in #Madeira for a few days (again), plotting & planning amongst the endemics

Madeiran Firecrest & Madeiran Chaffinch both as friendly as ever, a drive-by Trocaz Pigeon & Echium nervosum looking great

Sand Martin @ Ponta do Pargo & Squacco Heron @ Sao Vicente were less expected

Ingredients: Wide buffer strip with gates to allow end of season cattle grazing + removal of land drains piping a spring into the brook + 2 days to 'pull' the water through the newly re-wetted area to create 'flashes', 'dragonfly pools' & 'wildlife ditches'.

jeez ...

spent Friday walking 23 miles from the source of the Dove down to Dove Dale

2 Cuckoos, 5 Dippers, a Red Kite near the top and a handful of Willow Warblers up around Hollinsclough

loads of Green Hairstreaks up on the moors

ended the day staring up at the Aurora like a loon

#TheEndOfDays

Although it won't be confirmed until after the event has reached Earth, there are signs tonight's Severe Geomagnetic Storm will be the strongest since 2005.

This will mean it's likely all of the UK (cloud permitting) should be able to see the the Aurora tonight if you look north

We're going back to Mongolia in August!

Can

Not

Wait

wildlife-travel.co.uk/asia-and-pacif…

one last morning moth session with the #MothWhisperer James Lowen & Mark Hows

amongst the goodies today

The Passenger (a near cousin of our earlier Geometrician)

Euchromius superbellus

& the lovely emerald Proteuchloris neriaria

#MothsMatter #WildlifeTravelling #Lesvos

a close run thing... I do love a good form

a day of all the beasts on the sunny #Lesvos hillsides around Molyvos...

the much-admired, thread-tailed Neuroptera sinuata

Eresus walckenaeri, a chewy ladybird spider

Grand Antlion again

and the pitch black Dasypogon diadema, a contender for next year's #WorldRobberFlyDay

Some more goodies, thanks to the moth trapping efforts of James Lowen and Mark Hows, introducing another group of Wildlife Travellers (and half the other hotel guests) to the wonderful world of moths each morning

Wildlife Travel #MothsMatter #WildlifeTravelling

and is there anything more perfect than Iris orientalis?

#WildlifeTravelling #Lesvos

some days, everything just works out perfectly

today we enjoyed Olive-tree Warblers & Masked Shrikes in the olive groves, a trio of Little Bitterns at Metochi, all 3 marsh terns on the salt pans, a quartet of elegant Collared Pratincoles & a Little Crake at Alykes

#LesvosBirds

starting our day off with a lesson in #BatesianMimicry ...

Dasylabris sp, a velvet ant with a 'painful wallop' of a sting (according to Natural History Museum no less)

and Clerus mutillarius, a similarly garbed, but entirely stingless beetle

#WildlifeTravelling

nhm.ac.uk/discover/velve…

out west for a day of buntings & butterflies, wheatears & weather

6+ singing Cinereous Buntings the stars along w/ 6 Black-headed, 3 Cretzschmar's and 3 Cirl Bunts, 3 spp of wheatear, Eastern Orphean Warbler

Balkan Marbled White, Turkish and Aegean Meadow Browns

#LesvosBirds

some of the goodies from last night's moth trapping haul in #Lesvos , thanks to James Lowen

Pale Shoulder

Coral-bordered Wave

Lace Border

and Great Silver Water Beetle

#MothsMatter

afternoon down amongst the marshes nr Mesa, where a Bittern slunk through the rushes, & this handsome Red-backed Shrike posed nicely

super-abundant Dark Spreadwing, loads of trackside Holy Orchid & 9 Black Storks grounded nearby

#LesvosBirds #WildlifeTravelling Wildlife Travel

up into the chestnut forests for lunch, surrounded by orchids, anemones and tulips and this very smart, freshly emerged Eastern Festoon

#WildlifeTravelling in #Lesvos with James Lowen and Wildlife Travel