Memory Lane Menorca

It’s been a rubbish week. Laid low with a vicious bug, lethargy has been the order of the day. I’ve barely eaten a thing, spent 10 hours at a time in bed and struggled to leave the house. Even the thought of a glass of wine has left me cold. 

But now it’s time to shake off the self-pity and head off to Menorca for the last time this year. It’s a journey we make each year to Punta Nati, a remote, unforgiving and brutal landscape of rocks and field after field of moonscape with dwarf vegetation but where speciality birds abound. Don't forget to "click the pics" for better images.

We left our hotel soon after breakfast, found our way to the Me1 and joined the commuter run to Ciutadella, Menorca’s second city. The Ronda, the Ring Road, skirts the busy city where with luck we’d find the purple signpost that would send us to the parallel world of Punta Nati just ten minutes from the old world charms of Ciutadella. 

I pulled the car into the barely possible parking spot, the wing mirror just a whisker from the stone wall. The old fellow came out to greet us as he always does and explained again in zero English how the Cattle Egret colony here is the only one for many miles, maybe even the only one in Menorca. In my best zero Spanish I nodded in agreement and motioned with the camera that a few shots later we’ll be on our way and leave the egrets to their squawking family squabbles and bad hair days. 

Cattle Egret

Cattle Egret

Cattle Egret

Towards the point Bee Eaters were on the move, circling high in the sky, resting on overhead wires and bubbling out their unforgettable contact calls. There’s urgency in their excited calls. Some drift off, others move closer together before as a group their calls grow more eager and they’re off as one, specks in the sky and heading over the lighthouse, over the Med and towards Europe. 

Bee-eater

Bee-eater

Punta Nati

The calls of larks, buntings and pipits are constant as all seem to be in the throes of breeding. Searching for food, looking out for their nests, warning of predators or snatching a song; it’s all in a day’s work where the dry atmosphere and unrelenting sunshine takes its toll on a bird’s plumage. 

Thekla Lark

Short-toed Lark

Tawny Pipit

Tawny Pipit

Corn Bunting

Towards the lighthouse we eventually found a pair of Blue Rock Thrush, the calls of the male leading us to the spot where the pair lived. A Kestrel watched us as we went, the species is a common sight dashing across the bare fields and where there are more than enough vantage points. Red Kites lazed through the skies, their twisty tails a delight to watch in the remarkable blue of a Menorca sky. 

Punta Nati

Red Kite

 Kestrel

An hour or two later the trippers arrive, fresh from their tourist maps looking for something to do, something to see, a little excitement on a sunny day. But unless they are into birds, and very few are, there’s little for to do except walk without purpose to the lighthouse and back, trample over unforgiving terrain along coastal paths and maybe sprain an ankle. Most give up at the sheer desolation of the place, jump back in their shiny hire cars and probably vow never again to visit Punta Nati. 

We’ve had our fun, seen some great birds, laughed at a few German tourists with their huge knapsacks and knobbly white knees but we kept the secret of Punta Nati. Now it’s time for a trip to the busy city ten minutes away. 

We park in the main square for all of two Euros and head to some favourite watering holes. 

Ciutadella

The Aurora

Diageo's

The Harbour - Ciutadella

Ciutadella is a fabulous place, a working Spanish city which remains untainted by the tourism that has blighted so many other similar places. And after a dry, dusty trip birding along Memory Lane, what better than a coffee or two, an ensaimada or a bocadillo and a spot of people watching for a change?

Linking today to  Eileen's Saturday.

Boomerang Island

Readers will see that Sue and I are back in Menorca again. After a wet, miserable winter and a cool spring we are here to relax and take in some Mediterranean sunshine and to meet friends old and new.  

I put together some pictures which feature Menorca and the birdlife found here in May, the quiet month with fewer visitors and the month that Menorca opens for business.  "Click the pics" to visit Menorca.

Menorca in the Mediterranean Sea

Maybe it’s the boomerang shape of the island which gets us coming back for more each year? The picture taken from Google Earth uses the traditional English spelling of “Minorca” but we prefer to use the Catalan or Spanish spelling of “Menorca”, a name which originates from the Latin meaning of "smaller island”.

Menorca may be small but it is perfectly formed and not plagued by much of the grotty development of its sister islands of Majorca or Ibiza. An essentially rural island, Menorca features rolling fields, wooded ravines and bumpy hills filling out the interior between its two main – but still notably small centres of population, Maó and Ciutadella. Much of the landscape looks pretty much as it did at the turn of the twentieth century, and only around the edges of the island, and then only in parts, have the rocky coves been colonized by hotel and villa complexes. Much of the farming on Menorca is still carried out in traditional, sustainable ways. 

Menorca 

Tawny Pipit

Blue Rock Thrush

Cattle Egret

Red-footed Falcon

  

Wild Poppies - Menorca

Egyptian Vulture

Heerman's Tortoise

Coffee Break - Menorca

Spotted Flycatcher

Audouin's Gull

Bee Eater

That's all for now. More from Menorca soon with Another Bird Blog.

Birding Come Rain Or Shine

Well what do you know? the morning was grey, gloomy and drizzly! Just as well I completed a short trip out on Thursday morning although there’s very little to report from yet another cool, blowy and truncated session. I fear Spring migration has ended before it began and that soon it will be time to hang up the bins and let the birds get on with whatever they do in the summer. 

Conder Green proved very uninspiring, the high water levels giving little in the way of birds except for several Reed Buntings, two each of Sedge Warbler and Reed Warbler and an unseasonal Goosnader. Glasson Dock was marginally better with a good selection of singing warblers as in 4 Blackcap, 2 Chiffchaff and singles of both Common and Lesser Whitethroat. 

Whitethroat

Fortunately, and for regular blog readers who expect more than a couple of lines of prose and one picture from Another Bird Blog, there are more birds from Menorca 1st to 15th May. 

When exploring the area around Cap de Cavallaria in the north of Menorca I came across a very pale looking hedgehog. I managed to take one picture before the animal scuttled off into the undergrowth. By searching the Internet later I discovered the animal to be the North African or Algerian Hedgehog Atelerix algirus. 

North African or Algerian Hedgehog Atelerix algirus

The hedgehog is found in Algeria, France, Libya, Malta, Morocco, Tunisia and Spain. Because this hedgehog is native to Africa, it has been suggested that it was introduced by humans to the other countries where it is now found, including France, Spain and the island of Menorca. Specimens found inside a Bronze Age grave at the site of Biniai Nou in Menorca dated from the 13th century and indicated a rather recent arrival of the species on the island, probably via the Almohad invaders of that period. 

The North African Hedgehog closely resembles the European Hedgehog; however, there are several distinct differences between the two species. The North African Hedgehog tends to be smaller than its European counterpart. Its face is light in colour, usually appearing to be white, and the legs and head are brown. The underbelly varies in colour, and is often either brown or white. Its ears are highly visible on the head of the animal and are large in size. The body is covered in soft spines that are primarily white with darker banding. It was an interesting mammal find and a new one to add to my Menorca mammal list alongside the common and easily seen Hermann’s Tortoise and the less easily seen Stoat. 

Hermann's Tortoise

During the second week of our holiday there seemed to be a small influx of Red-footed Falcons, raptors which are late migrants and birds of open countryside, seen by us on overhead wires or circling recently cut fields in the areas of Cavallaria, Addaia and Es Grau. The largest group we saw was of 4 birds circling over Es Grau but a fellow hotel guest saw 10 red-foots together near Addaia just a day or two later. 

Red-footed Falcon

Red-footed Falcon

Red Kites seemed pretty plentiful this year while the normally common Booted Eagles proved scarce. Perhaps the endless sunny day kept the eagles soaring on high from where their binocular vision could easily locate prey without the birds lowering themselves to our level? 

Red Kite

Stonechats and Tawny Pipits were as common as ever alongside most highways, byways and the “camis”, the ancient bridleways and footpaths of Menorca. It’s along these routes that the three most common birds of Menorca are frequently heard but not necessarily seen - Nightingale, Cetti’s Warbler and Sardinian Warbler. The adjoining fields hold good numbers of unseen but vocal Quail.

Cami de Addaia

Stonechat

Tawny Pipit

Nightingale-Photo credit: chapmankj75 / Foter / CC BY

 

Menorca farm

Menorca gate made from Wild Olive Tree (acebush) wood

This Menorcan boy and girl I met in Alaior were sheltering from the fierce sun. Either that or there’s rain on the way. 

 Alaior - Menorca

Rain or Shine there will be more birds soon with Another Bird Blog.

Linking today to Anni's blog and Eileen's Saturday Blog.

Killing Time In Menorca

Wednesday began with yet more strong wind and showery spells from the north, hardly the best weather for finding later migrants arriving for the British Summer. Looks like I will have to invest in a pair of Stanfield's Canadian Thermal Long Johns for our UK summers.

So I took a day off birding until Thursday on the strength of a better forecast and set about creating a blog post about the recent Menorca holiday. 

There’s a well-worn route of ours via the ME1 and the Ronda which circumvents Ciutadella to reach Punta Nati, a rather desolate and sometimes windswept point at the north west corner of Menorca. Punta Nati is the place to see Ravens, larks, pipits, large numbers of Corn Buntings and when conditions are right, a number of raptors and other migrant birds. 

A mile before Punta Nati there’s a colony of Cattle Egrets in a pine plantation at the roadside. But the tiny stopping place leaves the car vulnerable to scraping the wing mirror on a stone wall or being hit by traffic zooming into Ciutadella a mile away. So it’s a quick point and shoot where the egrets are quite amenable as long as you don’t leave the car expecting the egrets to stay put. Many a budding photographer has discovered that should they approach on foot the egrets readily erupt into a cacophony of noise and action then depart the trees. 

Cattle Egret

Cattle Egret

The stone walls near the point provide lots of singing posts for Short-toed Larks, Corn Buntings, Thekla Larks and Tawny Pipits. In early May those species are well into the breeding season with much display, song and evidence of youngsters in the nest. 

Punta Nati, Menorca

Short-toed Lark

Tawny Pipit

Corn Bunting

Short-toed Lark

The Theklas proved harder to photograph this time, the only half decent pictures obtained on the single grey morning we encountered. 

Thekla Lark

The other speciality of the rocky landscape of Punta Nati is the Blue Rock Thrush, a species which like most members of the thrush family is generally shy. Here’s a somewhat distant picture of a male and female together. The Blue Rock Thrush is fairly common but not always easily seen in Menorca.

Blue Rock Thrush

Egyptian Vultures are usually about and it was here that on our second and sunny visit I came across an adult bird taking off from a rocky field and heading south, gaining height as it did so. The usual views of Egyptian Vultures consist of birds soaring over the Menorcan landscape at great height, where their almost 6ft wingspan makes them unmistakeable, even from some distance away. 

Egyptian Vulture

Egyptian Vulture

Egyptian Vulture

The Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus), also called the white scavenger vulture or pharaoh's chicken, is a small Old World vulture and the only member of the genus Neophron. The use of the vulture as a symbol of royalty in Egyptian culture and their protection by Pharaonic law made the species common on the streets of Egypt and gave rise to the name "pharaoh's chicken". 

Egyptian Vultures feed mainly on carrion but are opportunistic and will prey on small mammals, birds, and reptiles. They also feed on the eggs of other birds, breaking larger ones by tossing a large pebble onto them. The use of tools is rare in birds and apart from the use of a pebble as a hammer, Egyptian Vultures also use twigs to roll up wool for use in their nest. Populations of this species have declined in the 20th century and some isolated island populations e.g The Canary Islands and Menorca, are endangered by hunting, accidental poisoning, and collision with power lines. 

On our sunny visit to Punta Nati we clocked up Kestrel, Red Kite, Booted Eagle, Peregrine plus a good number of Whinchats and Wheatears. We didn’t see the Stone Curlew here this year which does occur around Punta Nati, but a shy species which is not easily spotted amongst the grey rocky landscape. However we did manage to see two at Tirant on another day and another story. 

It’s the trade-off for a morning’s birding at Punta Nati, a stop off in Cutadella, Menorca’s second but far from second-rate city. Here are a few pictures which give a flavour of this most picturesque, historic, vibrant and wonderfully authentic Spanish city. 

The cathedral Ciutadella

Cafe Culture - Menorca

The fish market - Ciutadella

Market Square - Ciutadella

Coffee time in Ciutadella

Photography Exhibition - Ciutadella

The Harbour - Ciutadella

Placa Des Born - Ciutadella

 

Another Coffee Stop - Ciutadella

We called into one of our favourite shops where the Jamóns are displayed along the shelves and where Menorcan quesos lie slowly maturing.  Jamón ibérico or "Iberian ham", also called pata negra is a type of cured ham produced in Spain. Meanwhile the Menorcan countryside is dotted with farms which sell home-made speciality cheeses. The aromas created by these and other delicacies in delicatessens are simply heavenly making it impossible to leave such a shop without indulging in one or two samples. 

Menorcan Cheese - Ciutadella

Jamóns - Ciutadella

More from home and away soon on Another Bird Blog.