Wrapping things up....
10/11 June
Today it was time to say goodbye to e Caselle and make our way South to Ajaccio for our night ferry to Toulon, but first, a final pre-brekky stroll, who knows, maybe a
Moltoni’s would perch up and say “cheese” for my camera! They were quite vocal but still as skittish as ever of course, though I managed to work out where the
Spotless Starling were nesting and consoled myself with a nice portrait of a food-carrying adult. For the second time during our stay, I heard
Red-legged Partridge on the hillside across the river from our room but couldn’t spot them. Rather than take the busy main Bastia to Ajaccio road with its lorries and (especially in June) hordes of motorcycles we followed minor roads all down the centre of the island, passing three mountain passes on the way. The first was the famous Col de Sorba where we had found the Corsican Nuthatch but a brief stop yielded just a
Coal Tit. Further on our only
Mistle Thrush flew across the road but low cloud for most of the three hour drive till our lunch stop meant we weren’t able to appreciate what is known to be magnificent scenery on the route. Driving demanded concentration, not because of traffic but due to lots of ‘free range’ pigs wandering about. To be fair they had a good road sense, pootling about by the side of the highway most of the time. For some reason, I chose Wild Boar and pasta as my lunch reward at a family run resto in a hillside village

….
Not having travelled from Ajaccio before I was keen to arrive at the Port well in advance and work out where to go for the ferry later, next time we’ll have a look at the Audouin’s Gull colony near the airport (and check to see if the African Crake from earlier this year is still hiding near there). So it was an ice cream and relaxing early evening by the docks instead, not much birdlife apart from
Yellow -legged and the odd
Audouin’s Gulls, Italian Sparrow and my last
Hooded Crow for a while. Oh, I also added
Daffy Duck and Tweety Pie to the trip list (see photo of Looney Tunes liveried Moby Lines ferry)!
The sea was a bit more lively than on the crossing a week earlier but not enough to be uncomfortable, I set my alarm for just before 6am and, wrapped up against the wind, went out on deck to see if I could succeed with a 30 minute ‘pelagic session’. I immediately saw a distant shearwater but too brief a view to put to species, oh dear, out of practice……. Fifteen minutes passed and I was beginning to think that was my lot but lo and behold a mixture of
Yelkouan and Scopoli’s Shearwaters appeared, some quite close range too!
Common Tern were feeding beside the ferry as we disembarked which was a final bonus to end on (I hadn’t seen any in 2024 up to then, the shame of it!).
So an enjoyable week came to an end, a nice mixture of relaxing, touristy stuff (not too much thankfully!) walking and birding and around 70 species seen, including 5 lifers (one more than I achieved last year in the Caucasus!). We didn’t go looking for the Cat C California Quail (I have my standards don’t you know 😉) but I can’t avoid adding
Sacred Ibis to my WP list (never look a gift bird in the beak as the saying doesn’t go!).
Photos of the Spotless Starling, Hooded Crow, 'Wild swimming' spot below our room and Daffy Duck and co.