My companions were Sean, from the forum, well known UK birder and orchid expert, Sean had a number of much wanted bird and orchid ticks on both islands, and Trev, not a herper, just a keen photographer and by keen I mean Nikon Professional card holder..(but I don’t hold that against him) he just wanted to take pictures of everything.. Trevs travelling camera kit is about 22000 euro..its great kit, but it takes him so long to set up for a pic, he often misses the shot, which stresses him out beyond belief and makes Sean and myself laugh like drains..
Sean arrived at my place on Saturday.. he is Northern, so once he had adjusted to clean air, electricity and indoor toilets, I took him herping close to my house..the weather, as usual for this time of year in Blighty was not herp friendly, but with perseverance and luck, we manage to see berus, bufo, vulgaris, helveticus and fragilis.. a good start..
We returned to my place, beers, curry and an early night was in order as we were up at sparrows the next day. After an 04:00 start, a quick goodbye to my long suffering girl friend and an easyjet flight (coffee and a twix only 6.50 euro, where’s the profit?) by lunchtime we were in sunny..yes sunny.. Corsica.. Sean had seen a number of orchid species before even leaving the airport.
We picked up the hire car, and Sean drove to our first location, a dune area where Sean hoped to see an extremely rare orchid. We parked up and on leaving the car, immediately heard the wonderful sound of calling frogs.. I investigated the noise while Sean went orchid hunting.. a small man made pond contained several stunning frogs.. as I approached I flushed a small snake, the brief view I saw looked like natrix, but I could not get a pic.. behind the pond was a marshy area and a stream, alive with more frogs.
Watching the frogs for a while I noticed my number one odonata target for the trip, the Island blue tail.. a cracking start to the trip.
We tried in vain to find the orchid, seeing lots of wall lizards in the process..
However it started to dawn on us that the GPS was a bit unpredictable.. it was jumping from coordinate to coordinate and appeared to be off by some hundreds of meters.. it did not bode well for the rest of the trip..
After some hours we headed off to find somewhere to sleep for the night.. I must admit given the combined age.. and incomes of the group, we decided to stay in reasonably pleasant accommodation, as opposed to the usual, more economical places of previous trips. On route we stopped to check out a lovely hotel, which had a small ornamental pond in its grounds..here we saw our first hyla and painted frog of the trip.
We headed off to other sites, and just before dark we stopped at a cascade across the road, a few miles from our chosen accommodation for the evening, Sean wondered off up hill and after a few minutes called me and Trev to say he had found a funny tadpole.. I arrived at the pool to see the eft of a Corsican brook newt.. bless him, he can Identify just about any European bird by song or a flash of colour between bushes, or separate cryptic orchid species by petal length.. but faced with some black blob of a neonate amphib..bloody useless..we had a good chuckle at Seans expense and where well pleased with another trip tick.. and so to bed.
After a pleasant sleep and breakfast we set of to visit some other sites, at a beautiful gorge site, Trevor and myself looked for the Corsican Fire salamander whilst Sean went of in search of his most wanted tick for the trip.. the Corsican nuthatch.. a rather drab brown bird.. nowhere near as exciting as the rather drab brown Corsican brook newt. Trev and I found large numbers of juvenile Corsican fire salamander but sadly no adults, as well as painted frogs.. and again we flushed a small snake..
Sadly Sean did not find his nuthatch.. so we headed off to another site higher up in the hills. After much searching and use off audio technology we found the nuthatch.. Sean was extremely excited.. I don’t know what the fuss was about.. at the site I idly turned over bark in a damp area, not expecting to find much, and I was amazed to find an adult Corsican brook newt.. now I was extremely excited.. I followed the tiny stream up hill and found two more in the heavily vegetated, shallow pools.
Sean found Archaeolacerta bedriagae on a rocky outcrop, so all in all, a worthwhile stop.. A final stop for the day produced more wall lizards, and another Corsican painted frog.
We got up early and headed to a final site in Corsica, nothing much presented itself save for a painted frog..we dropped off the hire car at the airport and got a taxi to the ferry.. now I know I have slagged off Jurgens, grand theft auto style of driving in the past, but our taxi driver made Jurgens driving look like Miss Marples.. shaken and stirred we arrived at the ferry, to find out that there was not another ferry for three hours.. I bravely volunteered to watch over the kit, whilst Sean and Trev went lizard hunting in the surrounding area.. to the untrained eye I may have looked like I was dozing, post beer.. however I was like a coiled spring..probably.. Finally we caught the ferry and watched by Corys shearwaters we crossed to Sardinia..
To be continued..
