Eco Hvar

Birds and Insects Autumn-Winter 2015

Reports from Dol, many thanks Steve!

Kestrel, Jelsa Kestrel, Jelsa Photo: Michael Southall

My bird watching sadly has been rather limited this year, the intention is to make more detailed notes in 2016 - or just wishful thinking.

I had a friend came over in September for a week and I think he listed 29 species in that time excluding Bee-eaters which had gone by then. Saw my last Swift on 27th October, two months later than we would have in the UK. My friend specialises in Moths and set up a couple of traps in my garden for a week. He was delighted with the quantity and species. Probably about 200 different species which I have pictures of - unfortunately I am not knowledgeable enough to identify any.

Humming-bird hawk moth.

The humming-bird hawk moth is spectacular in flight, and safely inconspicuous when at rest.

 
Humming-bird hawkmoth. Photo Michael Southall

I erected a bird table about three months ago and was rather disappointed by the lack of interest in it. However in the last three weeks it has been a source of food for about 10 Blue Tits / some Great Tits and a Robin.  There clearly is enough natural food for several other species.

Blue-tit at the bird table. Photo Steve Jones

Blackcaps are feeding on pomegranate tree nearby, the occasional Wren pops into the garden and numerous Chaffinch feed off the ground in a neighbours field. Sova Usara calls regularly but seeing it is a little more difficult although some super views in August on an old ruin next door. Saw a male and female Cirl Bunting on some Blackberry bushes nearby on Monday/Tuesday this week.

Last week was seeing Black Redstart/Redstart ( I thought Redstart but two friends think Black Redstart so we will go with them - it is a female and they are both pretty similar). It sort of makes sense as I was positive I saw a male on roof briefly the other week.

redstart
Redstart. Photo Steve Jones

I had two or three trips to the airfield in the summer/late summer and found a few species there. Managed to get a reasonable picture of a young Golden Plover which was a surprise to me. Having seen them in flocks on Dartmoor in the Winter, I have never seen one solitary bird. I also saw Yellow Wagtails. There was a solitary Heron at the small pond near the airport, but I was expecting more, as it is the only source of water I know of. Blue Rock Thrush nested nearby which solved a problem I had had for a while, I was familiar with the call over several years, but hadn't managed to tie it up to the bird until now. Also Nightjars were heard most evenings.

Olive picking yielded an unexpected treasure

A great find whilst picking Olives: this caterpillar, which I estimate to be about 10cm long X 1cm wide, later becomes the deathshead hawkmoth ( I didn't know that, but am reliably informed - a fantastic sight and so well camouflaged).

Deathshead Hawkmoth caterpillar. Photo Steve Jones

I will endeavour to detail more next year - you mentioned hearing a Cuckoo on April 24th, which is interesting, as that is around the same time that they reach Dartmoor. There has been an interesting project in the UK for the past 3 years now, involving radio tagging cuckoos to track their progress and whereabouts. Really fascinating. I am wondering whether or not they actually breed here, or just pass through. And what is their host bird if they breed here?

Steve, Dol, December 19th 2015

I have been a bit disappointed by the lack of birds in the winter, I was expecting far more, but pleased my bird table is attracting some of the more common speicies. Did see four Buzzards conveniently perched on four pylons on my way into Stari Grad this morning.

Steve, Dol, December 23rd 2015

I went off bird watching early Xmas morning  - over to the airfield and the pond nearby.

Pied wagtail, December 25th 2015. Photo Steve Jones

Saw the usual Heron and 2 Pied Wagtail.

Heron, 28th December 2015. Photo Steve Jones

Saw several flocks of Chaffinch in trees (overnight roosts perhaps) between there and Stari Grad. Up to 60 or so on one tree and a couple of instances of similar driving back to Dol.

Flock of goldfinch in flight. Photo Steve Jones

Another pair of Cirl Buntings down near the electricity sub-station at Stari Grad. Several Buzzards but all too distant to get decent pictures. I have noticed Great Tits in the last two days are actually calling now.

Steve, Dol, December 27th 2015

For more of Steve's beautiful nature pictures, see his personal pages: Bird Pictures on Hvar 2017, and Butterflies of Hvar

Related items

back to top
You are here: Home Nature Watch Birds and Insects Autumn-Winter 2015

Eco Environment News feeds

  • Vienna’s public transport is the envy of the world – so why can’t it ditch cars?

    Austrian capital mulls expanding tram network and park-and-ride car parks in effort to reduce private vehicle use

    When Leonore Gewessler hops on the underground trains and street-level trams that run like clockwork across the breadth of Vienna, she appreciates the ease, affordability and time she “gets as a present” instead of idling in traffic. But Austria’s former climate and transport minister is also aware that cars still dominate the capital’s streets. She says good public transport is just the “precondition” to changing how people move around the city.

    Vienna’s network of trains, trams and buses have long been the envy of other European cities – let alone car-centric North American ones – but automobiles are still used for a quarter of journeys. In other capitals famed for world-class public transport, such as London, Paris and Prague, even higher use of cars has frustrated doctors and campaigners demanding cleaner air and safer streets.

    Continue reading...

  • From V2 rocket-scarred London to Ukraine: how nature thrives in bomb craters

    In the UK capital, Bomb Crater Pond is full of wildlife, while scientists studying land obliterated by recent Russian blasts 1,500 miles away have seen ‘how quickly nature begins to heal itself’

    In February 1945, towards the end of the second world war, a German V2 rocket struck Walthamstow Marshes in east London. The explosion tore a crater into the marshland. Left untouched, it slowly filled with water, sediment … and life. Today, this wartime scar has become a thriving pond.

    “It’s small but it really punches above its weight,” says Luke Boyle, a ranger for the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority, as he kneels at the edge to examine aquatic plants sprouting their early spring shoots. “We can’t manage the hydrology here, so it is actually a vital part of the ecosystem – it supports a range of plants, insects and amphibians, more than you might expect,” he says.

    Continue reading...

  • Alaska’s 2025 mega tsunami highlights risk to cruise lines as glaciers retreat

    Researchers say 481-metre wave in fjord was triggered by rockslide linked to climate crisis

    A mega tsunami in Alaska last year in a fjord visited by cruise ships is a stark warning of the risks of coastal rockslides and glacier retreat fueled by the climate crisis, a new study warns.

    Scientists recorded the world’s second-tallest tsunami after it struck the Tracy Arm fjord in south-east Alaska last August after a massive rockslide around the toe of a glacier. The tsunami reached 481 metres (1,578ft) in height; by comparison the Eiffel Tower is 330 metres (1082ft).

    Continue reading...

  • EU trade deal could force UK to restrict use of weedkiller linked to cancer

    Glyphosate is currently sprayed on cereal and pulse crops to dessicate them and make them easier to harvest

    A new trade deal with the EU could lead to restrictions on the use of the controversial weedkiller glyphosate on UK food crops.

    The full-spectrum herbicide, which kills almost every plant it touches, is often sprayed on wheat, oats and other cereal and pulse crops shortly before harvest to desiccate them and make them easier to handle.

    Continue reading...

  • Gibraltar dumping all of its raw sewage into Mediterranean

    Wastewater from nearly 40,000 people and businesses pumped straight into sea as territory still has no treatment plant

    Raw sewage from nearly 40,000 people and businesses is being pumped straight into the sea because the British overseas territory of Gibraltar does not have, and has never had, a wastewater treatment plant.

    For decades, untreated sewage has poured into the Mediterranean from the southern tip of the peninsula at Europa Point, where the government of Gibraltar says there are “high levels of natural dispersion”.

    Continue reading...

  • Country diary: A butterfly haven of orange tips and holly blues | Sara Hudston

    Powerstock Common, Dorset: I’m hopeful that the mixed habitats here and bright weather will bring them out in their droves – and I’m not disappointed

    The recent pulse of warm, sunny weather has encouraged butterflies to fly in large numbers in Dorset. They were everywhere when I visited Powerstock Common: the moment I opened the car door, a brimstone fluttered sulphur-yellow over the parking area, lifted on a stream of blackcap song.

    Bright as butter in the sunshine, it’s possible that brimstones are the species that inspired the word “butterfly”. When this one settled on a hazel, its underwings merged green among the new leaves, the colours indicating it was a male. Females are much paler, sometimes almost white. Both sexes have a pair of browny-orange spots on their wings, which are foxed like the page edges of an old book.

    Continue reading...

  • Norwegian fish farms polluting fjords with waste likened to ‘raw sewage of millions of people’

    Exclusive: ‘Fish sludge’ in coastal waters now has nutrient levels equivalent to those in untreated effluent of country the size of Australia, report finds

    Norwegian fish farms are filling fjords and other coastal waters with nutrient pollution equivalent to the raw sewage of tens of millions of people each year, a report has found.

    Norway is the largest farmed salmon producer in the world, and nutrients in fish feed are excreted directly into coastal waters. Analysis from the Sunstone Institute found that Norwegian aquaculture released 75,000 tonnes of nitrogen, 13,000 tonnes of phosphorus and 360,000 tonnes of organic carbon in 2025.

    Continue reading...

  • ‘Climate solutions will bring down bills and restore nature’: green issues and May elections

    As Reform vows to block solar and windfarms, energy leaders say renewables offer most secure future, insulating UK from hostile forces

    • May elections: What’s at stake across England, Wales and Scotland?

    The defining issue of Thursday’s local elections, feedback from doorsteps suggests, will be the UK’s soaring cost of living. But voters should be told about the links between inflation and the effects of fossil fuels and the climate crisis – or the remedies they choose – may make the situation worse, green campaigners have warned.

    Ami McCarthy, the head of politics at Greenpeace UK, said: “With people’s bills and prices soaring from yet another fossil fuel crisis, these local elections have a global context – driven by the Iran war.

    Continue reading...

  • ‘Heat, floods and droughts make men more violent to women’: Natasha Walter on eco-feminism in a world on fire

    The author has become acutely aware of how the climate crisis is affecting women – and, in her new book, she argues that it’s time for mainstream western feminists to join the dots

    Natasha Walter is halfway through explaining how she came to be politically radicalised when a young woman approaches the cafe table. We two middle-aged women look like “the most trustworthy people here,” she says, so could we watch her baby while she grabs a coffee? Like the solid citizen she is, Walter doesn’t take her eyes off the pushchair parked by the cafe steps for the next five minutes, though all we can see of the occupant is a tiny swinging foot. Sorry, where were we? Ah yes, the groundbreaking feminist writer who famously argued in her 1998 book The New Feminism that Margaret Thatcher had broken down barriers for women was explaining why she no longer really believes it’s possible to be rightwing and a feminist, as Theresa May or Amber Rudd insist they are.

    “I can’t support just any woman getting into power, because I think a system that leaves too many women in the shadows – that condemns too many women to poverty or worse – is not a feminist system, and I don’t think you can call yourself a feminist if you’re going to prop up that system,” she says, eyes still glued to the baby for whom we are briefly responsible. “It’s not my kind of feminism.” Her younger self, she admits, would have thought her too uncompromising. But something in her seems to have hardened, facing a world she sees as threatened by the rise of far-right authoritarianism on one hand and a climate emergency on the other. “In the past I always wanted to be a broad church, I always thought any woman can be a feminist, but now I really am feeling … maybe I’ve been radicalised.”

    Continue reading...

  • How car-loving American cities fell so far behind their global peers on public transit

    With most major European cities well-served by trains and buses, bringing US transit up to par would cost $4.6tn

    The only train station in Houston, the US’s fourth-largest city and one of the fastest-growing conurbations in the country, is a diminished, morose sight. Intercity trains arrive at this squat, shed-like Amtrak building, which cringes in the shadows of roaring highways, just three times a week.

    That such a meager train station could ostensibly serve a metropolitan area of about 7 million people is a stark symbol of how the sprawling, car-dominated US has fallen behind cities around the world where people can rely on extensive, high-quality public transport to get around.

    Continue reading...

Eco Health News feeds

Eco Nature News feeds

Copyright © 2026 Eco Hvar. All Rights Reserved. Developed by Orion Informatika.