29 May - 4 June

This was more of a walking trip than an intense wildlife watching trip. Due to this, apart from one day on the coast, we largely stuck to the mountains and I did not always carry the SLR gear. This is just a summary of the highlights. We were based in Venaco. About 10km south of Corte.

The Hotel U Frascone was a pleasant place to be based and there was a good restaurant in Venaco.

The mountain scenery was amazing and made for some fairly challenging walking at times.

Lac D’Oro

Restonica Valley

Gorge du Tavignano

I’m not really a botanist but we did see some great orchids. Heart-flowered serapis being one of the smartest orchids I’ve ever seen.

Tongue orchid

Violet limodore was another particularly attractive orchid.

Spotted orchid sp.

Orchis signifera

As well as the orchids are was rather impressed with this Cyclamen repandum.

The butterfly watching was a bit disappointing; this Corsican heath was the only new species for me.

We did see a few two-tailed pashas, but only in flight.

Very few dragonflies were seen. This is a southern skimmer.

A few attractives beetles were seen. Mylabris variabillis

And this Pimelia sp., on the east coast.

Tyrrenian wall lizards were common.

Bedriaga’s wall lizard was only seen at Mount Oro.

I had limited success photographing the birds.  Corsican nuthatch proved rather difficult to find, probably because they weren’t calling, but in the end we saw two.

The other endemic, Corsican citril finch, was fairly common but not particularly cooperative.

A flock of bee-eaters were seen by the coast.

Warblers were generally elusive but we did see Marmora’s warbler

as well as Moltoni’s and Sardinian warblers.

‘Italian’ sparrows were common in urban areas

As were spotless starlings.