Richard Prior
Halfway up an Alp
This month marks exactly 50 years since my only previous visit to Corsica and almost 34 years since my wife’s only trip to the Scented Isle so it was about time for a mutual second holiday there! Back in 1974 I was a student and had travelled with a girlfriend from UK to Nice on Dan Air flights (Comet 4C outbound and a Boeing 707-321 for the return for you plane fans 
) at silly NUS Travel prices, no wonder they folded soon after! Rucksack stuffed with tent, sleeping bag and other camping stuff meant I didn’t even take my binoculars with me and after all this time I remember only my first sighting of Dolphin, a skulking sylvia warbler with a piercing red eye in a bush and the amazing railway down through the island to Ajaccio to get the ferry back to Nice.
Five decades later things were going to be a bit more comfortable, no flights involved either. Although we live in France, our nearest access to the Mediterranean is in Italy so we booked our little Fiat Panda onto the Savone to Bastia ferry for an overnight crossing (sleeping in a cabin this time rather than on a corridor floor as in 1974!). 4 days before our scheduled departure we got an email from Corsica Ferries telling us that crossing was cancelled and proposing alternative routes, I took an executive decision and plumped for Livourne to Bastia (going down to Toulon on the French coast might have been a better idea I was gently advised later…).
So instead of going over the Alps via a mountain pass near the Fréjus tunnel we now were to go a more northeasterly route through the Mont Blanc tunnel (a first for me!) and go down between Turin and Milan to hit the Italian Coast near Genoa before passing Pisa to get to Livourne.
3 June 2024
It was a long old drive, I’d forgotten how twisty and slow the roads are between us and the Chamonix-Mont Blanc area and although once in Italy it was all Autostrada from Aoste to Livourne it was good we shared the driving, my wife drew the short straw and did the second half which involved an amazing number of tunnels down the Italian coast. En route we noted few birds, a Black Woodpecker flew across the road before we left France and from the Italian motorways we spotted Little Egret, Grey Heron and Sacred Ibis in the rice fields near the Po river, Turtle and Collared Dove, Buzzard and our first Hooded Crows and Italian Sparrow. Waiting to board the ferry in the welcome sunshine and warm temperatures in Livourne I grilled all the Swift flying around but they all seemed to be of the common persuasion, the Kestrel was a Common too and a Barn Swallow looked out of place as it flitted through the vast industrial port area, Yellow - legged Gull the only seabird species present. After boarding the ship and profiting from our 50Euro food voucher (a sort of compensation from the ferry company after the enforced change of crossing) we hit the sack, no seawatching from the ferry for me unfortunately as it was dark before we left and on arrival the next morning.
4 June
We docked in Bastia at dawn and had an easy drive away from the port and south of the town to our first stop, the Etang de Biguglia, a fantastic migration hotspot in Spring but of course a bit quiet in June. Scanning the water from our viewpoint on the seaward side we could see only Red-crested Pochard pairs and Coot families and just a single large gull perched on a distant post. But not a Yellow-legged with that red bill and dark eye, an Audouin’s Gull, the first I’ve seen in France! A few Spotless Starling were ferrying food to and fro, until a couple of weeks before our departure I had forgotten that on Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily it’s the resident Starling species, so another French tick in the bag. No fewer than FIVE Hoopoe flew past us, a Sardinian Warbler showed briefly and Cetti’s Warbler were shouting away unseen. Collared Dove seemed particularly numerous both here and around the Boulangerie in nearby Furiani where a welcome coffee and Brioche au sucre were much appreciated!
Valentin (Val 35 here on Birdforum) had tipped me off about a flooded quarry not far away, near Bastia airport so we made the short drive there to have a look for any late migrating waders. A dusty spot what with all the lorries bumping along the partly unmade road, but nice to see breeding Black-winged Stilt, Little Ringed Plover and Little Grebe present, as was a Green Sandpiper (hmm, always a tricky one, 4th June, was it heading North or South I wonder). A single Cattle Egret was feeding around some, er, cattle, Spotless Starling juveniles were already on the wing and a female Red-Backed Shrike paused briefly on a tree before flying down into an overgrown field. The first of many Red Kite for the trip lumbered overhead before we set off to the centre of Corsica to explore the ancient fortified town of Corte, which was the capital of Corsica during its brief period of independence in the 18th Century. A few hours exploring Corte with its narrow streets, steep climb to the old citadelle, National Museum and ex-Foreign Legion barracks and tasting our first Corsican food specialities made a welcome change from being on the move. A few Blackcap were singing in various gardens, Common Swift screaming around and visiting their nests and Italian Sparrow were successfully picking up crumbs around the cafés and restaurant terraces and a couple of Red Kite drifted over the town. Best bird was up by the citadelle, a Mediterranean Flycatcher (tyrrhenica subspecies) busy flycatching from some trees behind the museum. At home, seeing any flycatcher is getting harder each year and before the trip I wondered how tricky it might be to find this lifer species. As it turned out, it is very common and we found them in all sorts of terrain. Ready for a nice siesta we rocked up at our accommodation around 15.30.
) at silly NUS Travel prices, no wonder they folded soon after! Rucksack stuffed with tent, sleeping bag and other camping stuff meant I didn’t even take my binoculars with me and after all this time I remember only my first sighting of Dolphin, a skulking sylvia warbler with a piercing red eye in a bush and the amazing railway down through the island to Ajaccio to get the ferry back to Nice.Five decades later things were going to be a bit more comfortable, no flights involved either. Although we live in France, our nearest access to the Mediterranean is in Italy so we booked our little Fiat Panda onto the Savone to Bastia ferry for an overnight crossing (sleeping in a cabin this time rather than on a corridor floor as in 1974!). 4 days before our scheduled departure we got an email from Corsica Ferries telling us that crossing was cancelled and proposing alternative routes, I took an executive decision and plumped for Livourne to Bastia (going down to Toulon on the French coast might have been a better idea I was gently advised later
…).So instead of going over the Alps via a mountain pass near the Fréjus tunnel we now were to go a more northeasterly route through the Mont Blanc tunnel (a first for me!) and go down between Turin and Milan to hit the Italian Coast near Genoa before passing Pisa to get to Livourne.
3 June 2024
It was a long old drive, I’d forgotten how twisty and slow the roads are between us and the Chamonix-Mont Blanc area and although once in Italy it was all Autostrada from Aoste to Livourne it was good we shared the driving, my wife drew the short straw and did the second half which involved an amazing number of tunnels down the Italian coast. En route we noted few birds, a Black Woodpecker flew across the road before we left France and from the Italian motorways we spotted Little Egret, Grey Heron and Sacred Ibis in the rice fields near the Po river, Turtle and Collared Dove, Buzzard and our first Hooded Crows and Italian Sparrow. Waiting to board the ferry in the welcome sunshine and warm temperatures in Livourne I grilled all the Swift flying around but they all seemed to be of the common persuasion, the Kestrel was a Common too and a Barn Swallow looked out of place as it flitted through the vast industrial port area, Yellow - legged Gull the only seabird species present. After boarding the ship and profiting from our 50Euro food voucher (a sort of compensation from the ferry company after the enforced change of crossing) we hit the sack, no seawatching from the ferry for me unfortunately as it was dark before we left and on arrival the next morning.
4 June
We docked in Bastia at dawn and had an easy drive away from the port and south of the town to our first stop, the Etang de Biguglia, a fantastic migration hotspot in Spring but of course a bit quiet in June. Scanning the water from our viewpoint on the seaward side we could see only Red-crested Pochard pairs and Coot families and just a single large gull perched on a distant post. But not a Yellow-legged with that red bill and dark eye, an Audouin’s Gull, the first I’ve seen in France! A few Spotless Starling were ferrying food to and fro, until a couple of weeks before our departure I had forgotten that on Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily it’s the resident Starling species, so another French tick in the bag
. No fewer than FIVE Hoopoe flew past us, a Sardinian Warbler showed briefly and Cetti’s Warbler were shouting away unseen. Collared Dove seemed particularly numerous both here and around the Boulangerie in nearby Furiani where a welcome coffee and Brioche au sucre were much appreciated!Valentin (Val 35 here on Birdforum) had tipped me off about a flooded quarry not far away, near Bastia airport so we made the short drive there to have a look for any late migrating waders. A dusty spot what with all the lorries bumping along the partly unmade road, but nice to see breeding Black-winged Stilt, Little Ringed Plover and Little Grebe present, as was a Green Sandpiper (hmm, always a tricky one, 4th June, was it heading North or South I wonder). A single Cattle Egret was feeding around some, er, cattle, Spotless Starling juveniles were already on the wing and a female Red-Backed Shrike paused briefly on a tree before flying down into an overgrown field. The first of many Red Kite for the trip lumbered overhead before we set off to the centre of Corsica to explore the ancient fortified town of Corte, which was the capital of Corsica during its brief period of independence in the 18th Century. A few hours exploring Corte with its narrow streets, steep climb to the old citadelle, National Museum and ex-Foreign Legion barracks and tasting our first Corsican food specialities made a welcome change from being on the move. A few Blackcap were singing in various gardens, Common Swift screaming around and visiting their nests and Italian Sparrow were successfully picking up crumbs around the cafés and restaurant terraces and a couple of Red Kite drifted over the town. Best bird was up by the citadelle, a Mediterranean Flycatcher (tyrrhenica subspecies) busy flycatching from some trees behind the museum. At home, seeing any flycatcher is getting harder each year and before the trip I wondered how tricky it might be to find this lifer species. As it turned out, it is very common and we found them in all sorts of terrain. Ready for a nice siesta we rocked up at our accommodation around 15.30.
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