To the taverna in Tinos

One week with my family on the island of Tinos in the northern Cyclades, Greece.

We stayed at our friend Martine's beautiful house on the south coast.

The walk to the beach may take only 10 minutes for a German naturist, but it can take a few hours for the English naturalist - for there is much wildlife to be seen.

Tinos is not a fishing island, and lacks the coastal villages you might expect. In the past it was heavily farmed, though has long since ceased, and there still remain on the hills the stone wall terraces and the walkways connecting the villages.

Walking here you will see many Starred Agama (Stellagama stellio), 30 cm of spiny dragon, sitting on top of the walls and bobbing their heads up and down in mating display.

The wall lizard niche is filled here by Erhard's Wall Lizard (Podarcis erhardii).

Kotschy's Gecko (Cyrtodactylus kotschyi) can be spotted when moving around the entrance of its lair, but is incredibly difficult to see when resting on a wall.

Scattered among the terraces are elaborate dovecotes. The Venetians introduced pigeon breeding to the island, and they were subsequently used for meat and fertilizer production.

Walking through the terraces disturbs the ant-lion, Palpares libelluloides, which flies to a nearby plant from which to hang.

Libelluloides means dragonfly-like. A picture taken from the web shows what magnificent dragonflies they make when their wings are open.

Another web picture shoes the larva, which digs out a cone in sandy soil and waits at the bottom to eat any insects (such as ants) that fall in.

Bees and wasps make a living on the tough drought-resistant plants.

This, I guess, is a Digger Wasp (Sphecidae). The females paralyze other insects with their stings, then put them in a burrow and lay their eggs on them. Fresh meat for the hatched larvae!

Flies have an image problem. This March Fly (Bibionidae) could have been the model for Darth Vader...

...and Robber Flies (Asilidae) have a look to match the name - with a nasty habit of catching other insects in the air and sucking them dry.

But who could resist the fluffy Bombylius Bee-flies that dart from flower to flower to hang and feed like humming birds?

And although these other bee-flies (probably Exoprosopa) are not cute, ugly sex creates divine symmetry.

Arriving at the beach at last. But before a swim and a sundowner in the taverna, a search on the sand. A stunning Bembix Digger (Sand) Wasp is making her burrow, to stock with paralyzed flies before laying her eggs.

And, to end the day, in the long shadows of the setting sun I spy a female Eresus Ladybird Spider walking towards the sea. I know not why she was doing this - they live underground in silk burrows. The male Ladybird Spider is less than half the size of the female, and has a bright red abdomen with black spots - thus the name.

Camino comida e comédia

Each year, for six years, 100 km of the Camino de Santiago in three days. I have missed only one. Last week, the stretch from Tomar to Coimbra in Portugal - accompanied by the cream of England, Ireland, Wales, Spain and Chile.

I took some time in Braga to sketch the Cathedral.

Rainbow rising

It's that time of the year - when summer storms gather, and rainbows rise to celebrate Chelsea finishing top of the English Football League.

Cherry Ripe

The month of May starts here with snow and sub-zero temperatures. I will not be eating cherries from the tree on my terrace this year. I hear 80% of the local cherry production will be lost.

Beetlemania

Walking in the local park the other day when I saw this at my feet. A longhorn beetle, Saperda scalaris.

Peacock pigments

Stayed Easter weekend on Isola Superiore in Lago Maggiore, Italy. Day tripper hell, but peaceful dinner and breakfast in that wonderful time when the boats have stopped running. A visit to a neighbouring island, Isola Madre, produced a group of white peacocks - displaying frantically. Albinos, I hear you cry! But no. Abinism is a loss of melanin, so even the eyes have no pigment. This is Leucism: a loss of pigments specifically in the skin, hair or feathers. The eyes remain coloured. I used to have a partially leucistic crow hanging around my garden. Partial leucism is known as 'pied' - which comes from Magpie.

Also in monochrome, my quick sketch of Pallanza on the mainland opposite.

Corsica

Corsica island, the first week of April. Islands are 'speciation machines', where populations evolve in isolation from the mainland to become distinct species. We came in search of these unique species - and populations that may be on their way to becoming species.

Spring is still young. We drive into the central mountain range, where the snow has melted except on the high peaks. Here unique bird populations are isolated in the forests of Corsican Pine (Pinus nigra laricio), which provides seeds for food.

First stop Col de Sorba, a birding 'hot spot'. Here we find the only species endemic to Corsica: the Corsican Nuthatch (Sitta whiteheadi), named after the Victorian naturalist and explorer John Whitehead (who discovered it in 1883 - having just shot one). It is smaller and rounder than the common European species S. europaea. The males have a diagnostic stripe on the crown of the head - in common with its closer relatives Krüper's Nuthatch (S. krueperi) and Algerian Nuthatch (S. ledanti), which are found in Turkey and Algeria respectively.

Also at the Col: Corsican Finch, Carduelis corsicana, an island species restricted to Corsica and Sardinia. It used to be considered a sub-species of the Citril Finch (C. citrinella), which is found mainly in the Alps and Pyrenees, but differs from this by having a brighter yellow breast and a streaked brown back.

But when is a species a species rather than a sub-species? Well, to be a separate species an island population should not be able to successfully interbreed with a mainland population - but this is academic as they do not meet. So a judgement is made based on differences in the way they look or, with new technology, differences in their DNA. But maybe the song is more important - after all this is how birds court each other to mate. The Corsican Nuthatch and Corsican Finch certainly have unique songs.

Flitting around among the Corsican Nuthatches were other tree climbers, searching for insects. Great Spotted Woodpeckers are smaller, thinner billed and with darker underparts the further south in Europe they are. Corsican populations are regarded as a distinct sub-species: Dendrocopus major parroti. You can see that this one has reddish tints on the throat and breast.

The Eurasian Treecreeper on Corsica, Certhia familiaris corsa, is also regarded as a separate subspecies from the mainland C. f. macrodactyla - with more contrasted upperparts and buff-tinged underparts (which may be seen here between the legs and the tail - unless it's a shadow).

A bird with a bill specially evolved for seed eating, and a member of the Finch family, is the Red Crossbill (Loxia curvirostra). (Loxia comes from the Ancient Greek loxos, meaning 'crosswise', and curvirostra is Latin for 'curved bill'). The Crossbill on Corsica is also regarded as a separate sub-species, L. c. corsicana. The literature says that it has a stronger bill, with a 'less decurved upper mandible', which may be an adaptation to the thin-scaled cones of the Corsican Pine. Maybe more importantly, its call is distinct from other Mediterranean Crossbills.

After Col de Sorba we explored other highland areas. The Winter Wren Troglodytes troglodytes shows a lot of variation in plumage over its distribution, with around 27 sub-species - three in Scotland alone. T. t. koenigi is confined to Corsica and Sardinia. I searched for it in vain for a couple of days, until I followed a hunch to investigate a patch of shrub on the shaded side of a valley - and there I could hear them scuttling like mice in the undergrowth (Troglodytes comes from the ancient Greek 'trogle', hole, and 'dyein', to creep). Then up they popped for a photo.

The Coal Tit (Parus ater) varies in plumage colour over its range - changing from greys to browns to yellows - but always with a black head and bib (ater is Latin for dull-black). P. a. sardus is restricted to Corsica and Sardinia.

Other species of Tit vary in plumage over Europe. Long-tailed Tits (Aegithalos caudatus) vary from having all white heads in northern Europe, to black banded heads in the south (as the sub-species on Corsica, A. c. irbii, which also occurs in Spain for some reason).

Variation in plumage in the Great Tit is more subtle. The sub-species Parus major corsus is also found in Spain in addition to Corsica. Yet for some reason Sardinia has its own sub-species P. m. ecki...

...whereas the Blue Tit sub-species Cyanistes caeruleus ogliastrae is found in Corsica and Sardinia as well as Spain.

There are also two sub-species of finches on the Tyrrhenian Islands, though what their characteristics are eludes me. They are the Greenfinch chloris madaraszi...

...and the Goldfinch, Carduelis carduelis ischusii.

Some regard the Chaffinch on Corsica as a distinct sub-species, Fringulla coelebs tyrrhenica, but not the IOU (International Ornithologist's Union) - and I follow their word.

We saw many Jays of the Corsican sub-species, Garrulus glandarius corsicanus, but surprisingly did not get a shot of such a big bird as they were nervous and skulky in the trees. We also saw Tyrrhenian Island rapture sub-species of Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus wolterstorffi) and Buzzard (Buteo buteo pojana).

If you come from Central Europe, even the species of common birds on Corsica are not the common species. The Sparrow is the Italian Sparrow (Passer italiae), unsurprisingly confined to Italy and its islands, The brown head of the males easily distinguishes them from the House Sparrow.

And here the Crows are Hooded (Corvus cornix)...

...and the Starlings Spotless (Sturnus unicolor).

But spare a thought for the poor Cirl Bunting (Emberiza cirlus), for he has no sub-species at all. Maybe that's why he looks so pissed off.

Two species of lizard (both Small Lacertas) are restricted to the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. We saw only one, but in abundance: Tyrrhenian Wall Lizard (Podarcis tiliguerta), a male here sunbathing - on a wall. (Tyrrhenia is the name Greeks and Romans called Etruria, the land of the Etruscans on the mainland, which we now call Tuscany. Corsica lies in the Tyrrhenian Sea).

And to add colour to our days, Green-winged Orchids, Orchis morio (or near relative) in the sun...

...and Cyclamen repandum in the shade of the woods.

But now we must away to the coast, for there are warblers to be seen. Capu Rossu lies midway along the west coast, just west of Piana.

Dense coastal maquis. Perfect for warblers.

There are four resident Sylviid Warblers on Corsica. Blackcap and Sardinian Warbler are found throughout the Meditterranean, and we had no trouble seeing them on the island. But we never expected such amazing views and photographs as we had of the Dartford Warbler (Sylvia undata), a speciality of south-western Europe...

...and the cherry on the cake, Marmora's Warbler (Sylvia sarda) - confined to the Tyrrhenian islands

Soon the migrants will arrive: Spectacled Warbler, Western Orphean Warbler and Moltoni's Warbler. Something to come back for.

A great trip. Time to celebrate with the friendly locals!