Corfu - August 2023

Not particularly local, but a week's holiday in Corfu in mid-August with my son allowed for a little bit of wildlife watching around the cottage we stayed in and on our days out and about. We stayed in a small house in the foothills of Mount Pantokrator surrounded by mainly Olive and Fig trees and scrub. It looked very promising for wildlife and over the course of the week we got some good views of various birds and insects. Overall, the variety of birds wasn't as great as I had hoped, but much of what we saw we happened upon on our days out, as opposed to actively searching. The cottage we stayed at had a lovely patio area that gave views up the mountain and I spent mornings and evenings sat enjoying what passed by. It looked ideal for warblers but the only ones I managed to positively ID were Eastern Subalpine Warblers, which seemed to be the most numerous warbler. Aside from Blue and Great Tits, a Spotted Flycatcher was the only other small passerine of note. One or two fleeting glimpses of what were probably other warbler species weren't good enough for IDs.

I believe the bird above is a juvenile subalpine warbler.

At sunrise on two of the cloudless mornings I was treated to several hundred Alpine Swifts overhead. Also present were smaller numbers of Common Swifts, Red-rumped Swallows and Barn Swallows. House Martins were also present in good numbers and I also saw a couple of Crag Martins. After about an hour feeding overhead the swifts would move on and I didn't see any at other times during the holiday. The swallows and house martins were present everywhere we went.

I hoped to hear Scops Owls and did so on a couple of evenings. Despite what appeared to be perfect habitat for raptors with a large rocky ridge several hundred feet above the cottage, I only saw half a dozen Common Buzzards and a single Common Kestrel. However, a trip to the summit of the mountain which is 906m above sea level did produce a brief view of a Short-Toed Eagle which I was delighted with. Other than that, a few Ravens and Hooded Crows were the only birds of note up the mountain. There were certainly some more birds up there but they didn't offer me any views aside from the ubiquitous Goldfinches.

I have had to adjust the brightness and exposure on the above images to reveal the plumage detail.

We had a day at a beach on the west coast of the island that bordered a large lagoon, Lake Korission. It looked promising for a variety of birdlife, but what probably boiled down to simply being the wrong time of year, meant there was only a single Greenshank and two Little Egrets present. I only saw half a dozen Yellow-legged gulls during the holiday, no other gulls.

As expected there was an abundance of butterflies. Plenty of Whites everywhere, a Cleopatra, Brimstones, a Clouded Yellow, Painted Lady, Lattice and Wall Browns, two Southern White Admirals, Brown Argus, Common Blues, and dozens of Lang's Short-tailed Blues. Scarce Swallowtails were also present in good numbers and are not scarce here. Hummingbird hawk-moths were numerous and allowed for some nice photo opportunities.

Cicadas provided a near constant soundtrack, and a variety of mainly large, mean-looking insects were all around. A few bats, a probable edible dormouse and a close encounter with what was probably a marten of some sort after dark one evening were the only mammals of note.