Given the appalling spring and early summer, this week’s rare spell of wall to wall sunshine couldn’t be wasted so I was anxious to go somewhere on a nature hunt. Cornmill Meadows near Waltham Abbey sprang to mind but, given…
Author: John Curd
Wi-Fi McTroubles
Last year I became the short-lived proud owner of a Dell Inspiron laptop. The pride was short-lived because, after little more than a month, my brand spanking new Windows 7 system froze fatally. All attempts at recovery failed and Dell…
Aristocratic Quarry
Some while ago we spotted a guided butterfly walk around a local reserve, Totternhoe Quarry. The main quarry in the quarry would be the Duke of Burgundy (Hamearis lucina) butterfly. Since neither quarry was familiar to us, we applied to…
Clearly a Common Blue
An unusual day this so-called spring is one in which it doesn’t rain. My 94-year old mother uses a Dial-a-Ride scheme to get into town and the driver on her last trip observed, rather wittily I thought, that this was…
End of my Duck
I’m beginning to despair of the BBC; my guardians of proper English are relaxing their standards. Yesterday I spotted a headline proclaiming, “April [2012] is the wettest month for 100 years”. The very first paragraph began, “It has been the…
Spanish Flutter-Bys
At the end of March, with the new Odonata season approaching but not yet with us in England, we were off to Spain for a 2½-week house-and-dog-sitting engagement. “Goody”, I thought, “being further south I’ll get a jump on the…
Madeiran Gastronomy
One of the many pleasant aspects of visiting a new culture or area is that the ol’ taste buds can get excited about a new range of food items. Madeira may be a modestly sized island, ~36mls/60kms x 14mls/23kms, but…
Footloose in Funchal
Madeira’s population is roughly 250,000 in round numbers. About 50% of these live in the capital, Funchal, with its buildings climbing up hills surrounding the harbour rather like the banked seats in an amphitheatre. Today was our last full day…
Tagged with: butterflies, dragonflies, food, Madeira, nature, Odonata, photography, travel, wildlife
Hitting the Highs
Our week seemed to have been leading up to today’s outing, the grand finale of the tour, the so-called balcony walk between Pico do Ariero, Madeira’s third highest peak at 1818 m/5965 ft, and Pico Ruivo, the highest point at…
Up and Over
After two days investigating the levadas of Madeira, today we were due to head up into the mountains of Madeira to walk from Boca Corrida to Encumeada. We we very lucky on two counts. First, this walk had been closed…
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