Valetta - Jewel of Malta

ok, so on to Valletta.
In total we spent three days visiting this city, just across the channel from where we stayed. We took the ferry or the bus to town where we walked the labyrinthine streets, before going back to the apartment for dinner and drinks in Sliema.

 

Valletta is a beautiful city, with lots of architectural gems crammed into one peninsular. The streets are narrow and the buildings built high.

 

 





As you can imagine the place is very touristy and very popular with people. Some days the narrow streets were thick with people.

Perhaps the most ostentatious building was the co-cathedral.

 

 

Gold leaf, ornate paintings splashed on every available space, the oratory covered in Caravaggios better than any at the National Gallery in London. It was truly spectacular, and over the top, but hard to take in on one visit especially amongst all the crowds.

One afternoon we took a boat trip around the various channels and inlets had good views of the town from the water and was able to take decent photos.

While we had lunch one day a busker played the kazoo. One of the worst musical instruments to play, he didn't get many tips.

Unlike the UK there were lots of  restaurants and cafes springing out onto the streets, rather than huddled inside away from the cold. It added a lot to the atmosphere of the place, making it feel more alive. It is something I miss back in Ipswich.

Next blog will be out tomorrow, a look at the island of Gozo

Malta 20/09-27/09/2016

Three hours  from the UK and we finally touched down. For my dad's 70th birthday the family found ourselves holidaying in Malta. Myself, my brother and my mum and dad stayed there for a week in an apartment, and it was in the whole an enjoyable experience.

Malta is well worth a visit. A tiny set of islands situated between Sicily and Africa it has a rich history and great architecture to reflect that. Also by being a former colony most people spoke English as a first language. The hot meditteraen sun bore down strong for most of our time there so temperatures were constantly in the late 20s which was hot but not oppressive.
Geographically one of the stand out features of the Malta is how urbanised it is, especially in the east of the country where towns merge into one big metropolis.
We took a taxi from the airport to out flat and never once saw any countryside really, maybe the odd garden. It was only when we got over to the west part of the island did we see that the towns thinned out to reveal countryside. This was mainly barren and scrubby, with very little greenery. As a result there is very little agriculture eon Malta, mainly terraces on the hillside, with not many open fields.

Typical Maltese countryside

 



The capital is Valetta and we spent three days there. We stayed in Sliema just across the bay form Valetta, which is kind of like a suburb. Sliema and neighbouring St Julian are one of the main areas of nightlife in Malta and so a saunter beside the sea produced lots of bars and restaurants.
They had distinctive Maltese dishes such as rabbit, pizza, calamari and various fishes. There was only the one Maltese beer, called Cisk, which was a standard larger and not particularly memorable.

The apartment

 

The apartment itself had amazing views across out to sea. We could sit out on the balcony and watch life unfold beneath.
That's it for an introduction. What we actually did will be put up on future posts.

 

Spoonbills at Trimley Marshes 13/09/2016

As the warm weather continued well into September I went over to Trimley Marshes to look for migrants and waders.

 

 

It was a very hot day for the time of the year so the birds weren't particularly active, and there was a slight haze in the air affecting visibility. The reserve is set in an agricultural landscape, with large open fields and hedgerows. The marshes, if you don't have a bike, are a long hike from the nearest car park, or in my case train station.

There are five hides overlooking four bodies of water with the reservoir being the biggest and deepest. As a result the reservoir attracts the largest number of wildfowl. Today it was choc-a-bloc with birds with several hundred COOT present along with TUFTED DUCK, GADWALL and POCHARD.

 

view over the reservoir

 

By the entrance to the reservoir hide a SPOTTED FLYCATCHER was present, characteristically jumping off the branches to capture insects in flight.

The three smaller pools are more like scrapes and are shallow with lots of mud. Here TEAL and SHOVELLER hold sway. The ducks look tatty at the moment as they come out of eclipse plumage. The first pool the SHALLOW LAGOON was characteristically empty. The next pool, the  SUMMER FLOOD hel two roosting SPOONBILL.

 

Also present were three RUFF.

The last pool, the WINTER FLOOD, is the best pool for waders. The pool dries out over the summer leaving lots of mud for the birds to feed on. Today there was a good slection, with 1 CURLEW SAND, 1 GREEN SAND, 7 RINGED PLOVERS, 7 SNIPE, 2 DUNLIN and 3 RUFF. There was also a mixed flock of 30 LINNETS and GOLDDFINCHES.

The marshes border the Orwell estuary providing even more mud for the birds to feed on. The tide was low and there was a good mix of waders present. They were mainly GODWIT and REDSHANK, but also present were AVOCETS and OYSTERCATCHERS.

So, not a bad day really, but I'm still finding a big bird sighting elusive.

 

This will be my last posting for a couple of weeks as I go on (non-birdwatching) holiday to Malta next week.

 

 





Wader watching at Stanny Farm 11/09/2016

Today I went on a guided walk around Stanny Farm. This is a farm that is managed in a wildlife friendly manner on the bank of the river Ore. it is approximately 750 acres in size, of which half is wet grassland managed for its lapwing populations, the rest being crops. It is not open to the public so guided walks are the only way to look around.

The walk was specifically to look for waders. From the main farm centre the walk took us through the grasslands to the river where the tide was fairly high. Numbers of GREENSHANK and REDSHANK were present with single COMMON SANDPIPER and GODWIT. A KINGFISHER flew past. Six BEARDED TITS were present in dyke side reeds on the land side, whilst up above four BUZZZARDS were in the air together.

Small birds were represented by a flock of 30 MIPPITS and 15 LINNETS and a BULLFINCH was in the hedgerow.

A bad painting of a BULLFINCH

 



So quite a good day and a place I would recommend visiting just as an alternative to the usual birding places in Suffolk.

Landguard Point, Felixstowe 6/9/16

Today I went over to Landguard to look for some land migrants. I took the train to Felixstowe and biked from the station down to Landguard, a 20 minute journey. This is a locally famous site, as a shingle spit at the mouth of the Stour and Owell, it attracts many migrants.

 

The landscape is like a desert, with scattered bushes and shingle, riddled with the remant structures of world war two.
This is a sort of urban site, trapped between the town of Felixstowe and the docks, but it's easy to get away from it all. Apart from the dog walkers and the birdwatchers there were people collecting blackberries from the bramble bushes. From here there are good views over towards the docks.

 

Things started off well as I entered the reserve a HOBBY flew over. After that things were relatively quiet, but as I went further down the point things got better. There were several YELLOW WAGTAILS about amongst the commoner PIED. There were only a couple of WHEATEAR about, higher numbers are usually expected at this time of year.

Wheatear

On the river there were an adult and juv SANDWICH TERN, and one COMMON TERN.
Also present around the reserve were WILLOW WARBLER and LESSER WHITETHROAT.
There was a steady passage south of SWALLOWS, like sand in an hour glass, summer flittering away.
So although nothing exciting was present it still marked a good day out with all the usual suspects for this time of year.
From the train, just as it gets to Trimley from Ipswich, there was a herd of around 10 FALLOW DEER feeding on farmland. I see them pretty much every time I catch this train so they're resident in the area.