best part of the day: December 2022

9th ~ 23rd December 2022
As always, the trip starts in the dead of night. An alarm goes off at OMG o’clock and an unmemorable breakfast is consumed while still asleep. Cases were packed the night before and are now humped down the stairs and up the empty road to the bus stop.

Cut to about 11hrs later and we arrive at GF Noelia Hotel in Peurto de la Cruz, Tenerife. It has been about as unpleasant as 11hrs can be, short of waterboarding and surgery. However the last hour woke us up from the zombie world of airport security checks and eternal queues-to-nowhere, with a harem-scarem drive round the island autopista, Ramon piloting the Mercedes people-carrier like he was playing a video game with plenty extra lives.

The hotel is fine, the room a bit dated. Unusually for “self-catering” there is no microwave, no grill, no oven and just 2 hob plates. There are 2 decent pans and a frying pan. There is no chopping board or sharp knife. No bread knife. I ask at reception if they can supply a chopping board and maybe bowls for cereal. (There are shallow plates that wouldn't hold muesli if you added milk.) The receptionist is unforthcoming and points us to the nearest supermarket, which we’ve already been to. It has many useful supplements to our meagre kitchen but we would have to go without a chopping board for the fortnight, chopping veg on the shallow dinnerware. It is all part of the adventure. (And the return home makes you appreciate the small things, like favourite mugs and the miracle of the microwave.)

Mary at the sports track

I think it is to Mary’s huge credit that she (like me) would rather do this type of holiday adventure than spend heaps of money on extravagant hotels and luxury accommodation. (Yes I know we did a bit of that last time in Galicia but we are back to the cheap and cheerful version where we cook food in a 2 ring circus and spend all day outdoors hiking and wildlife hunting.)

This is our 4th time in Tenerife. The first visit was to Los Cristianos, the next 3 have all been to Peurto de la Cruz in the North where there is more greenery, wildlife and culture than just a tanning holiday at drunkingham palace.

We got settled into our hotel which was comfortable enough and clean, and went out to buy the things necessary to cook a meal. (Wooden spoon! Sharp knife!) Next day was Saturday and to everyone’s surprise we headed to the dirt track to do a homemade parkrun. We even set off before the usual 9.30. Talk about keen! Hot enough to soak my vest, I still managed faster than a recent attempt at Cramond.

Alf Tupper track

Colin and Joan (butterfly running people!) christened this the Alf Tupper track because a few years ago it was a bit of a state. However it has been gradually improved over the last 5 years and is better every time we visit. Shrubs and flowering plants have been installed around the track. And the cinder/dirt track which used to be fairly lumpy on the East side and smoother on the West is now much smoother all the way round. It is unclear who funds this work. There are a couple of regulars who stand about watering the flowers, mainly one guy who Mary nicknamed José. The flowers have attracted lots of butterflies and it is the premier spot in Tenerife, where we have photographed more species than anywhere else.

José

The main reason for going abroad in December is to break up the shitty weather and seasonal humbug of xmas. (Small x, large hate.) Actually the weather had been quite mild for November and only got cold and snowy after we left, but you never know when you book back in October how things will pan out. Anyway we both seem to thrive on a bit of warm butterfly weather about now and Tenerife rarely disappoints. I think this trip was the warmest of the 3 Winter escapes we’ve been on, with days that felt as if they were in the mid 30s. We are happier in the mid to high 20s and at times we had to duck into the shade or a cafe to avoid being toasted.

Atlantic Canary

checking out the hotel rooftop pool

It also made running quite tough. We’d mostly hit the track early to avoid the worst of the heat. But the third time I attempted a 5k I had to stop and walk at the end of the second mile as I didn’t want to go home in a body bag. I do like a bit of hot sweaty running though, and was pleased to find my times improving, taking my post covid 5k pb under 20 minutes. We did little in the way of endurance, other than long days walking around the hills. On the downside we drank booze every day. Not heaps though, and the unfinished wine bottles began to accumulate in the tiny kithen.

loads of small whites everywhere

Canarian chiffchaff

geranium bronze

Emperor dragonfly or similar

pipit

This sort of waste ground - deserted terraces no longer farmed but left to hikers and dog walkers, were the sort of places we spent time, finding and photographing butterflies, lizards and birds. We continually looked for hoopoes, having seen some last trip, but didn't see any the whole 2 weeks. No idea why. There were however, several other treats we hadn't seen before including a couple of first time ever butterflies and birds.

always loads of kestrels

flying high over waste grounds and parks

Canarian speckled wood

emperor

glug, glug, glug! blah, blah, blah!
Possibly our favourite sport.

After the sweaty start of parkrun on the first full day we showered then headed West along the coast to the Rambla de Castro, a favourite local walk on coastal dirt trails, where last trip we photographed hoopoes. No sign of them this year. Not even a distant flap of wings. There seems to be no particular rhyme or reason for the wildlife we come across on these holidays. Each trip we go armed with more knowledge than the time before, but it does not mean we see all the stuff we did last time, plus more. Which is generally the plan. Mostly we just see the stuff we come across and no amount of planning can produce the item being hunted. An example being this trip we saw a couple of small groups of Barbary Partridge (nicknamed Barbara Partridges) but never got close enough for decent photos. Last time we had a few close encounters with much better photos. And still no sign of blue chaffinches, a local speciality.

getting hotter

most of the spiders webs we see about, are the work of this one
which doesn't grow very big and keeps clear of humans

African grass blue

epaulet skimmer (m)

epaulet skimmer (f)

Canarian Red Admiral (vanessa vulcania)
with monarch in background

the sports ground has been planted with these poinsettia
which are very popular with butterflies

The hedges lining the road opposite Loro Park were previously popular with monarchs and red admirals, due to the flowers growing among the leaves. This year did we even see one? Perhaps fewer flowers attracted fewer butterflies. We got out of the habit of looking there and turned our attention to the sports track which was not only nearer to our hotel, but had more flowers and flowering shrubs attracting a greater diversity of creatures and bugs. The convenience of living nearby meant we could run laps between butterfly hunts. Although larger cameras and sprinting do not go hand in sweaty hand.

I took 5 cameras by the way. Which sounds excessive until I tell you one was my new iPhone which I didn't use. I really only took it along to scan or produce check-in documents at airports. One was my iPad which I used only a handful of times. Number 3 was the waterproof compact though we didn't swim as much as intended. I had my TZ100 compact for when I was running at the track but knew the clouded yellow would appear because I didn't have my large camera there. And as back up in case I dropped or broke my main camera the Lumix FZ2000. This went with me everywhere other than the track when running laps. I took well over 5000 photos and there was the usual hit rate of about one in 10 meaning about 250pics x 2 holiday blogs.

a painted lady - not many seen this trip

monarch chases an admiral

Scarlet darter (f)

Lang's short-tailed blue

clouded yellow
(only showed up on really hot days)

monarchs

I really like the background colours of this monarch shot.
(out-of-focus graffiti)

kestrel in palm tree (one of the ones below)

ring necked parakeet (lots of these too)

a favourite street for coloured buildings and palm trees

So this sign: at first I couldn't understand the meaning. But have come to interpret it as "if you do this, then we'll do this." I have seen it in a couple of places in Tenerife, though not implemented.

great shapes, colours and shadows,
the fab light makes everything into art

love this old ruin

this old colonial house (La Casona?) goes way back and has lots of history
linking it to rubber and banana plantations in the 1600s
(forgot to pay attention to the notice board)

at the far end of the walk we had salad and Canarian salty potatoes
with a couple of clara de limons: excellent!

photo: Mary

small white

blackbird

the walk goes along the clifftop below the houses

small copper

Gordejuela: after

I have written about this place before. (An old pumping station for banana plantations.) It has to be one of the most picturesque ruins in the world and never fails to impress. I swore when I got back home, I'd photoshop off the spraypaint some artless fuckwit put all over the bottom left. What an absolute see you next tuesday. I mean who sees this majestic building and thinks it would be improved with a cack-handed graffiti?. I can only hope they fell directly into the sea.

before

sensational!
the mist is spray from giant Atlantic rollers crashing onto rocks

Coming back along to the waste ground we saw this kestrel perched in a dead tree. I had already suggested to Mary that the tree would make an excellent perch for a kestrel and was delighted to see this male had done just that. We crept forward stealthily but there was no way he wouldn't see us miles off. When we got fairly close he let us know what he thought of our ninja skills...

poop!

He then turned to have his photo taken before flying off.

getting hotter!
(we reckoned this was prob +5' hype)

After our first visit to Peurto de la Cruz we bought the Rother Walking Guide which, while written in a laboured Germanic translation, has loads of great routes. Along with online GPX file downloads for the best trail walks in Tenerife. We picked one, just along the coast West of us, which finished near San Juan de la Rambla, and looked like a decent short walk to get back into hiking adventures. I put the gpx file into my Suunto to follow like a basic sat-nav.

We got off the bus at an unlikely spot on the main road heading West. It was not clear we were in the right area but it seemed to match what the guide book said and when I turned on the gps we were within yards of the trail. It started near a picnic area and we could tell from the route profile it headed steeply up one of the many gorges that pepper the Tenerife coast. It really is an astonishing volcanic landscape.

And one of the reasons I have always felt buses were a better option than car rental. Instead of arriving at a spot frazzled and shaking after the alarming speed of the autopista and the snaking terror of the tightly wound switchbacks that climb into the hills, we step off a bus laughing and joking and in a more relaxed frame of mind. Also we can both drink a beer afterwards at a cafe. Or finish a route at an alternative place to the point of departure, and catch a different bus ‘home’.

Anyway, we started up this trail just a short distance behind another couple who had also got off the bus. They seemed to be keen to race ahead but of course were unaware of the years of hillrunning in our legs and before we had completed the first mile which was at a nightmare gradient and zig-zagged up the walls of the canyon, we had overhauled them. The bloke was looking his age as he sat on a stone step trying to catch his breath. Mary is strong on the uphills and we reached the top in first place. Although they overtook us back while we were taking pics of butterflies.

a mile of fairly intense gradient up the side of a gorge

then we popped out at a village

hundreds of whites

There were cabbage fields and flocks of whites in attendance. Having been deprived of butterflies since October it was a proper delight to see strings of 8 or 10 whites chasing each other about the fields. The other couple had regained their composure and raced off keenly. I was a bit concerned the first spectacular mile was the only excitement of this trip and that little more remained, other than a gentle walk back down a deserted tarmac road into San Juan, then more of the same along the coast, back to the picnic area. This was pretty much the case although it was all very pleasant. And we would regularly recall the current plummeting temperature in Edinburgh, which always cheered us up. We walked in shorts and t-shirts, large damp patches behind back packs.

I saw this large yellow butterfly in someone's garden a hundred yards away. I was pretty sure from its flight and colouring it was a Canary Brimstone. The pronounced orange on the forewings confirms this, and I was tempted to run over and try to photograph it. But it was quite a distance away and down a driveway to someone's house and Mary was already a good way in front and marching steadily onwards. I had fallen behind, taking photos or dicking about. I thought the chances of it still being there and settled for a photo by the time I got there were slim. I never saw it settle the whole time I was shooting off pics. I was surprised how some of them came out clearly enough (from quite some distance away) to confirm the species Gonepteryx cleobule. I had seen them do fly pasts on previous trips but no decent photos.

Not that these are decent photos! The Brimstone remains on my Tenerife list of butterflies to get a proper photo of, although this felt like one step closer. We saw maybe 3 more during the trip but none stopped and settled for a close up. They are strong fliers and rarely stop for a breather, making them very frustrating. 3 seen over 2 weeks of nearly continual outdoors is not a great batting average.

Due to the upward surge of this volcanic island there are loads of folds in the coastline producing these gorges - barrancos - which the roads do their best to skirt round. We came across several places where a road would dodge inland and switchback round the meanderings of a gorge. It makes the bus drivers' routes hectic and they toot their horns a lot when approaching these bottlenecks to warn other road users to give them room. Our walk took us down one such gorge into the small township of San Juan de la Rambla.

When we got to San Juan we decided to have a snack break at an empty looking restaurant. It was a bit pricey but we had really good quality chicken noodle soup and huge prawn and fruit salad. In rather beautiful crockery! I had been saying in answer to Mary’s question ‘what would you ideally like to eat’ that it was the weather for salad with fruit. We wondered how many other things we could conjure up just by discussing them.

beer and lunch - happy boy!

As we were waiting on the food (having a cold cerveza, or rather canya; delicious! Like extremely delicious! Cold beer on a hot day's hike!) a helicopter came along the coast. We got up to see why it was hovering in the bay next door to the restaurant. It looked like an exercise but as we watched we realised it was an actual rescue and a guy dropped down on a winch into the sea then pulled a rather bedraggled boarder up into the helicopter above. It was an excellent visual starter to our soup and salad.

video still

I shot some video and it came out well. I should have sold it to the local tv news. The boarder (female, I think) looked cold but otherwise okay. I presume she got blown off course or down the coast by strong winds. I will post the video when I have some editing time. You have no idea how long it took (once home) to reprocess 500 of 5000+ photos on decent editing software on a big screen.

superb lunch at this place - highly recommended

Every time we did a small cafe stop with a couple of beers it came to around 30 euros. Often we ended up carrying sandwiches and bottles of cold water instead. The supermarket a minute along the road from our hotel sold the most excellent brown loaves which we filled with chorizo, cheese and salad. Mary turns off her vegan preferences when in Spain and Spanish territories. And also her teetotal inclinations. Most evenings we’d cook at the hotel and have frosty clara de limons and warm red wine. Average price for a bottle of red was around 5 or 6 euros and there seemed no discernible difference between 3 euro stuff and 9. The sun went down about 6.30pm and we’d eat on the hotel balcony between 7 and 8, rarely bothering to put more than an extra jumper on. Most nights we’d put the A/C on for a bit, going to sleep, and slept under a single sheet or, on cold nights(!), pull on the the top layer, a slightly thicker sheet.

one of the few days of overcast weather
a shame as sunshine would show off this charming village

chasing the photo

gotcha!

Like ourselves, another bunch of temporary residents at the hotel were the pigeons and doves. (And a couple of shy collared doves). I noticed them first day and had been bribing their friendship with homemade bread which I’d brought from Edinburgh. I took a loaf along as I hadn’t realised the supermarket stuff would be so good. When I saw some white doves and a pigeon or 2 strutting about on the fake lawn outside our balcony I brought them over with bready bribes. They were appreciative and would then regularly appear and land on the hollow metal balcony railing and tap out a hungry morse code to let me know they were ready to be fed!

paradise: clara de limons, bowl of olives
tweaking photos and dove friends for company.

album cover

When there was no bread I put out ashtrays of porridge oats and muesli. They, like us, found the supermarket muesli much better than the local porridge oats. We had to keep these associations clandestine, as I suspected the staff and other residents wouldn’t be a fan of the small aviary I was developing on balcony 106. I wiped up pigeon poop with the micron thin toilet roll provided. I bought more toilet roll in the supermarket to supplement the hotel variety which I imagined was the cheapest possible. However that too was also very thin and I suspect it is all gauged to the local sewer system and what it can handle. The maid, who made our beds and tightened them down (ref George from Seinfeld; clip here) with considerable vigour every day, stopped replacing the hotel toilet rolls when she saw we were buying our own. And then she replaced the porridge ashtray on the balcony table where it started and we wondered if we had been rumbled or just mildly rebuked.

back to the track for an early morning session

sweaty neck!

African migrant Catopsilia florella

m and f African migrants

no idea why the Saltire or who left it

The amount of reliable info about Tenerife wildlife seems very limited. A good hunt about google produces little in the way of hard facts and the best places to see such-and-such a species. Much of what we have learned has been trial and error and if I have got something wrong, a dragonfly species or whatever, then let me know. A lot of the small lycaenidaes are very similar looking, especially as they get older and worn looking. The best identifier I found was at the tropical butterfly house in Icod de los Vinos which had a finite chart of every butterfly species on Tenerife and a few of the larger moths. (We didn’t visit the Mariposario this trip as the weather was largely great and so we were busy with outdoors stuff rather than indoor activities.)

finite list of mariposas

From this list we could see that the large light green or cream coloured butterflies that were out on hot days were African Migrants. This was the first time we had seen these. They are larger than small whites and shift about more promptly. They tend not to land although the females do when looking for a an egg-laying site. When they settle on a light green coloured leaf they are very well camouflaged. I was pleased to tick off another of the Tenerife species I hadn't seen before. (Or may have seen, but not correctly identified.)

more dove shots

lunch in town
(tuna salad and beers)

some local murals

monarch

small white

African migrant

A few days into the holiday (Weds 14th) and we went on a tiger hunt. This involves 2 buses to get to Punto de Hidalgo (takes nearly 2 hrs) where the road stops and turns into a dirt trail that rises into spectacular hills. The only other folk that come here are hikers and surfers. The surfers seem to sit on their boards at a spot in the bay looking at huge waves as they dump on the unfriendly rocky beaches, wondering if today is a good day to die.

I used to do sport climbing which involved more terror than I have ever craved. When I see people doing dangerous sports or activities that involve obligatory immersion in cold water or jumping off dangerous places, I am pleased I have chosen activities where the biggest danger is walking backwards through brambles or hurdling fences chasing lepidoptera. With running there is every risk of a cardiac incident, but if that was going to happen it would’ve probably had me on the ground at the Tuesday night Meadows sessions with Martin H (RIP) 15 years ago with Bert and Ben looking down saying that doesn’t count you need to finish the lap before you lie down.

Anyway there we were at P de Hidalgo and the cloud was sitting about 800 feet entirely blocking out the sun and there was a butterfly-unfriendly breeze. Had we come all this way for nothing? The reason for this trip being it was the only spot on Tenerife we had ever come across Plain Tigers. Two trips ago we had started a hike in the hills which finished on the coast here and just as we were about to walk up to the bus stop we saw these these large butterflies nectaring on the long stemmed purple flowers that grow there. We thought they were just monarchs and it was only looking at the results later we realised they were not.

Plain Tigers, Danaus chrysippus, are a less stripy version of a monarch. Similar and yet maybe much lovelier on account of not being found many places on the island. Monarchs are everywhere, which is nice but you start taking them for granted and mostly not bothering with any but the freshest specimens in the most aesthetic setting.

I was very gloomy at the prospect of no Tigers. We had returned to PdH last trip (in January 2022) and they were thin on the ground. We found maybe 3 specimens and they were not in mint condition. However we got some photos. Previously Colin and Joan had (following my recommendations) come to this spot only to find an absence of any butterflies. So they are not always about. I have no idea whether it is weather or time of season that brings about their appearance. This was our third visit here and luck had run out at last. Oh well, at least we’ll enjoy a climb up the steep trail, good training for a hill race Mary has entered us for (without my consultation!) in January.

The area for Plain Tigers is astonishingly small - about a hundred yards long and about half that wide. There is a dip in the trail before it climbs up the hill and in this dip there are a clan of these spectacular butterflies. As we were walking across this, myself as gloomy as a wet weekend, a large orange butterfly flip-flops across the path in front. "They're here!" I shout to Mary who is pleased that I am about to cheer up 200%. But she also knows it could difficult to move me from this spot. It probably takes about 30 minutes for her to drag me off. I reckon we have been there 10mins, Mary feels more like 45. I’ll check the gps watch later. At least a dozen PTs are cruising the area and most in perfect condition. Due to the weather they are behaving well for the camera. More sun and they might be more frenzied. It requires a certain shutter speed to freeze them in action and the camera struggles to realise this in the overcast conditions. But I am elated. I thought we had blown it; although to be fair there was no warning on either of the forecasts we checked of any low cloud.

plain tiger - like a monarch without stripes

The trail climbs up to Chinamada and it was our intention to eat our sandwiches there, then return to Hidalgo and catch the bus home. Or through hike to Cruz del Carmen and catch the bus there. However just after the first viewpoint (a mile and a half up the trail and about a thousand feet in altitude) we were surrounded by low cloud which made everything damp and slippy with a sheen of drizzle. Although the trails are steep they are bearably safe. But we didn’t have rain gear and neither of us were that committed to a damp hike into the hills. We turned around and went back to the bus stop at Hidalgo. Albeit with another 10mins* at the butterfly bit. I had forgotten to take any video of them flying and spent a while following them round their bit while filming them. With skillful editing there might be a short jumpy movie made when we get back to Edinburgh. Again, Mary had to use all her powers of persuasion to get me back up to the bus-stop. Despite the lack of sunshine the day had been excellent; a real snatching-victory-from-the-jaws-of-defeat experience. And the photos came out okay.

up into the drizzly clouds...

then back down the way we came

Back down to the small area inhabited by the plain tigers.
*I have just looked at the gps trail for the day and 10 minutes into our walk we stopped at the butterflies for 26minutes before continuing up the hike into the hills. On the way back I spent another 26minutes taking photos and videos at the same spot. It would seem that 26 minutes is the maximum amount of butterfly dawdle allowed! Although I do admit to dragging my feet when it comes to butterflies, I always express my appreciation afterwards to Mary who has a certain enthusiasm for taking photos of wildlife as well. Just not as much as I have. We managed not to fall out about it. Compromise is a 2 way street!

scarlet darter (m)

four!

three

two

one

small white

back to the track!

As this map shows the track is about 150 yards from our hotel although the gps seems to have us on the wrong side of the road. Our hotel is the Noelia. The one next to us, the Be Live is something of note. I had seen the google attached description of "adults only" and wondered if it was some sort of sex shop. Nope. It's a whole hotel which does not welcome kids. And it is huge - the large yellow block next to the running track barranco which is not (as the map suggests) filled with water. It is filled with scrub and weeds, chickens, dragonflies, dog-mud and the occasional vagrant.

Anyway this large hotel that does not want squawking kids spoiling the atmosphere seemed to be fairly normal until Saturday night when they had a pool party until about 5am! Honestly! Folk splashing about at 4am, presumably the bar open and THE most dreadful pop music (I'm temped to say it sounded like it might be catering for Germans but that would be purely racist and based on nothing but fact,) long after most folk have gone to bed. Our balcony faced the hotel and pool directly and we were already having trouble sleeping in the very warm night air. This kept us in the grey area of half awake and half asleep and we did wonder if it was a fever dream that they kept this appalling sounding theme track going all night. It only seemed to happen once during the 2 weeks we were there. Thankfully.

moth

These wee moths were everywhere. They liked to sunbath or sit on flowers and fly off if you got close. There were dozens and I could not be bothered to learn their species or take many pics of them. This photo is fairly poor as it was taken with the TZ100 which is aging quickly. Especially in the sweaty palm of an old man running heart attack fast round a dirt track in the midday sun. Also they are tiny. Not even big enough to be mistaken for the smallish blues that share the same flowers. Annoying mostly, but because they share a space on this rich earth with everything else they get a mention. But that's yer lot.

how to ruin a camera!

the finger is in response to Mary suggesting the 300 is
how old I am feeling after one lap too many

Now this one is a new type of grasshopper thing I've not seen before. I saw three of them, a small, medium and large. They have VERY long antennae which must be tricky to keep from getting tangled as they can move very sharpish in a combination of jump and fly. Unless they work only in ultraviolet or something I can't believe they don't know that they are very much in contrast to the red bracts on the top of the poinsettia. When disturbed by (for instance) someone poking a lens in their face they take cover super quick on the underside of a green leaf. So I presume this red green contrast is some sort of advertisement for other long greenies to see. Also when they are getting ready to hoof it they bring their back legs up into the more traditional aspect of a grasshopper, before boing-ing and flying off. The large size was about as long as a longish finger and quite impressive.

geranium bronze

surfers near Puerto de la Cruz

epaulet skimmer (f)

scarlet darter (f)

scarlet darter (m)

Now this one had me scratching my head until I re-checked the mariposario chart and it appeared to be a Canary Blue, Cyclyrius webbianus. (Nowadays called Leptotes webbianus according to wikipedia.) Endemic to the Canaries. The underwing (below) matches photos online. Not many of these about.

Mostly I didn't bother to raise the camera for a small white unless the surroundings were particularly inspiring. The above was such a case; perfect light, perfect pose, great background.

Then I came across these (large) wasps which once again only appeared when the temps went through the roof. A bit of googling later and they are (red) potter wasps, Delta dimidiatipenne, so called because they build enclosures of saliva and clay formed around the larvae which they supply with caterpillars to eat before emerging. Bad, bad wasps! Also known as caterpillar hunting wasps and a recent (1988) introduction to the Canaries. Oblivious to humans except to fly away from if approached. No mention of stings / bites on wikipedia.

African Grass Blue

AGB x 3

scarlet darter (f)

scarlet darter (m)

African migrant

pipet

long-tailed blue

These 2 make me smile every time I see this photo. There were lots of collared doves and these 2 noticed I was aiming my camera at them and took notice. They are more shy than the pigeons but also curious and not unfriendly. I am reminded of the phrase the cuckoo pigeon sisters in Neil Simon's The Odd Couple. (Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon in the 1968 film version.) There were several gangs of pigeons about the place and I got quite keen on photographing them.

I am proud to say this is the one and only ice-cream we indulged in over the 2 weeks. Mary had scoped out the 2 places selling expensive cones (right next door to each other) and made a good choice with the place we went. (Incidentally the one NOT claiming to be authentic!) They were really nice but one was sufficient and we didn't want to overdo the rich food. Sometimes it's best to draw a line.

photo: Mary

Now this guy, let's call him stumpy, made a few folk on social media resort to a rash of soft-hearted tearful emojis which is understandable. But actually he was quite the grifter and got more of our cones than all the other pigeons combined by coming up close and doing a poor little me with just one foot act. I admired his skills and gave him lots of high sugar cone base. Which is probably what caused his foot to drop off in the first place.

other pigeons were available

the people top left give a sense of the scale of these huge waves

I had seen this bird land, a turnstone maybe, and was zooming in to take its pic when I noticed there were crabs hauled out on lots of the rocks. Their dark green shells kept them well camouflaged but once you saw them you saw many more.

looks like he's catching loads of fish

minimum aperture cats eyes

This was some religious tower or similar on the West side of town.
No safety barriers whatsoever and a drop of about 25 feet.
Good view of the soccer pitches next door though!