Blog Archives: Overseas Tours – other

A jaunt across the North Sea: part 2 – Antwerp

Antwerp: another country, another city, another railway station of architectural wonder, although one of a very different vintage to that we departed from in Rotterdam…

Great food and beer made Antwerp a fine place for three days, surrounded by Flemish architecture, laced with its share of mad baroquery, no doubt reflecting its importance as a world trading port, then as now.

Probably the pinnacle of baroque ornamentation, Onze Lieve cathedral pierced the Swift-laden, scream-filled sky, with Black Redstarts singing from its heights, drowned out only for half-an-hour of carillon tunes at noon.

As with any city, there were green oases. The botanic garden may be small but it is space to escape the relentless shoppers, find interesting plants and a few insects and other creatures too:

Then across (or rather under, through the 500m-long Sint Anna foot-tunnel) the River Scheldt …

… to the grassy parks and marshy fringes, full of the song of Reed and Cetti’s Warblers.

Our second full day in the city was very different: we headed to the port, specifically to the Harbour Authority building, in fact the reason we decided to take this break in the first place. We had glimpsed it tantalizingly on  both the previous days, from the train as we arrived and from the other side of the river, but nothing could have prepared us for its close-up reality.

It is a brave architect who can take one redundant, historic fire station and land a huge glass airship (or is it a boat?) right on top: a magnificent shapeshifter of a building, its glass skin cut like the facets of a diamond, reflecting Antwerp’s position at the centre of the world of diamond trade. Zaha Hadid was one such brave architect, who sadly died just as this remarkable building was completed.

I have spent many hours working in ports and port buildings, and the usual impression is of barbed wire and Keep Out signs. But not here – we just walked up to it, and inside to enjoy coffee looking up at the structure above!

Of course being a port, there were boats, fences, rubble and buildings in different states of repair, all the better for Black Redstarts to thrive…

… with green roofs, each an artwork in their own right with half a dozen or more species of Sedum melded together in a succulent mosaic.

Sown patches of pollinator-friendly plants duly attracted insects, including a Bee Chafer, and various bees (what’s not to love about a Honeybee with a pink-pollen-powdered face?!) …

… plus self-sown brownfield plants and their insects, including  Little-Robin, Hybrid Lucerne and Common Blue butterflies, and (a new one for us) 13-spot Ladybird, a species only recently rediscovered in south-eastern England after apparent extinction for several decades.

Ports have a vitality that reflects their focus on the worlds beyond the horizon. And not surprisingly this includes social history museums like MAS, itself a work of art in the regenerated former docklands. The historic inner ports may now be trading mainly in art, culture and ideas but those are as important as goods in any modern culture.

For our last half day the weather took a turn for the worse, so it was a morning of shopping, followed by a sumptuous beer, mussels, chips and mayonnaise lunch at Bier Central. And the sun came out for a final flourish as we headed back to the station, taking in the area round the Zoo, before heading to Brussels and home by Eurostar. A fantastic trip, and each and every one of our transport links on what turned out to be a holiday weekend on the Continent was dead on time!

 

A jaunt across the North Sea: part 1 – Rotterdam

For our main May minibreak we took the leisurely way out of the country, on a daytime ferry sailing from Harwich to the Hook of Holland. A lovely restful start – ok, we could have done it more quickly but we are fortunate that time is not an issue.

Sliding past the familiar sights of Harwich and Felixstowe, in flat calm conditions, and at first a little warm sunshine, we were on our way….

… but before long, cloud and mist settled around us adding an ethereality to the Roughs Tower and the Greater Gabbard Wind Farm, its giant turbines in stately motion despite the light winds.

Only as we headed past the Maasvlakte container port did the sun re-emerge. From there into port and straight onto the equally restful half-hour metro ride, past lights and onshore turbines.

Disembarking in the middle of Rotterdam, all of that changed. From placid calm to raucous street life in a matter of seconds. It was Saturday evening, a warm one at that, and we were staying in Witte De Withstraat, which we later learned was the ‘liveliest’ street in the city. Quite the contrast!

But just a block or two away down by the docks relative serenity returned, time to eat a great Italian, to appreciate the historic boats alongside new development, including the quirky Cube Houses and the amazing almost-cylindrical Markthal, the inner wall of which is occupied by what is claimed at 11,000 m2 in extent as the largest artwork in the world,  Horn of Plenty by Arno Coenen and Iris Roskam.

At this point, serendipity swept in as Jude recognized the artwork as the self-same pattern as on the shirt I wore when we got married, exactly eight years ago to that very day!

Next morning, early, while the revellers still slept we walked the streets and chanced upon the museum quarter. It was sculpture that drew us close; we then got sucked in by the sound of Egyptian Geese serenading us from every tall building, and competing for soundspace with the equally strident Rose-ringed Parakeets and Great Spotted Woodpeckers.

Here were more remarkable buildings, especially the silvered bowl-shaped Boijmans van Beuningen Museum Depot. Its mirrors present an ever-changing panorama of the city skyline, one we thought at first must be painted on.

Around it there were other museums and galleries …

… all set amid the ecological plantings of the museum gardens …

… which include ponds and marshes, with Water-hawthorn, Water Crowfoot, Spiked Water-milfoil and Sweet Flag in flower …

… and Small China-mark moths and damselflies (Azure and Blue-tailed) together with hundreds of dragonfly exuviae. But no sign of the dragons themselves, apart from later on a Green-eyed Hawker cruising the shopping precinct.

From there it was into the older, landscaped Het Park, now overlooked by the Euromast, and a lovely brunch. Just half a day here meant we could not even start to cover it properly, so we didn’t try. Instead we resolved to return, maybe next year, armed with a Museum Pass to really get to know the area properly – including the enticing roof garden on the Depot.

But time was pressing, so it was through the city centre, past all manner of modern edifices (Rotterdam was flattened by both sides during WW2) to the most remarkable of all, the metallic golden Centraal Station, and from there the hour-long train ride to Antwerp…

Bavaria by train: the way home – Frankfurt & Brussels

There are a few calling points on the ICE trains between Regensburg and Brussels, but we thought for our first trip of this type we would stop over in the largest city, Frankfurt, for a couple of nights. Having travelled down the Rhine then up the Main on the way out, we had already had a snapshot of the riverine views, and once there, the pleasant river walks between lines of hydra-like Plane pollards and cotton-drifting Black Poplars casting some welcome shade gave good views of the economic powerhouse that is the city…

… an urban jungle with canyons of glass and steel which harboured (as expected) Peregrines, along with city-centre-dwelling Buzzards, and surprising densities of House Sparrows, along with hordes of screaming Swifts.

An evening in the ‘old’ city was eye-opening for the attention to detail that has evidently been given to its restoration after the area was flattened during WW2.

And even the cathedral, the red stone and its crisp edges and straight lines the product of its 1950s reconstruction.  Almost a pastiche we thought at first, until we realised this in fact the third church on the site during its venerable 1500 year-old history: nothing stands still, not even buildings.

Then there is the organ, an object of pure architectural beauty, which one imagines will produce sounds to match…

Our day to the north of the city centre in and around the Palmengarten was a hot one! So much so that we were rather pleased one of our intended destinations, the Botanic Garden, was closed (another time maybe…).

Not dissimilar to Kew Gardens, this has  extensive greenhouses coving a whole range of biomes, and a tropical butterfly house.

The outdoor gardens are many and varied, and full of interest to the botanist, even though the labelling  is rather patchy and, sadly, all too often wrong.

One pleasing feature though is the extensive area of long grass, well signposted as being for wildlife (butterflies especially) alongside showier, less naturalistic, but still valuable prairie-style swards.

Around the lakes there were Terrapins, both the native European Pond and North American Red-eared species, while the smaller ornamental pools were full of Edible Frogs, their loud quacking choruses audible from a long range.

What seemed to be lacking, sadly, was insects  not (presumably) as a result of pesticide use, more the weather. But as it warmed up, next door in the Gruneburg Park we found plenty.

Of particular interest were a ladybird Oenopia conglobata , which we have never seen before but is considered as a possible future colonist of the UK, and families of Fieldfares hopping around, something we see only in winter…

… and as seemingly everywhere in both Belgium and Germany, large tracts of recreational grass turned over to nature. What’s more, signposted accordingly!

And so it was back into Brussels, with a clear hour to get in a last Belgian beer in our favourite bar before the Eurostar home!

Bavaria by train: Regensburg and area

The filling in our sandwich holiday was spent in and around Regensburg, a small city we have always loved, sitting at the northernmost reach of the Danube, here some 100m wide, its reinforced banks covered in Rue-leaved Saxifrage.

A World Heritage Site by virtue of its historic buildings, not reconstructed as it was little-bombed during the war, the architecture is very attractive: wherever you are, there are the distinctive open-lattice twin steeples of the cathedral.

Regensburg is also home to one of the very best botanic gardens I have ever seen. In its 4.5 hectares it has taxonomic beds, habitat beds, geographic beds, themed beds and greenhouses, so many interesting plants that it draws me back time and again. It is also impeccably labelled – nowhere else have I failed to find an error!

… and, as Spring turns into Summer, it is a super place to see a range of insects and other invertebrates, apart from butterflies, in common with the UK thus far this year.

 

Two particular insects stood out for us: first, the chafer Valgus hemipterus, which is a southern European species, but one which seems to be on the brink of colonising London, and second, the New Forest Shield-bug, a rarity in the UK restricted to that area and the Isle of Wight. Perhaps it is no coincidence that near to the latter we also found a basking Sand Lizard, a species whose UK heartland is also the New Forest and surrounding heaths.

Away from the historic centre of the city, new developments seem to have been well provided with, or integrated into, nature, with hedges of Fly Honeysuckle and hay meadows with Greater Yellow-rattle, among many other interesting species.

‘No Mow May’, as in Belgium, seems to be taking off as an idea (whether for the ecology or for saving money really isn’t important) but in the small village in which we stayed, there seems to be a clear majority in favour of ‘(over)tidy’. Fortunately my sister is not one of those, and her garden was simply teeming with wildlife.

The Drumming Spider (trying hard to beat a rhythm on a chair) and Rose Chafers were two of the highlights, photos of the latter being a near-casualty when it plunged into the pond, until rescued by Jude. They show two poses, and how the colour can change markedly with the angle of the light.

The pond is an absolute centrepiece to this garden, with all manner of life living in, on and around it, including both Smooth and Alpine Newts which didn’t want to be photographed.

Walking around the village was a sheer delight, especially when the weather eventually warmed up …

… while the surrounding Beech woods were home to Black Woodpeckers, Bird’s-nest Orchids and Hepatica…

… with clearings home to Burning Bush, Bastard Balm and Columbine,  plus Orange Tips and a whole load of other insects.

The whole region has limestone underfoot, and even in the village bounds there are fragments of species-rich limestone grassland, with a huge diversity of plants and invertebrates alike:

But away from the settlements the limestone grassland is even more extensive, and richer, with Swallowtails and Common Blues, Yellowhammers and Skylarks, Burnt and Green-winged Orchids, Spring Gentians and Pasqueflowers, Juniper scrub,  many other plants and insects ….

… and the undoubted natural highlight of our entire trip, a male Ladybird Spider, an almost-heart stopping sighting, in what is one of very few few localities in the whole of the country. Indeed, just as in Britain, this is a Red Data species in Germany, and although we didn’t know it at the time, we stumbled upon it in its main remaining locality. And on our wedding anniversary too!

 

 

Bavaria by train: the way there – Brussels & Cologne

Just before the pandemic, we had our first long-distance overseas train holiday of more than a couple of days, to Switzerland. The success of that, together with the delight of clear blue, unsullied skies during Covid, made us resolve to continue with the 6% club as our preferred mode of travel, and so for our return to Europe, we spent 10 days visiting family in Bavaria travelling by train.

The great thing about train travel, apart for the lower emissions, is that you can see the landscape slipping by and change as you get further from home, and that you can extend your holiday by exploring intermediate destinations. For us, heading out, that involved Brussels. Just a couple of hours out of St Pancras we were living the life, eating moules frites and drinking Belgian beers under blue skies (which sadly largely disappeared for the next few days behind the grey cloud we have become used to at home this Spring).

Over the next couple of days we got to know the city well: the architecture, from the extravagances of the Baroque to the naturalistic curves of Art Nouveau to the edges and reflections of modern times…

… the monumental art …

…. to the street art, of all kinds.

And of course, even on the mean street of Brussels there was wildlife, from the mini-forests of moss sporophytes atop the walls, to the Black Redstarts in crackling song from many a rooftop, and the (unsprayed!) planting pockets for boulevard trees extensively colonised by Little Robin (rare in the UK) and other delightful pavement plants.

There was also more formal greenspace and there the noisy battalions of Monk Parakeets, seemingly more keen on feeding on the ground than the Rose-ringed Parakeets we are more familiar with in London and elsewhere, together with (wherever there were Lime trees) the ubiquitous Firebugs.

Next day we explored further, taking the Metro out to the Atomium, the wonderful Modernist structure built as the centrepiece of the 1958 Expo (and actually designed to be standing for only six months!). It still feels futuristic now, so its impact 65 years ago is unimaginable… Wherever you have a view of the skyline, throughout the city, the Atomium is there.

It is sited on the edge of a vast royal park, much of which has open access, around the lakes, grasslands and through the extensive Beech woods, where the flowers were pretty much as in British equivalents, with the addition of Yellow Strawberry.

Statues, monuments and a magnificent avenue of Copper Beeches that casted an almost autumnal light were all indiciations of past and present human use, but the pair of Goshawks displaying high overhead clearly don’t mind!

As with the flowers, invertebrates were mainly those we might expect to see in a London park (including a range of ladybirds and Beech Woolly Aphid), with the exception of the huge Roman Snail.

An excellent couple of days, in a city we would like to see more of, in a country we would love to eat more of the food of and drink more of the beer of! From a nature perspective, it was good to see the apparent steps towards sustainability, from the spray-free street tree planting pockets, to the swathes of longer grass in the greenspaces with wildlife-friendly native and non-native plants allowed to flower, and the mini-wildlife sites in the heart of the city proudly labelled as parts of the Nature Network. On top of that, while we were there it was Eurovision, and in a commercial break on Belgian TV, a prime-time ad for their equivalent of No Mow May!

 

And so, after a fun-filled couple of days, and with rain in the forecast and the cold north-easterlies re-establishing, it was back on the train and heading to Bavaria, with just a couple of hours in Cologne to stretch the legs and have breakfast, and wonder anew (see here for our last trip there) at the vast, scary monster, the apogee of gothickry, that is Cologne Cathedral…

The Swiss Alps by train: joining the 6% club

At the very end of August, we made our first trip to Switzerland, and had our first taste of long-haul rail travel. The rail experience was superb, each train on the journey there and back on time, to the minute, clean and comfortable, as we watched the landscapes of France slip by. And in the Alps, the local trains and cable cars getting us to high altitude with ease, again on time, regular and with exemplary integrated public transport information, on train and station. We are now proud to be part of the 6% club, as compared with the carbon cost of flying.

The journey down was broken in Strasbourg, two half-days to explore the abundant historic delights of La Petite France, the Gothic Cathedral (the fourth-tallest church in the world) and the Rhine-side wildlife. One abundant feature of the attractive floral displays was the Brown Marmorated Stink-bug Halyomorpha halys, new to us, and new to Europe as recently as 1998 when it arrived from the Far East on roof tiles imported for repairs to the Chinese Garden in Zürich. One to watch this, as it is starting to be found in pest proportions on fruit and vegetable crops, both in Europe and North America.

Another non-native insect was Isodontia mexicana, a North American wasp which is now established in Southern Europe, and seemingly at home – last year I even saw it apparently migrating south through the French Pyrenean valleys in September.

And so to Switzerland and the Bernese Oberland, a place of stunning mountain scenery. We were staying in the delightfully traffic-free village of Wengen, overlooked by the Jungfrau massif, from where we had easy access to the higher ground by train and cable car. The alpine meadows around 1200m were blooming again after the first hay cut, with Knapweeds and Willow Gentian, Masterwort and Yellow-rattle, Eyebright and Purple Lettuce, among many others.

 

In perfect weather and a landscape relatively unscathed by agricultural poisons, insects abounded. Butterflies included several Fritillaries, Marbled White and Sooty Copper, among a whole host of other moths, bees, flies, beetles and bugs.

The timing of our trip was deliberate, to visit when the snow cover was the least and hopefully find some of the botanical specialities at high altitude. Highest of all, Jungfraujoch – ‘the Top of Europe’ – at 3454m was almost above vegetation, though the few areas clear of snow had tussocks of hardy flowering grasses. And very little else, aside from begging Alpine Choughs and magnificent views, at least when the clouds parted. Magnificent, albeit worrying to learn that the glaciers are only a shadow of their former selves, melting as a result of climate breakdown.

500m lower down, the summit of the Schilthorn was substantially snow-free, and high alpine flowers were on show, their relatively large flowers (to attract the limited number of pollinators at those altitudes) springing from cushions and mats of rock-hugging foliage.

Again the food-beggars were out, here a Snow Finch, but sadly no Ibex to be seen, although a group of Chamois as we headed back down was some compensation.

The Männlichen cable car from Wengen took us to 2300m, a ridge-top with Snow and Field Gentians, Monkshoods and Grass-of-Parnassus. A Stoat flushed a fledgling Alpine Accentor, and it was here we saw our only Golden Eagle: this part of the Alps is sadly lacking in large predators and vultures.

 

Of course, plants on extensive mountains can be difficult (or dangerous) to search out, so the Alpine botanic garden of Schynige Platte was a final day treat, at the top of an incredibly scenic cog railway, slow and expensive but absolutely worth it. Surely this is the most picturesque botanic garden in the world, with an unsurpassed collection of Swiss native alpine flowers.

As always, the flowers were only a part of the natural festival: Slender Scotch Burnet, Damon Blue, Dusky Grizzled Skipper and Painted Ladies were visiting the blooms, and Common and Green Mountain Grasshoppers and Wartbiters abounded in the flower beds. Presumed migrant Tree Pipits passed overhead, the wader-like piping of Alpine Marmots drifted from the more distant rocky slopes.

  

All the above, and much, much more. As always, a blog like this can only touch upon the absolute highlights of a week, and then only those that fit easily into the overall narrative. But there was so much more: take the the weeping brackets of Fomitopsis pinicola (a phenomenon known as guttation)

…on a similar theme, a Noon-fly blowing bubbles…

…and on one memorable morning, swarms of unidentified insects in scintillating masses appended to seemingly every tree top…

…the awesome power of the Trummelbach Falls, both over and underground, but impossible to fully capture visually…

…and simply stunning scenery in every direction. And while expensive, as expected, it didn’t cost the Earth too much.

Spring in the Camargue

My second Honeyguide trip of the year, and for the second time I was treated to a new destination: the Camargue, between Montpellier and Marseilles in southern France. Formed in the delta of the Rhône, it is a huge wetland, renowned throughout Europe for its wildlife, cultural landscapes and rural industries, especially salt-making and rice-growing.

Although far from complete, as a result of drainage, the wetlands comprise a complex of rice fields, lagoons, reedbeds, Tamarisk hedges, salt pans and marshes, each with is own distinct wildlife, reflecting both land-use and salinity. Many waters were bird-free; others had gulls, Black-headed or Mediterranean, but not often together; especially towards the sea, terns came to prominence, with a few northbound waders; and just a few ducks – Mallards, Shelducks and Red-crested Pochards. But it was outstanding for the most upstanding birds, the long-legged waders, herons, egrets, ibises, storks and of course Greater Flamingos, which along with white horses are the iconic sights of the Camargue.

This meant some searching by minibus to get among the birds, but that was welcome during the first half of the week, when it was unseasonably cold, windy and wet. At such times. visitor centres came in useful as well, often associated with excellent reserves. La Capelière  was a wonderful mosaic of most Camarguais habitats, all accessible by boardwalk: centrepiece of the reserve was a hide overlooking a breeding colony of Black-winged Stilts, watching and being watched by a Coypu, with European Pond Terrapins in the ditches and a Stripeless Tree-frog on a viewing platform, highly appropriate as it lends its name to the trail: ‘Le Sentier des Rainettes’.

Scamandre reserve was similarly well-provisioned, all the better to enjoy the airport-style procession of Glossy Ibises, Great, Little and Cattle Egrets, Grey, Purple and Night Herons overhead, and watch the fearless Squacco Herons feeding in the shallows. This site should have been superb for Odonata, especially as we visited in warm, calm weather, but only three species was a strong indication of what seemed to be a late spring.

Some other highlights included a couple of beds of Iris spuria among the ubiquitous Yellow Flags; Aristolochia rotunda in almost malevolent flower,  being demolished by Southern Festoon caterpillars;  a small lagoon with all three species of marsh tern – many Whiskered, several White-winged Black and a few Black Terns; and legions of Common Swifts in the skies overhead. Presumably (hopefully, given their sparse arrival back home) they were still on their way north, and indeed numbers were much lower by the end of the week.

One final sight of note came without much wildlife at all. The industrial salt-pans around Salin-de-Giraud presented a dramatic abiotic landscape, white mountains of salt standing proud from the pink lagoons, hypersaline waters shot through with the essence of flamingo.

Just to the east of the Rhone lay another different world. La Crau is a cobbly steppe area, the Alpine outwash plain of the River Durance before its course was diverted during the Ice Age. Flat, stony and grassy, ideal for a range of steppe birds – Roller, Lesser Kestrel, Stone-curlew, Calandra Lark and Pin-tailed Sandgrouse – although the intense heat-haze made viewing difficult.

Turning our sights inland, we visited the magnificent Pont du Gard, a Roman aqueduct across the River Gardon. A ‘must see’ despite its popularity, tourism being catered for relatively tastefully, and it is surrounded by wildlife, from Common Redstarts singing in the trees, to Rock Sparrow and Common Wall-lizard on the bridge itself.

No so for our other inland destination, Les Baux: historic maybe, but crowded, noisy and dusty, crammed with every sort of shop one could never want, a tourist tat-trap. Not surprisingly, Alpine Swifts from the viewpoint were just about all there was to see…

Fortunately, the village is set within Les Alpilles, so we had preceded the tourism terrors with a lovely ramble through the limestone hills, ablaze with colour – vivid blue Beautiful Flax and Blue Aphyllanthes; yellow and white Rock-roses; crinkled pink Cistus albidus….

… and where there are flowers, so there were insects, including a range of stunning jewel-beetles ….

.. and where there were insects, so there were predators, spiders lurking at every turn. Watchful jumping spiders waiting to pounce…

Crab spiders ambushing the unsuspecting pollinators of ‘their’ flowers. Time and again, the sight of an uncommonly still bee or fly dangling from a flower on closer inspection proved to be in the jaws of its nemesis.

And in a Gothic flourish of sex and death, the sight of a tiny male Thomisus onustus precariously mounting a much larger female while she was otherwise occupied in dealing with a paralysed bumblebee was for me one of the sights of the week!

A fully detailed illustrated report with lists will be found on the Honeyguide website in a few weeks. In the meantime, just a random selection of additional photos of some of the bugs and beasties and more of a wildlife-filled week.

And here is the link to the report!

 

In the foothills of the Atlas: Southern Morocco

My first experience of southern Morocco, indeed of North Africa, last week was a hot one: several days peaked at 30°C, some 10 degrees hotter than expected for mid-March, and just one cloud in the sky, on one day only!

Our Honeyguide/N&S Wildlife & Walking tour there came after some 18 months without meaningful rain, and the drought is beginning to take its toll on the landscape. At a time when the rolling foothills of the Atlas Mountains should be ablaze with a colourful array of wild flowers, from spring bulbs to poppies and other annuals,  it was a scene of parched aridity, the bones of the land clearly visible through its hide. Almost the only green came from deep-rooted Argan trees, so important to the local economy, naturally studded evenly across the stony plateaus and slopes in an attempt to make best use of what rainfall or condensation comes their way.

In contrast, the grounds of our hotel, the wonderful Atlas Kasbah Eco-lodge, were remarkably lush and productive, the source of most our food for the week, watered by our own efforts, as translated through the biofiltration water purification plant, complete with its thriving population of Saharan Marsh Frogs!

Although quiet in the midday heat, the gardens came alive at night, trilling Tree Crickets at every turn, mingling with wailing Stone Curlews, occasional Red-necked Nightjars and the wild yelperings of a family of (presumed) Ruppell’s Foxes from further afield. At dawn and dusk, Common Bulbuls gave liquid body to the soundscape, the repetitive song more structured but of a similar fluty tone to their conversational burbles throughout the day.

Other unfamiliar birds in the garden included a couple of pairs of Moussier’s Redstart, House Buntings all over the buildings, and the occasional pair of Laughing Doves, which all underline the significance of the Mediterranean as a barrier, at least to non-migratory species.

  

In and around the garden were a number of attractive native flowers, like Catananche arenaria (a Cupid’s-dart), the endemic knapweed-like Volutaria maroccana, and the sticky Large Yellow Rest-harrow.

  

Garden invertebrates included Long-tailed and Lang’s Short-tailed Blues, Brimstone and Cleopatra, Cage-web Spiders in their 3D webs, and most dramatically, Orange-headed Mammoth-wasps Megascolia bidens, always creating a stir when one appeared, and a mating pair of African Nine-spotted Moths Amata alicia.

 

Over the week, we visited a number of sites, all within an hour of so of home, and many much closer, such as the gorge at the head of our valley, home to Black Wheatears and Barbary Ground-squirrels.

 

Oleander was flowering profusely in the dry riverbeds, always with thriving populations of the Oleander Seedbug Caenocoris nerii, at all stages of development from egg to adult. Few creatures can withstand the toxic chemical armoury of Oleander, but these bugs can, and presumably (from their warning coloration) sequester the poisons for their own defences.

     

Just outside the gorge were our best reptiles of the week, Bibron’s Agama and Algerian Skink, the first a mini-dragon and the second a cylindrical ‘snake with legs’ that seemed to have been eating tomato ketchup. Messily!

The coast north of Agadir gave us one of the rarest of birds, Northern Bald Ibis. Although access to the famous breeding site at Tamri was not permitted for fear of disturbance, the warden (whose role is part-funded by Honeyguide conservation contributions from this holiday) was happy to show us to a vantage point away from the breeding cliffs which gave us excellent flight views. And that has to be when these admittedly rather ugly birds look their best! In fact we witnessed a single flight of some 75 birds, about one third of the local population, more than a tenth of the entire Moroccan population (which forms the vast bulk of the world population) in just one flock, wheeling across the desert-like perched sand dunes.

Also skittering around the sandy and stony ground, no doubt trying to avoid the attention of hungry Ibises were several examples of the Moroccan Fringe-toed Lizard Acanthodactylus margaritae, a species described as recently as 2017, and found only in the stretch of Atlas coast from here to a few kilometres south of Agadir.

A little to the south, around Cap Rhir, our attention turned to a habitat that is as rare, if not rarer, than the Ibis on a world scale: Macaronesian Euphorbia scrub, known only from the southern coast of Morocco, and some of the mid-Atlantic islands, and everywhere threatened by tourism infrastructure and over-development. It is dominated by a series of succulent plants, particularly the cactus-like Euphorbia officinarum, the tree-spurge-like Euphorbia regis-jubae, a succulent groundsel Kleinia anteuphorbia, its ‘dandelion-clock’ seed heads revealing its family affiliations.

Succulence is a growth form that provides some resilience against drought conditions, the fleshy stems acting as a reservoir to store water when it is available, and the spines, latex and other poisons prevent the stored water being available as a convenient source for any passing browser. Other ways of tackling the same problem were shown by Sea-heaths (here Frankenia thymifolia), with very hairy leaves in a cushion-like growth, to simply having no leaves, just living as a photosynthetic roll of barbed wire, like Launaea arborescens.

Inland from here, penetrating the westernmost outpost of the High Atlas, we visited Paradise Valley….which didn’t really live up to its name: great scenery, yes, but with added, major, noisy, dusty road improvement works, the ever-present scourge of plastic litter, and precious little water in the river, even by the oasis and its Date Palm grove.

But we persevered, and watched Grey Wagtails by the river with basking Sahara Pond Terrapins, along with a pair of Bonelli’s Eagles overhead, Two-tailed Pasha and Moroccan Orange-tip butterflies (the latter of the southern Moroccan form androgyne, with reduced underwing markings), and several interesting plants, including Hypericum aegyptiacum, Trachelium caeruleum (Throatwort), and the subtly beautiful borage relative Trichodesma calcaratum.

 

South of Agadir, we spent time at both ends of the Souss-Massa National Park. The south end, relatively quiet, along the Massa River produced Bee-eaters in abundance, their jewel-like properties if anything enhanced by the shimmering heat-haze, Plain Tiger butterfly and Nosed Grasshopper, lots of the pink-flowered Fagonia cretica, and two species of Mesembryanthemum.

  

And two very exciting parasitic plants: Striga gesnerioides on Euphorbia, and the remarkable, phallic Red Dog-turd Cynomorium coccineum, sprouting fungus-like from the ground amongst the Shrubby Sea-blite, its presumed host.

At the northern end, near the mouth of the Souss, despite Sunday afternoon disturbance, we found our largest concentration of water birds, including an array of waders, bound for northern shores, Sandwich Terns, maroccanus form Cormorants, a feeding Spoonbill, and then at the last gasp as we headed away, some 80 Greater Flamingos.

So despite the sometimes challenging conditions, we managed to find plenty of interesting and unfamiliar wildlife, helped along by the wonderful hospitality and food at the Atlas Kasbah and the unfailingly friendly Berber locals. Indeed one of the high points of the trip was a walk through the nearby village of Elmaasa. We soon attracted a gaggle of village children who then walked with us, scurrying off every so often to find a new flower for us to show the group. And we reciprocated with beetles, specifically the large, lumbering darkling beetle Pimelia chrysomeloides. The smaller girls initially shrank away from handling it, but when first one of the braver boys and then one of the older girls took their cue from us and the young ones started to follow suit, we felt we might just have left a little bit of Honeyguide stardust behind us….

Nature and Culture in Cologne

Why Cologne? Well, the first reason for our trip there was a concert of Russian music at the superb modern concert hall, but it was too good an opportunity to miss to make it a short break by train, and explore an unknown city. First stop of course was the monumentally magnificent cathedral: surely the apogee of gothicry?! Terrifying but inspiring in equal measure, and some lovely modern glass touches.

But as always we also sought out the green spaces, the refuges from the bustle and air quality of the city. One such was the Botanical Garden, five hectares of tranquillity, a short distance from the city centre. Interesting plantings – some formal, some less so, although never over-tidy – and some exciting plants, both native and ornamental kept us occupied for half a day. It could have been much longer!

Labelling was comprehensive, and largely accurate (a bête-noire of every botanist), and the maintenance is clearly based on good ecological and environmental principles: Rabbits grazing the lawns, and holes in the Hostas speak volumes! As did the Red Squirrels, noisy Marsh Frogs, dragonflies and a whole host of other insects….

Best of all, it was free, and clearly well-used and well-loved, by locals and visitors alike. Just as it should be. Just as anything which supports civilised thinking and behaviour in an uncertain world should be. Well done Cologne!

And then was the municipal Melaten cemetery, a little further out, more than 40 hectares and 55,000 graves, set amongst old mixed woodland. Again, the site is tended, but not in a precious manner: it is as much nature reserve and country park as last resting place. Buzzards were breeding in the treetops, while the diversity of insects – a mix of familiar and unknown to us – again kept us occupied for several hours….

Every city has places like these. Every city-dweller needs places like these, the source of physical and mental well-being as well as refuge for the wildlife itself from the rigours of modern countryside management and overdevelopment. Thank you Cologne for providing such places free of charge, which taken together with the music, architecture, food and beer we sampled, made it a perfect city break.

 

 

Late autumn in West Cork: the calm after the storms

Nowhere are you more at the mercy of the elements than at the extremities of our islands. Two days before our visit, Storm Brian swept through, and just a week prior to that ex-Hurricane Ophelia left her ferocious mark on the landscape, still very apparent during our stay.

But after the storms came the calm. A pool of still, saturated anticyclonic air lay over county Cork for the whole of our visit. Gloom, mist and fog, sometimes coalescing into rain: the air, the land and the sea merged imperceptibly but firmly, the common element being water. Still, what would Ireland be without water?

   

This weather didn’t make for easy wildlife watching. Landscapes were best described as ‘atmospheric’; the few remaining flowers were storm-battered and wind-burnt, and always studded with reflective droplets of water.

  

Of course, transatlantic hurricanes often carry involuntary waifs from distant shores, and this was no exception. A Gray-cheeked Thrush from America had pitched down close to our hotel in Rosscarbery, and was duly ticked, with the help of the thankfully small group of twitchers. But for us at least, the waterbirds on the estuary – Black-tailed Godwits and Curlews, Redshanks and Greenshanks, Grey Herons and Little Egrets among many others – were a more satisfying spectacle, along with several Mediterranean Gulls in the gull flocks, and Choughs overhead, just to confirm we were no longer in Essex. But best of all, just off the harbour wall, five Great Northern Divers, only just starting to lose their summer plumage, were simply stunning, as they made inroads into the local crab population.      

Elsewhere, a boat trip to Garnish Island in Bantry Bay, produced ‘Black’ Guillemots in their white winter garb and a couple of White-tailed Eagles, huge but bedraggled (yes, it was raining!) from the local reintroduction scheme. And many Grey Seals, mostly hauled out on rocky islets, were of course in their element, oblivious to the weather. The gardens on the island must be magnificent at more favourable times of the year, but a Treecreeper hunting for insects and spiders on the moss-covered walls, Wallcreeper-fashion, was about all we could muster.

When all else fails, however, the ‘world within’, the bugs and beasties that make the world go round, always come up with the goods, especially when I have Jude and her amazing close-up vision (aka myopia) at my side! Even through rain-smeared optics, I learned that woodlice moult in two halves, a few days apart, and then came face to face for the first time with our largest centipede Stigmatogaster subterraneus. In the semi-arid south-east of England, such sights need searching for, under bark or stones; here they were in full show on the stone walls and tree trunks.

  

Add to that a proliferation of fungi and lichens, and our short time there was put to good use, helped along by our ‘three stout challenge’. Our unanimous verdict was that Murphys is better than Beamish, and both come above Guinness in the taste-test…although that may need further research and confirmation the next time we venture down the Wild Atlantic Way!