunately no sign but for a calling Kestrel. That said, I was only carrying bins and it became clear that the decision to squeeze the telescope and tripod into the suitcase was probably a good one for the purposes of the rest of the trip.

Spotted Flycatchers darted around the finca at the entrance to Boquer Valley

As well as introducing me to the local wildlife and habitats, the walk to the end of the valley also provided my first view of the Formentor peninsular. I was sufficiently impressed by this to plan an early morning visit there the next day, not least as local signage suggested that the road to the end of the peninsular would be closed to traffic from 1000-1900, a sensible policy to manage visitor pressure to this stunning area. Come back soon for a report on how that went.

Hummingbird Hawkmoth feeding on flowers at the apartment in Port de Pollenca