Slightly away from the present but I got a present on Friday as a belated Christmas gift from my younger son- a copy of the art book "Birds in Mallorca" by John Busby from 1988 (second-hand but still in excellent condition). He has a very distinctive style which brings the birds to life, but I also like his more normal landscapes as backgrounds to the birds. He also puts in some prose about where and when he visited from 1981 onwards and what the weather was like. Altogether a brilliant book but I was also interested in where he got to and places that have changed or become more recent hotspots. I have never even attempted to get to the Ternelles Valley, and I suspect that Casas Velles is a shadow of it's former self. He says that when he visited Albufera in 1985 it had only just become a reserve and there were only 2 hides- which two, I wonder? Albufereta was known but unprotected, and the matter of access to the Boquer Valley was even then a matter for speculation as to how long it would last. Of course there is no mention at all of Son Real, but he did get to the Arta mountains.
As regards birds he still uses Herring Gull for YLGull, Marmora's Warbler for Balearic, and Cory's Shearwater rather than Scopoli's. Back then there was only one Griffon Vulture, and a number of other recent colonists (or just recently discovered?) are absent. The only error I have picked up so far is that he says that Cory's (Scopoli's) and Balearic Shearwaters are the same size but distinguishable by flight action. The latter is of course true, but they are certainly not the same size!
The Bibliography is littered with the early books on Mallorca in English by the Bannermans, Eddie Watkinson and Pat Bishop, and the famous meetings at the Pollentia Hotel were in full swing. If you haven't got a copy then look out for one as it is a wonderful aide-memoire of the Island and it's birds. Has anyone else got views on this book?
