Teneriffico!

2 years ago we travelled to Tenerife in late December showing 2 fingers to the Scottish Winter. It was FAB and we really enjoyed staying at Puerto de la Cruz, our base for the trip. Up the North of the island and far away from the hen and stag parties of the Southern resorts. We immediately re-booked for a Spring trip but by then the country had closed foreign travel for the first lockdown.

It has taken till now to get away again. Of course travel is not without its difficulties and I particularly loathe the journey from our flat, which we had to leave at 5.30am, to the point our airport coach dropped us at Casablanca Apartments roughly 11hrs later. The whole thing was unremittingly awful and about 10% of the flight I’d have happily given cyanide capsules to quieten far too boistrous (drunken, loutish) behaviour. 

The good thing about the different resorts is that all the aresholes, the slags, the football louts, and fat drunks, went off to the Southern resorts etc. while the more civilised - those who can read and write and maybe not get sodden drunk before midday - went North to less bawdy territory. We won’t have to see the trash until we travel back to the airport in 2 weeks.

Not our hotel

The contrast of stepping onto an aeroplane in 5 degrees weather and off it in blazing sunshine and mid 20s is striking. Some dress in beach readiness in bikinis and shorts. Mary and I removed our duvet jackets and sweated into long trousers and jumpers. We were pretty mentally ragged by the time we flopped into our hotel room. However I’m proud to say we had the energy to go for a decent walk and then do a supermarket sweep, buying all we needed to cook up a meal in our self-catering apartment.

I think we are the last people in the western world to actually prefer our own cooking to going out to restaurants and paying for someone else to guess what you like to eat. And then charging you 4 times as much. I enjoy eating foods from elsewhere, and usually find the vegetables abroad are sold for taste, unlike the UK versions which are based on looks, not flavour. And having been in the place before we knew where decent supermarkets were. We slightly overdid the walk and it was nearly 9pm when we ate, 16hrs after breakfast. Some beer and wine helped. The hotel had left us a welcome bottle of wine which was much appreciated. I think I saw that on sale later for €1.80 which is a very small cost to make a really appreciated gesture. It was a wee bit rough but then so were we.

I had heard from running/butterflying pal Colin who did a similar trip in November, they had been made to jump through all sorts of covid hoops and tests. Although mask wearing here is more universal (particularly outdoors in crowded areas,) the only thing we had to do was provide a vaccine certificate at airport security. And then at the hotel. The receptionist was not happy we had print outs. Everyone else had phone apps and a scannable qr code on their phone. After a wrestle with the hotel wifi and NHS apps for 30 mins we got the qr codes on Mary’s phone and my iPad. I am still holding out against getting a smart phone but understand it won’t be possible much longer. Also I have to carry my iPad everywhere if we want to be accepted in bars and cafes. Which largely hasn’t been a issue.

This on the main road!

So first day waking up in this foreign land of sunshine and what should we do? Being here for 2 weeks takes the pressure off to use every minute wisely and so we go for a wander, heading along the coast West towards Rambla de Castra a rambling single track hike along the rugged coast below the town with butterflies, dragonflies and an impressive ruin at the far end. 

The start, beyond and below Hotel Maritim is blocked with tape saying do not cross. Same as 2 years ago. Very similar to the Dean Village Water of Leith path where some rockslip has the council get overly concerned someone could get sued and so they block off the throughway. However everyone disregards this and goes past on a well worn diversion yards to the side. Half a mile on and we come across a council employee who apologises for a mild rebuke saying next time could we not go that way although he realises everyone and their dog does. 

Travelling involves a lot of this. A mild telling off from the security guard at the airport because I had put too much deodorant (and other liquids / semi solids) in my toiletries. (Haven’t we moved past that silly terrorist phase?) (Apparently not, although you don’t have to take your shoes off unless they contain explosives in the blocky heels. I’m not sure if Hokas qualify or are exempt and I took them off anyway just for the refreshment.) A policeman on the empty street in Puerto de la Cruz miming we should wear a mask. (The rules seem to change more often than the weather.) A receptionist saying what you have to do at the hotel pool. (We have been in once and it is not designed for swimming so much as lounging.)(And we took our own towels anyway!) Apps you have to have, boundaries you have to respect. It is the downside of travelling and being unfamiliar with your surroundings. So far we have worked the oven so wrongly it threw the diferencial in the fuse box in the apartment. At least it wasn’t the whole hotel. And we have broken the kettle. And the only imperative piece of equipment I failed to bring was swim goggles which have been replaced with children's toy ones bought locally.

Mary found this delightful small copper

The Rambla de Castra has some vertiginous drop offs but nothing scrambly or life threatening. And the scenery is fantastico. Eyes were constantly peeled for butterflies and wildlife. Last trip I was only about the butterflies but since we got walking cameras with longer zooms and higher megapixel-count, birds are now fair game too. We would photograph anything likely, and then afterwards google it to see what we had landed. In this case Barbary Partridges. We have seen several pairs, usually on scrubby waste land on the outskirts, with and without their mohawk headcrests raised. 

Barbary Partridge

Collared doves

Canarian Speckled Wood

Like ours but more orangey 

Lots of these which turned out to be

Atlantic Canaries.

The most common by far butterfly all over the place were these whites. Possibly a small white but are they identical to ours? I don’t know and can’t be bothered to look it up. After a couple of decent shots we didn’t feel the need to take any more. Much less common and far more highly prized were the red admirals, an indigenous (or do I mean endemic?) variety, Vanessa vulcania rather than Vanessa atalanta. Have just googled indigenous, endemic and native and if there is a difference it is not making itself known.

Possibly a Canarian chiffchaff, possibly endemic.

Many about the place and most vocal.

Geranium Bronze

This amazing building is the remains of the Juan de Gordejuela pump-house which was used a long time ago to get water up the hill to banana plantations. I really hate the large graffiti on it which wasn’t there last visit. I may well photoshop it off when I get back to Edinburgh. 

I am currently working on an iPad and the difference between it and a PC is making me use all manner of bad language. I kind of love certain aspects but hate not knowing how to use about 80% of its functions. I have to google how to select stuff (double tap and triple tap, are you kidding?) and also have to google how to open a new page and still be able to toggle between open pages. It is like having to learn a new language that is similar to the language you already know. Although you can understand when someone else uses it, you cannot instinctively conjure up the missing information by just bashing the screen harder. I hate all touchscreen devices. My fat ended fingers are not compatible with small areas of not very sensitive or too sensitive glass. I need a body-temperature prosthetic, nimble-ended stylus a bit like the squeamish middle finger of an Aye-aye for accurately selecting tiny onscreen text. I am telling you all this because the weather outside is a bit grey today and we are having a rest day. I have chosen to blog and there is no reason to just give a quick outline of the trip, so feel free to speed read past all these complaints. I’m just waiting for the sun to come back out at 2pm.

I love lizards. Their rarity in the Lothians mean I take their photos for the first few days I see them abroad. I have noticed the smaller ones are often cuter. The larger ones (above) can be a little like decorated turds. The smaller ones (below) can look more lithe and elegant and have a glint in their beady eyes!

Some sort of bee doing a plank?

Have seen a few of these. Probably endemic?

Insect wise this place is great. Dragonflies and butterflies similar to the UK and a few more exotics to boot. But none or very few of the really bad things like stingy bitey snakes, scorpions and jelly fish that kill. Small interesting spiders (also black and white) but again very little in the way of have to be ever vigilant or you’re dead stuff. (Or I haven’t heard otherwise.) Talking of dragonflies; there was one exactly the same, in exactly the same place, as 2 years ago. There were a couple and it almost certainly wouldn’t be exactly the same one as before. Just that that is where some of those species hang out. I couldn’t see any body of water to explain it either. But there it was and similarly it wasn’t landing to make taking a photo easier. So I pointed the camera as it flew by on a similar circuit and if you do that often enough at some point you will get the right amount of zoom and distance from the beast and a nearly useful pic. I ran these past John W (who knows about such things) last time and he reckoned it was some sort of emperor. 

Some sort of emperor

Mary wasn’t so interested in dragonflies that don’t land and had long ago left the scene. She said she would be just up ahead and wasn’t going anywhere. I was worried she would take a junction (there was an occasional junction) and we’d never see each other again. I was enjoying the switch from running (Mary is not able to run much these days) to walking with walking cameras. Although I do worry about the pregnant belly out the front of me that hasn’t been as prominent before. I think taking photos ticks the creative box that I don’t get to use much these days. I haven’t painted a picture or done art in the longest while and tweaking photos (as well as taking them) quenches that to an extent. Covid has given me such a distance from competitive running that I have questioned it’s imperative. However I have been forming a couch-to-sub3 mara plan that I intend to implement just as soon as I can get past the end of my laziness. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any end to my laziness.

I really like the pump-house in the middle background

On the return we saw a vanessa vulcania and it was just outstandingly scarlet and large in the sunlight. Cameras were poised but alas the mucker didn’t land. The above in-flight shot was the closest I got before it flipped out over a vertical drop into the sea. There was no way I was walking out onto the loose dirt and ball bearing soil of 60’ slope to chase it any further. Quite apart from Mary saying she’d divorce my remains if I did. 

Hoopoe giving a lizard a taxi ride.

Of course on the return journey we couldn’t use the forbidden path as the council bloke might still be there and would recognise us as previous trespassers. He might be less friendly or understanding than on the first occasion. So we took a higher trail, a moth eaten and dirtier looking venture, above, and skirting the banana plantations. In fact it turned out to be fine. As we crossed, a bird in flight caught my eye. It flew exactly like a woodpecker in long scoops with similar wingbeats and only a fraction larger. I shouted to Mary “look a woodpecker” but by the time it landed on a distant building I could see through the lens it was a hoopoe. We once saw one in Majorca at the side of a road we were driving down. And every now and then one visits the UK (and even Scotland!) and the birding world buys train tickets to get a photo. 

To say I was pleased to get the above photo is an understatement. Normally a bird in flight will generate too much movement blur but the quality of sunlight kept the shutter speed high (1/1600th) and although distant (zoom at something like 1350mm equivalent) and you can still see the clear outline of an unfortunate lizard in the elongated bill of this wonderful bird. I was delighted - I hadn’t even known there were any on the island. I very much hoped to bump into another.

Plenty monarchs about - after a short while I only bothered with

ones in decent nick.

The small yellow-green finches we would see everywhere turned out to Atlantic Canaries. The islands get their name The Canaries from the Romans; who found them to be overrun with large dogs (allegedly) and called them Insula Canaria from Canis, dog. These small yellow green birds get their name from the islands rather than the other way round. And they are not the bright yellow version that were bred later elsewhere. However we found one that may have been a hybrid offspring of a wild and caged pairing. It was mottled and quite unusual and appeared to be singular in its appearance. 

There was a garden right at the far end of town hung with birdfeeders and things to attract the birds. I saw a woman watering the many flowers in her beautiful garden and complimented her, asking what the birds were. I thought they might be a siskin type relative. She said they were an endemic bird to the Canaries which locally were called pajaro-bato or some such - I should have written it down and have been unable to successfully google it since. Pajaro is bird in Spanish. They are delightful small finches and have a pleasing chipper song. Because they are the same colour as foliage you often hear them without seeing them. 

Mary had a little lamb

Monarch

Still not our hotel

Nor this

Next day we headed to the running track. Colin had recommended this as the epi-centre of Lycaenidae - small blue butterflies. He was able to find African Blues, Geranium bronze, Lang’s long tailed blues and others in the shrubs surrounding a dirt trail that forms a rough 400m circuit. There is a covered weights area and a throwing net in the centre of the place which otherwise has the look of waste ground and partially maintained parkland. While we were there, there were a couple of what was possibly council work guys doing gardening stuff. If it weren’t so hot it would be an excellent place for circuits and circuit training. I even found the yellow flowering bush Colin said always contained African Grass blues. You couldn’t miss it. And yet - no butterflies. Or only Geranium Bronzes and one old and knackered blue of indeterminate species. I reckon like most species the blues here have a specific season and Mid November to Mid December was it. Given the things we have found that Colin didn’t and vice versa I think that is the most likely case. I spent an hour or more checking the place because Colin had had such good results there. I got distracted by the parachutes, falling like large slow flowers from the sky. And kestrels hunting high above the grassy fields and cliff-like hotel faces. 

Another one of those bees

More emperor hunting

Another Barbary Partridge

More unwatered dragonflies.

Not sure what this species is - not one of ours!

Note eggs and /or caterpillar on twig

The kestrels here might well be an endemic subspecies. 

They look pretty similar to our own, to my inexpert eye.

There were loads of lizards at the sports track. I still had my birdfood bread and seeds in my back pack so threw a little on the ground near them. Wow! They shot over and were all my best friends right away! I held out stuff on my hand and they came up and took it. One gave me a wee harmless nip on my finger which put an end to that game in case others had sharper teeth or gave a little rabid bite that broke the skin though it seemed unlikely they would have the strength of jaw or sharpness of tooth. 

Mary at the track getting a text from her bank checking it was her in Tenerife

Spending all that cash!

I love how gimpy the background chicken in this photo looks. There were a handful of them scratching around the dirt and a bit suspicious of anyone like myself showing an interest in them. They didn’t seem owned by anyone and were just about as free range as you could get. There appeared to be a mixture of exotic species and it added a layer of interest and fun to the ambience. It suggests there aren’t foxes, unless they have a henhouse they overnight in.

Edit: update. Not long back from an evening session at the track (old fat guy running slowly but sweating FAST!) As I was leaving I heard chicken noises and saw them taking their places on branches of the local shrubs. All fussing about and getting a decent height off the ground, so a fox would have to climb to say hello. It felt like nature acting as nature would have to if humans hadn’t stepped into the frame and made it all humany! I love this place!

Emperor type

It is great to see so many kestrels or similar around the city. There are plenty of scrubby fields where they can search for voles and the like. And they enjoy the roofs and balconies of the high hotels to perch and see all below. I have many more photos of poorer quality with birds just beyond a usable distance. Not easy to photo as they swoop about but a pure delight to see way more than around Edinburgh.

Geranium bronze

Vanessa vulcania

Next day and as Mary was going to spend some time resting or reading I went solo back to where I’d seen the hoopoe. I didn’t really expect to find it again but I thought the adventure will take me to some ground on the outskirts of town where there will be stuff of one sort or another to see and photograph. Often it is not the intended species that turns out to be the best image of the day. 

And right away along at the Loro Park I came across a vulcania. I had a memory from last time that this was one of the best places to see the red admirals in de la Cruz. I think Colin said similar. They are not in huge abundance but they like the pink and yellow flowering shrubs planted roadside, opposite the Loro Park. Which calls itself Animal Embassy, but I suspect is more like Animal Prison. It boasts tigers, gorillas and orca and I have no great interest seeing any of those, particularly indoors. Also after a quick google I saw the tickets are €31 which is quite a lot. I am not anti-zoos and really like Edinburgh Zoo but I’d rather spend time chasing butterflies and birds outside than see confined animals in a prison situation. You can see the parrots at the tops of their cages getting a ribbing from the free birds outside. Anyway, politics to one side, check out the pink and yellow flowers opposite for monarchs and admirals. On this occasion a really obliging red admiral who moved slowly about a few flower heads while I took 200 photos of which only about 5 were sufficient quality. A very poor percentage of hit to miss but if I don’t mention it nobody will ever know. <deletes 195 pics>  <rolls eyes>

Cheered up by that (last time we were here for a week I only saw 2 or 3 in whole trip) I went onwards past the Hotel Maritim - a massive hotel at the far side of town and up into the scrubby fields full of what I hoped would be butterflies and birds and lizards. As I climbed the very steep path I saw a pair of hoopoe walking about a wall up ahead. I took long distance poor pics and then a bloke went past and scared them off. There are fewer dogwalkers here and they tend to stick to walking their dogs in town. But there’s always some clown scaring off the wildlife!

Passed another tribe of Atlantic Canaries

The long distance pics of hoopoe were okay but I climbed further up the path hoping to get some closer shots. I lost sight of the birds, presumably a pair, but then as I got to the other side of the banana plantation trail I caught sight of the one bird which had caught a large grub or caterpillar and was sat on a fence. I took dozens of photos but they weren’t that good. It flew to a wall much nearer me and I further manoevered until I was as close as I could get where the photos were beginning to get to an acceptable quality. I was surprised the bird was not eating its prey. Just kept holding onto it. I shot some video of the grub - possibly a large beetle larvae - twisting and turning and then venting a large yellow glob of discouragement possibly meant to deter the hoopoe. But there wasn’t a chance it was letting go. Then I realised it was waiting for the other bird to return (either a mate, or more likely an offspring although exactly the same size) to feed it to. With growing tension I hoped I would get them both in shot exchanging this poor maggot. I waited ages. 5 mins passed. The sun blazed down. We were either side of a small orchard with avocado and pomegranate trees. Both fruiting copiously. I took photos having never seen either tree in fruit but all the time keeping an eye out for the return of the other bird. The one on the wall swapped perches a couple of times, slightly uncomfortable about my presence, but never flying off or putting down its treasure. I took a few pictures each time it moved, but they were fairly distant and less than great. 

Finally the other bird turned up and after a bit of to and fro the maggot bearing one jumped onto a trestle of wood spars about 5m away. I couldn’t believe my luck. This was closer than it had been and if I kept the camera high I’d get a clear shot over the wire fence. Within seconds the other bird jumped onto the trestle and the bug was passed from one to the other. I fired a few careful shots off and felt it was all in focus and looked like I’d nailed it. The youngster, now fed, flew off and after a bit of preening the adult (if they were indeed youngster and parent and not partners exchanging gifts) did the same. I’d been balancing on a pile of broken tiles and bricks in amongst cactus and dead branches in the broiling midday heat. I realised I was very low blood sugar when I checked I’d got the picture and with relief nearly shed a tear. It was more than I could have hoped for and I was dripping in sweat. I was handed it on a plate and I managed not to fuck it up, which would have been easy. I was ecstatic but drained.

Avocados on a tree!

Shot of the holiday?

Delivered

Magical bird

Before the hoopoe flew off I tried some calls. After seeing one the previous day I watched some youTube videos of them and that they get their name from the hoopoo-hoopoo call they make. So I tried calling out to this one. I hadn’t spoken to anyone in a few hours and wasn’t sure what might come out my mouth when I aped the birdcall. When it did I thought it was remarkably lifelike. But then the bird looked right at me and gave me such a dirty look I felt slightly ashamed. Not very Dolittle then. 

On the way back to the hotel I passed some more of the usual suspects - a kestrel on the roof of a high building, a canary and a monarch. I also peeped into the cemetery. It is well maintained and is a small space with many stones and memorials jam-packed in beside each other. Not a place for strolling tourists. I think I was ahemmed by a mourner. I took a couple of photos and skedaddled. One of the monuments was the same as the angel in Warriston. I assume there is an original in a museum somewhere. 

The sunny cousin of a Warriston angel.

I’ve been enjoying comparing hotel architecture. I rather like these bungalow hats on top of huge skyscrapers. And the orange colours against the blue of the sky. There are lots of blue and green and vividly coloured buildings over here and some match the changeable colour of the sky okay. But an orange will almost always match the sky. Or is it just me? I really like orange butterflies as well. In fact I think they are the best and am not sure if it is because orange is the best colour or just a coincidence. Orange and blue is my fave colour combo. There are plenty of hideous large blocks of hotel skyscraper too. Only I don’t take their photos. 

I think we are at the end of day 2. I realise I am going to have to reel in my enthusiasm for holiday blogs. There won’t be one every third day, promise! I was just filling a day on which the sun stayed behind clouds mostly, although I did do a track session and sorted all this stuff and cooked another meal and did some shopping. I worry there may be a crowd gathering of folk going he’s posting even more sunny holiday photos the w@nker! Forgive my enthusiasm!