This was my second trip to the island, and Sean and Trev's first.. on arrival from the ferry we walked into town, Sean sorted the hire car, and I found us a nice hotel to stay in.. we chilled for a bit and then whet to meet Sean's partner Trudi.. she had had an arse of a journey, so Trev and I left the two to get reunited and walked back to the hotel spotting geckos on the walls.
Up early next morning, after a short drive we visited an area of rock formations and stone walls near the coast. Wall lizards were very abundant, in a short space of time algyroides, and chalcides were seen. The area had stunning flora, with many orchids, Sean was a very happy boy...
Walking towards a stone walled area, I spotted a hierophis viridiflavus basking at the base of one of the walls.
Sean started searching the stone walls and soon found my favourite lizard of the trip, euleptes europaea, a few more individuals were found after some searching.. easily the cutest lizard in Europe..surly you would agree Peter?
Sean spotted a pod of dolphins off of the coast, as well as shearwaters, on the rocks blue rock thrushes hopped about.. looking..er, blue and thrush like.
Happy we headed off to find salamanders, after a reasonable drive, we arrived at the location, a range of rock strewn hills, the GPS was as temperamental as my ex wife, and despite hours searching in the heat, climbing up steep hillsides, getting scratched by bushes and sweating like Syrian insurance salesmen.. we gave up.. we could not find the small cave entrance.. to say I was disappointed was an understatement.. I handled it well, by sulking and shouting at the gps.. Trudi went into mum mode, cleaned us with wet wipes and gave us there there theres.. Some nice tree frogs and a painted frog cheered me up..
- ID anyone?
we headed of to the next location, a hotel, pizza and sleep.
Up early again we set off for our next location, another mountain range, another salamander.. no longer trusting the GPS, we went old school and using trip reports, Google earth and helpful locals, we found ourselves driving towards the mountain summit.. I find hire cars are the very best 4 x 4 s.. as the road narrowed round a bend, I spotted a small cave entrance in the ground, I jumped into the very narrow hole, only just wider then my shoulders, I turned the torch on and discovered to my surprise,the cave I was in went straight along for two meters, and then just dropped for around twenty five meters, I managed back out.. admonishing myself for letting mander excitement, get in the way of safety. We continued up and as the track petered out, we checked out two enormous house size boulders, shining my torch into the cracks in the boulders, I was meet by shiny eyes looking back at me.. I was well excited.. I may even have screamed like a girl.. there were beautiful Superamonte sals. Trev wondered off leaving camera kit in his wake, and found a small cave, inside were more of the stunning little fellas.
On a tight time scale we headed back down the mountain, drove across country and drove up another mountain, Sean was top dollar, negotiating some very narrow tracks with proper naughty drops.. we arrived at a very large tourist cave, and within minutes found the lovely imperialis..
Sleep pizza and beer followed, not necessarily in that order..
The following day we headed off for more mander action, as well as birds and the very striking Sardinia brook newt.. we spoke to both the Caribinieri and forest rangers, both were beyond helpful and very knowledgeable, giving us hand drawn directions.. we walked along a splendid gorge, Sean saw his target birds, the Citril finch and Marmoras warbler, but the brook newt eluded us..at the final stop, in a National park area, we found a pristine mountain stream, Trevor quickly spotted neonate brook newts, Sean and I paddled in a beautiful shallow pool, we may have held hands, I cant remember, and I spotted a fantastic adult brook newt..very happy with the days outcome, once more pizza, beer and bed occurred.
On our penaultimute day, we were under huge time pressure, we still had two potential salamander ticks to get.. Sean once again drove us to a small range of hills, with mining galleries cut into the valley sides, without specific info, we asked locals for the mine entrances.. when we arrived however all the entrances had been bricked up, leaving only small air ducts with steel bars across.. I spotted an entrance that some body else, obviously another salamander fan had enlarged, and removed the bars.. the hole was just big enough to push somebody through if not to too chubby, and perfectly horizontal, Trev went through first, found genei almost instantly and Sean and I followed.. Trudi, due to boobage, had to remain outside. After much picture taking of the large numbers of salamanders, we sqeezed our way out, sore nipples a small price to pay for such a cool tick and retraced our steps to the car. A short drive later we set off for our final target..
The Sette Fritteli cave slamander location was unaccesible by vehicle.. so we set off on the 20 K round trip walk, a lot of the small path was very steep and reqcuired scrambling over boulders, the easier route was shut due to flooding, half an hour into the walk we were caught in a huge storm, with torrential rain, we soldiered on, nearing the summit plateaux, Sean and Trudi decided this level of discomfort was not really worth it for the sake of another little brown salamander (Having followed Sean for miles, climbing near vertical, hot rocky hillsides in Montenegro, just to see a bird that looks like every other partridge, I completely understand) They turned back to try and get warm and dry in the car, Trev and I pushed on, concerned that we would get benighted in the park as it is shut at 20:30. Owing to the mint map from the Forrester ranger, a man that looked like he could easily pull the head off a bear, but loved the little salamanders in his care, Trev and I found the very small entrance in the hillside, opened the little steel door and were greeted by salamanderfest.. the most impressive of the cave sals IMHO... sarrabusensis.. we took some pics, not easy when its pissing down.. and headed back down the mountain in record time.. we met up with Sean and Trudi and headed back for for the ritual trio, pizza beer and sleep.
The next day we heaeded for the airport.
To my mind it was a fantastic trip, It was marvellous to revisit some species, and better to see some new ones.. of a fairly large want list for the trip, we only missed one species, the Monte Albo cave salamander.( I will be back for it)
Huge thanks to Sean for logistics, translation, driving and keeping me calm when I think we are gonna miss a target, thanks to Trev for always being in a streesy but funny mood, Trudi for looking after us, the Caribinieri and Forest rangers for great info and finally a massive thanks to the usual suspects, that gave me some hints to splendid sites. You know how you are, and I am always extremely grateful.
And just for the orchidophiles..
I am now chomping at the bit to see some more speleomantes shizzle in Oct.. happy days...
Paul
