Tag Archives: photography

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 join in. At the very least we’d learn our way around another useful local wildlife habitat. At best, we’d see a relatively scarce species of butterfly – it occurs in just two sites in Bedfordshire, I believe – in the company of a specialist, the Bedfordshire butterfly recorder, so identity would not be in question.

Having applied by email, I heard nothing for what seemed like a couple of weeks and, my memory being what it is, I forgot all about it. Finally, last week, I received a thumbs up email saying we could attend and, during an uncharacteristically cooperative gap in our continuing appalling weather pattern, today we joined 20+ other enthusiasts to swarm around the quarry searching for the Duke. [It used to be referred to as the “Duke of Burgundy Fritillary” but it isn’t, in fact, a true fritillary so that part of the name has been dropped, I believe.]

Our first critter to be spotted was a Dingy Skipper (Erynnis tages). The first did not pose favourably but there were several around and I eventually snagged a reasonable shot of one without its being obscured by blades of grass. At first, It was a little difficult trying to avoid our fellow enthusiasts to get a decent photographic angle with about 25 people all trying to do the same thing. Eventually, though, things settled down and all were able to get something of a turn at the front.

Oddly enough, since I have seen it described as “a restless insect flitting rapidly from plant to plant and rarely settling for long”, the subject that seemed to help the clamour for photos die down into a more orderly affair was our very first Duke of Burgundy, which sat for a long period sunning itself, albeit behind one shadow-casting blade of grass. That’s the one here partially showing the underside. Later, in the depths of the old quarry itself, we came across a couple more Dukes who this time posed very cooperatively in the open. Here’s a link to Butterfly Conservation’s fact sheet on the Duke of Burgundy.

Time was pressing so we had to leave the Dukes eventually. Just as we started walking a section which would be “unlikely to produce anything interesting”, we disturbed three Green Hairstreaks (Callophrys rubi) feeding on a flowering hawthorn bush. These uniquely green butterflies are always a delight with their white eye-liner.

Further on was an extensive broken chalk escarpment which is home to a healthy population of butterflies known variously as Small Blue/Little Blue (Cupido minimus) when in season. (My old Collins guide uses Little Blue but more recent publications seem to use Small Blue.) However, we were a little early and this year the season is decidedly late so  none were found, neither Small nor Little. This is Britain’s smallest/littlest  butterfly so we’ll have to go back for another look in more favourable conditions.

Nature continues to be a little perverse and to confound us.

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 the wettest drought he’d ever known. A pleasant day is one of the aforementioned unusual days on which the sun deigns to put in a few brief appearances between the continuing rather heavy cloud cover. A good day is one of those rare pleasant days in which the temperature staggers up to something approaching the seasonal norm, say 16°C or so. Today met my good day parameters so we decided to go Odo hunting in the hope that they, too, would think it worth emerging.

About 20kms/13mls away is Marston Vale’s Forest Centre complete with a wetland reserve looking like a decent dragonfly hang out. It’s relatively new and certainly new to us so we went for our first exploration. Happily, on entering the wetland area, we met a fellow nature enthusiast who shepherded us around a few likely spots to get us started. He did, however, preface this by saying that he hadn’t potted any Odos during his visit. After he left us, expecting the worst we nonetheless continued, largely for the exercise and familiarization.

We continued to draw a blank until, in a sheltered spot about half way around the main lake, Carol caused someone to flutter up from the grass. It eventually settled on a hawthorn bush and was undoubtedly a damselfly. Not the most accessible of locations but I managed to get there without shaking its perch too many times. I was expecting to end up focussing on another Large Red (Pyrrhosoma nymphula).

As my camera came into focus this was clearly not a Large Red. The old recognition skills get a bit rusty over winter [Ed: in this bloody weather, everything gets rusty.] so I was initially undecided as to whether this was an Azure or a Common Blue. I was pretty sure it was the latter but I’d heard no reports of any yet this season. A quick look in Dijkstra/Lewington back at home base confirmed my suspicions, it was indeed a female Common Blue Damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum), newly emerged. I’ve included the second contre-jour shot because you appear to be able to see clear through the backlit abdomen and what appears to be the empty gut inside. Curious picture.

Further along the track we did disturb about five Large Reds but none of them settled appropriately for the camera. More cooperative, particularly with each other, was a pair of 7-spot Ladybirds (Coccinella septempunctata) who seemed to be concentrating on making more ladybirds. Further along but having a little less fun by itself, though sporting the same number of spots as the previous couple, was a 14-spot Ladybird (Propylea quatuordecimpunctata).

One other critter worthy of note was this Nursery Web Spider (Pisaura mirabilis), mainly because it had obviously read its species description in Chinery:

Hunts in nettle beds and other dense vegetation. Sunbathes on leaves with front two legs on each side extending forward and very close together.

We did see another Common Blue female, so I think the weather had brought, or was bringing, them out. They’re going to be in for a bit of a shock before the weekend gets here, though, if the forecast is accurate (and when it’s bad, it usually is accurate).

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 wettest April in the UK for over 100 years”. OK, so which is it, the wettest month or the wettest April? Precision guys, precision!

Be that as it may, whereas last spring was a stonker, this spring thus far has most certainly been absolute rubbish as regards the weather. In 2011 I spotted my first dragonfly of that new season on 19th April at Duck End NR, Malden. Consequently, for the last couple of weeks since returning home from Spain, I’ve been making trips to Duck End in search of this year’s first arrivals. My first two trips produced nothing – well, a couple of Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria) butterflies flitting about wondering where the sun was.

Eventually I received an email from the Bedfordshire dragonfly recorder saying that Bedfordshire’s first 2012 record had been submitted on 21st April somewhere near Biggleswade. Then a follow up noted that three tenerals (recently emerged specimens) had been seen on Tuesday 24th at good ol’ Duck End NR. He also noted that 2012 had been the worst start, in terms of numbers of species spotted, that he had witnessed. I’m not surprised; if I were a dragonfly larva climbing a stem bent on emergence but came up against this April’s weather, I’d clamber straight back down under water again.

However, today being a very rare bright day, I made my third trip to Duck End (having first drawn a complete blank at both King’s Wood and Sandhouse Lane NR). It didn’t look terribly promising at first but eventually, beside one pond (there are four), a glint of wings fluttered up from the grass and settled not too far away. The little beauty, it was a recently emerged female Large Red Damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula). I kept disturbing the grass and a few more fluttered up and off to various safer locations. Eventually a new male settled on a very accessible bramble leaf a short distance from the pond to complete my pair. I saw 10 in all, I had broken my duck.

The Speckled Woods (I spotted five) looked a lot happier in the rare spell of sunshine and a few territorial spats went on. A little more interesting, though, merely because they are generally more difficult to capture, was my first Orange Tip (Anthocaris cardomines) of the season which settled to bask, albeit at some distance beyond assault-proof brambles. I was trying a new tactic of having my long lens mounted on my Canon EOS 7D body and my macro lens on my trusty and recently professionally cleaned 40D. One of them is also on my monopod. This armoury constitutes a bit of an armful but somehow I managed to juggle everything and bring the long lens to bear on said Orange Tip.

Back at home the sun had brought our ivy into life with a domestic collection of basking insects also longing for better weather. Here I manage to snag decent macro shots of the so-called Marmalade Fly (Episyrphus balteatus) and a Green Shield Bug (Palomena prasina). Green Shield Bugs are interesting in that they are brown in winter, turning green for summer. This one looks as though it’s in transition.

Finally, this little fellow (I think it’s a male now, judging by the length of its antennae) turned up. I had no idea even what kind of critter it was at first but it looked cute in a very hairy kind of way. It turns out to be a Solitary Bee of the Osmia genus. As is frequently the case, Chinery says there are many similar species so we have to be satisfied with genus level id. Typical!

I’d say I was a happy camper but regrettably today was a very small island of sunshine in an expansive sea of crap.

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 season and see some earlier Odos”. Wrong! I didn’t see a single one. They must be out in Spain ‘cos I’ve since discovered that the southwest of England reported Large Red Damselflies in late March, which I think is particularly early, so I can only assume that I was not looking at suitable bodies of water. Fussy little critters.

Day 1 began well with an interesting non-blue “blue” butterfly flitting about some potted geraniums the garden. At first sight it looked very similar to the Lang’s Short-tailed Blue that we had recently encountered for the first time in Madeira. It didn’t look quite right, though, from what we could remember and not having our books available, we’d have to wait to see what it might be. It, or more accurately they – there were at least two individuals – returned to the potted Geraniums almost daily. This behaviour could be something to do with the fact that they turned out to rejoice in the name of Geranium Bronze (Cacyreus marshalli). I’d certainly never heard of them before but they have apparently been imported into the UK. Interestingly, the first person to spot them in England also initially thought them to be Lang’s Short-tailed Blues.

After our initial success in the garden, the area of Spain we were visiting, the Jalon Valley, actually seemed a bit of a desert on the wildlife front. We had a hard time finding very much at all considering I was expecting a spring flush. There were plenty of wild flowers around the valley but we spotted relatively few butterflies, just the occasional individual zooming past in a frequently stiff breeze.

Persistence paid off, though, and we eventually drove up to the base of a mountain called the Bernia. On this day, Easter Sunday, it seemed as though half of the walkers in Spain had had the same idea. We found somewhere to park, though, and confined our activity to the scrub at the base of the Bernia. Eventually, Hawk-eyes (a.k.a. Carol) spotted a flitting movement on the stony ground. It was the tiniest of blue butterflies which certainly looked new to us. Happy campers! It was another critter I’d never heard of, a Panoptes Blue (Pseudophilotes panoptes). There is a confusingly similar alternative species but good ol’ iSpot seems to think my suggested id. was correct.

Hawk-eyes struck again and spotted someone with whom we were familiar flitting about some vegetation, a Green Hairstreak (Callophrys rubi). Green Hairstreaks don’t stand out against leaves very well but this one eventually settled on the ground and offered me a clear shot. Most frustratingly, a strange species of Orange Tip whizzed past and settled only briefly – too briefly for me to catch up and bring a camera into focus. It was an Orange Tip with a yellow background which I’m pretty sure must have been a Morocco Orange Tip (Anthocharis belia). Darn!

Towards the end of our trip we tried another mountain, this time behind Senija and on foot. Once again, on our way up to the cross on its summit, we were struck by an almost complete lack of wildlife. All we spotted were a few bees. Uncultivated land, plenty of wild flowers and few people to cause disturbance but no critters. Curious! Once we got to the summit, though, things changed dramatically. A Swallowtail (Papilio machaon) whizzed past. It was quickly followed by another Swallowtail. There seemed to be at least three tussling aerobatically for the high ground. Eventually we managed to catch them settled in a favourable position for a picture. Even though this one is in slightly less than perfect condition, it shows that they really are the most spectacular creatures.

Then the fun really started. I spotted another pair which looked more like my beloved Scarce Swallowtail (Iphiclides podalirius) with stunning black tiger-stripes. These, however, looked as if the stripes were on a white background as opposed to the more familiar (to me) cream background. I snapped a couple of shots and waded into iSpot back at home base. We’d hit a bit of a naming conundrum. The white version is most frequently called the Spanish Swallowtail or Spanish Scarce Swallowtail. Some authorities regard it as a subspecies and refer to it as Iphiclides podalirius feisthamelii whereas others regard it as a separate species and refer to Iphiclides feisthamelii. Finally back chez nous, my latest French language book, Guide des Papillons d’Europe et d’Afrique du Nord does refer to I. feisthamelii and notes the following:

I. feisthamelii est considéré comme une sous-espèce par certains auteurs. Cependant, les genitalia des deux sexes sont bien distincts.

… which I think is accurately translated thus:

I. feisthamelii is considered a subspecies by certain authors. However, the genitalia of both sexes are very different.

There’s something comforting about being back in the realms of different insect genitalia. I think I’ll enter the I. feisthamelii camp. Anyway, after all that, here is the fabulous creature.

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 on Madeira and we were free to wander around and explore the town to our hearts’ content.

Target one was the market, which starts at 7:00 AM. Outside the hall we came across ladies selling flowers dressed in their traditional costumes o colourfully striped skirts and hats bearing contrasting side triangular shapes that looked to me like pixie ears. Cute! Such ladies, we were told, used to walk down the mountain side carrying their flowers to sell at the market, then walk back up the mountain side after their day at the office; distances of anything up to 10kms/7mls each way. That’d keep you fit.

The market hall itself, on two levels, were mainly the fruit and vegetable stalls with the buzz and bustle I’ve come to expect of non-UK European food markets. I hadn’t, however, come across anything approaching high-pressure fruit selling before but here, they were particularly keen on offering tasters of mangoes, passion fruits and the like followed by a pre-emptive close. We tasted – everything was excellent – but resisted signing a contract.

At the rear of the market hall was the fish market where we were able to come face to face with a Madeiran speciality, the black scabbard fish. Being essentially an old volcano in the Atlantic ocean, the land shelves away rapidly and the surrounding waters get very deep very quickly. The scabbard fish is a deep water fish that is, well, frankly bitch ugly; it’s very long and thin with a black skin, large eyes and fearsome looking teeth – most unappetizing in appearance. However, once prepared it makes damn good eating and is traditional served with another popular commodity on Madeira, bananas. Fried fish and bananas – yum! It sounds odd but it’s a curiously interesting combination – exactly what I jump at on a menu.

After the market, target two was one of Funchal’s two main gardens. Both require a climb and one way to achieve the climb is via a cable car which, though it struck us as a little on the expensive side, looked the most fun. Actually, there are two separate cable car runs linked by a short walk. The first takes you up to the higher of the two gardens, the tropical garden. The second brings you about half-way back down again to the lower botanical garden. To return, you have to reverse your journey and go back up before descending all the way back to sea level again. This seemed a slightly curious arrangement to me but I’m sure there was some logic to it somewhere. One of our party had already visited the tropical garden and pronounced it “very green” so Carol fancied the botanical garden instead. The combined ticket for both cable cars and entrance to the tropical garden was ~€28.00 each.

Our choice turned out to be a good one. Firstly, it most certainly wasn’t just green:

Secondly, while Carol was in her element and I was wandering around pretending to be interested in nature without a pulse, up popped a very unexpected visitor and landed beside me posing cooperatively for my first dragonfly encounter of 2012. It even waited long enough for me to purloin Carol’s proper camera. New species are always a thrill and, though this looked basically like a Common Darter (Sympetrum striolatum), it was actually a related species, an Island Darter (Sympetrum nigrifemur). By itself, this would have made my day but then I spotted a new entry for the butterfly collection, too, a Macaronesian Red Admiral (Vanessa volcania). Big grins all round.

Our wildlife thrills were not yet over. Having retraced our cable car route back to sea level and whilst investigating Funchal itself, we spotted a few large butterflies flitting about the small but charming Municipal Garden in the middle of town. I knew that the Canary Islands and Madeira were two of the very few places in Europe that were home to populations of Monarch/Milkweed butterflies and, though I might have secretly held hopes that I’d see one, I really didn’t expect to. Here they were, another new species for the collection. They weren’t alone, either. A very small blue was flitting about the grass and, though we really needed our wildlife lenses, we did manage to catch it on pixels and identify it as Lang’s Short-tailed Blue. (A publishable view of the topside proved impossible to get.)

All in all, a pretty successful day.

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 1862 m/6107 ft. This has the reputation of being Madeira’s must-do walk. We couldn’t believe our luck; once again the morning dawned clear and bright – it looked as if we’d be in for a perfect day for mountain walking.

Pico do Ariero may be Madeira’s third highest point but it is accessible by road and good ol’ Messrs Ford, Mercedes and Benz once again ferried us up to the start point. It may have been bright but at these altitudes the air is a bit cool so we were equipped with a few layers of clothing to make adjustments as necessary. After making last minute preparations and making the obligatory “ooh, ahh” noises at the scenery, we set off. Surprisingly, the walk began on what I can only describe as a paved footpath. I couldn’t believe the locals had put so much effort into their walking routes. It is a busy route so I suppose it helps with erosion control.

As we progressed we came across areas that weren’t quite so groomed but, nonetheless, there was a lot of effort involved in maintaining the route, especially regarding handrails. On some of the narrower sections, the handrails may not actually be used but I think one would feel decidedly more nervous were they not actually there. The term balcony walk perhaps seems a little odd so here’s a few shots that should go some way towards explaining the name.

At 6.5 mls/10kms, this walk wasn’t particularly long but there was certainly more climbing. I guess you can’t get up to an island’s highest peak without putting in a little effort. The final assault on the highest point, Pico Ruivo, certainly got the heart pumping but, with our gradual build-up to it throughout the week, it felt reasonably comfortable assisted by a pair of Leki walking poles. To avoid indigestion, we climbed first and ate second.

The weather gods continued to smile on us and the sun shone right through our lunch at Pico Ruivo and on into our eventual short descent on yet another paved pedestrian highway to our faithful vans and drivers. This was a spectacular and very enjoyable walk. A delightful finish to our walking in Madeira, though we still had a free day in Funchal to look forward to.

Feeling perhaps a little self satisfied at completing the walks and most certainly feeling very lucky that our time in the mountains had been blessed with such good weather, our last walking day finished with a return journey to Funchal where we were just in time to invade the Blandy’s Madeira lodge for a guided tour: interesting stuff and good value (€4.50) despite their free taster being very meagre. Well, it had to be done.

[Here's a link to a Google Earth plot of this walk. You'll need to save it to your computer before double-clicking it to open in Google Earth. This one’s a bit weird in that Mr Garmin seems to have thrown a fit. Despite appearances, we definitely did not suddenly dive off left down into a deep valley only to double back and run immediately up the hill again. Curious. Note to self: buy a decent walkers’ GPS.]

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 for about two years following heavy rains and now it was re-opened. Secondly, the weather was absolutely stunning and perfect for walking in the mountains.

Messrs Ford, Mercedes and Benz once again drove us up to the start point. This time, though, we actually had to walk up from there before heading down the other side. There’s something a little disturbing when the first thing you notice at the beginning of a mountain track is a chapel – it makes me wonder what they know that I don’t. I say mountain track but for a chunk of the way it was effectively paved. This differs wildly from our experiences in Spain where the footpaths we’ve seen have been really quite rugged. The Portuguese, at least those on Madeira, don’t seem to want walkers damaging themselves.

We began with our uphill climb, something that we weren’t really used to on this trip but the exercise made it seem pretty comfortable. One of the “sights” to be seen here was the Curral das Freiras, the Nuns’ Refuge.  Nuns from the Santa Clara convent fled to this secluded valley when the island was attacked by those aforementioned parrots pirates. We love mountains when the weather is right and this time the weather was right. The levadas were pleasant and interesting but this was nature in the raw and quite stunning. We were in our element.

From our picnic high point on this walk we began descending and were soon tromping through woodland, a very different landscape compared to the start point. We’d crossed the Exodus group walking in the opposite direction before plunging into the trees, followed by which we had to cross a rickety bridge.

After some more serious exercise than we’d had hitherto, Messrs Ford, Mercedes and Benz were waiting as usual at our finishing point to take us to a well deserved and very welcome Coral beer. We felt extremely lucky, this was a newly re-instated 8 mls/13 kms walk  through some very refreshing scenery. Brilliant!

[Here's a link to a Google Earth plot of this walk. You'll need to save it to your computer before double-clicking it to up in Google Earth.]

After spending a pleasant evening in Porto Moniz on the north-western tip of Madeira, our Feb 29th was to be spent going up into the mountains, crossing the central high ground’s so-called “Desert Plain” to wander along few more levadas and down towards the south coast again. Happily, the up component was courtesy of Messrs Ford, Mercedes and Benz in the forms of our two minibuses, leaving us with the 9mls/14.5kms of down on the other side.

We were tipped out right beside our first levada and began with the remnants of last night’s frost clinging on in the shady hollows. We were out in the open with views across swathes of gorse bushes to the distant and much lower south coast of the island. Other than the facts that we were still some way away from the coast and considerably higher, it felt reminiscent of the Cornish coastal path. This was much more my style than yesterday’s excursion into the cloud forest. Of course, the blue sky helped tremendously. Come to think of it, that bit may not resemble Cornwall much, either.

As with yesterday, the levada fell very gradually such that the water ran gently and silently. I was back marker armed with a whistle so I had time to play around a little. Out of curiosity, I decided to use my Garmin GPS to try and estimate the gradient of the levada. I plotted a waypoint at the beginning of the walk (altitude: 4310 ft/1314 mtrs) and another when we hit the two mile mark (altitude: 4262 ft/1299 mtrs). In two miles the levada had dropped a mere 48 feet. Rounding to make life easy, that’s ~50 ft in ~10000 ft, a gradient of roughly 0.5%. Well, it keeps me amused.

Lunch was my highlight of the day, not because of the food which was a basic supermarket picnic of bread, chorizo and Babybell cheese-alike (light – I didn’t do the purchasing!), but because we were in the company of a small flock of chaffinches. The chaffinches, it transpired, were quite partial to small pieces of bread and were particularly keen on torn off pieces of Babybell light. I was over the moon when I held scraps out on my upturned palm and the chaffinches fluttered in to feed from my hand. A female settled for a couple of seconds before flying off with her prize. Great stuff! (I know, I can’t help it, I just love being in touch with wildlife.)

A theme developed concerning wildlife on Madeira. Many of its species exhibit minor differences compared to their mainland counterparts and are Madeiran subspecies. This is true of the Chaffinch. Our Chaffinch is Fringilla coelebs whereas the Madeiran Chaffinch is Fringilla coelebs maderensis. I think describing the differences would be a bit challenging but it certainly looked noticeably different. Just for fun, here’s a composite picture of both, including one from our lunch party, in similar poses to compare – the Madeiran Chaffinch is above.

We needed our pathetic torches again on this walk to get through the longest tunnel of ~1km. Our leader, Donal, noted that the weather at the opposite end of the tunnel (the south side of the mountain) could often be quite different. We plunged in to darkness dimly illuminated by our CSI-style Maglites. About 12 minutes later we emerged into blazing cloudlight. Shortly after wards it began spitting with rain. A little later we were walking through steady and persistent rain. Donal had been quite right. Eventually, however, the rain subsided to reveal Messrs Ford, Mercedes and Benz waiting to complete our journey to the south coast and ferry us to our hotel at Ponta do Sol, where our 15 pairs of soiled walking boots managed to make short work of the hotel reception’s unserviceably white doormat. [Ed: Bloody tourists!]

Two things really impressed us about the Enotel at Ponta do Sol. Firstly, the architecture was noteworthy in that a relatively large hotel was designed outwardly to look like several smaller buildings. The multiple colours reminded me of Villajoyosa in Spain where they are similarly bold with colour, in a pleasing way. Check out the picture; that’s all one hotel – clever! Secondly, when we returned downstairs having showered and changed, the doormat had already been returned to its original virginal white state. Bravo Enotel!

The rooms were very spacious and comfortable, too. When we eventually retired, we propped open our Juliette balcony door and fell asleep to the sound of the Atlantic surf breaking on the stony shore literally just across the road. Very restful!

Having survived our leg loosening walk on day one and stayed overnight in Santana on the northern side of Madeira, today was to to be a walk from Queimadas via a waterfall at Caldeira Verde to Ilha which would introduce us to the esteemed levadas.

Madeira was once completely covered in woodland. Indeed, madeira means wood in Portuguese. The ancient woodland, the laurisilva [laurel forest], is more of a cloud forest in places and acts like a giant sponge soaking up water which filters through the ground and vegetation. The levadas are small manmade drainage channels – mini canals – designed to catch the water as it seeps through and to channel it into reservoirs/tanks where it is used to irrigate the crops. The network of levadas which criss-crosses and winds around Madeira is huge; there are 2500kms/1500mls of the things.

Having seen La Rigole, the canal that feeds water into the Canal di Midi in France, I was expecting canals on a similar scale but the levadas are narrow, only about 45cms/1½ft wide. Here’s our first view of one flowing beside a sizeable track. The gradient is very carefully controlled such that the water flows very gently and, we noted, almost completely silently. Small they may be but, even like this, constructing 2500kms of them manually would have been a huge task.

That first sight of a levada is very deceiving though; the levadas do not always look that tame. In fact, they rarely do. More often, the levadas look as though they are clinging to the side of a near vertical mountain face which, in some cases, they are. Walking along them can cause the ol’ teeth to be gritted just a tad, particularly if there is no hand rail. Fortunately, in the more precipitous places, there are hand rails. Check out the drop beside the levada in the picture here. Given that the walkway shown did not exist before this levada was built, one wonders how they actually built it. To me, that turns the construction effort into something quite staggering. In some places, construction workers were lowered in baskets, apparently.

So, we have a channel with a consistently gentle fall winding its way around and occasionally going through mountains; there are tunnels which also had to be manually built. We were told we’d need decent torches and now we could clearly see why. [That’s a flash picture, BTW, not daylight.] Sadly our CSI-style Maglite torches didn’t quite seem up to the task so we didn’t see clearly. Poor choice! [Ed: How do those CSI guys get a decent beam in broad Las Vegas daylight, I wonder?] Anyway, walking along some stretches of the levadas is most like being a child again walking along the top of a brick wall but with a bigger drop on one side. Get the picture? You get used to it, though.

Now imagine trying to pass streams of other tourists tromping towards you from the opposite direction. This is where the hand rail really comes into play: one turns sideways ensuring that their rucksack is hanging over the fence into space rather than obstructing the narrow path whilst the other turns sideways with their rucksack to the mountain, and shuffle sideways past each other. Simples!

The laurisilva is often quite dense though there are breaks which offer you a decent view down the valley.

We stopped at a waterfall at the head of a there-and-back valley for lunch but didn’t hang about too long because the altitude was making stationary life a little cool. We retraced our steps before hanging a left and descending to Ilha where our transport took us for a reviving coffee before ferrying us to our next hotel at Porto Moniz.

[Here's a link to a Google Earth plot of this walk. You'll need to save it to your computer before double-clicking it to up in Google Earth.]

OK, so we’re not actually on Madeira to dance the lambada. We are actually here with Explore! to walk, amongst other things, some of the famous levadas. Levadas are irrigation channels but more of these later. Madeira is essentially a large, formerly volcanic mountain and the main “other thing” that we are targeting is the high ground (~1800m/5500ft) in the centre. Explore! runs small group holidays, some cultural, some more active, and this is our sixth with them.

Our group on this trip is 14 strong, plus the leader, Donal, who unsurprisingly hails from the Emerald Isle. As well as trying to get our ears tuned in to Portuguese for our first time – it sounded to us a bit like Spanish with a Russian accent – we had to tune our ears in to Donal’s lilting brogue. Yesterday, we became convinced he was telling us that, at some time in its early history, Madeira had been invaded by parrots until we finally realized he was saying pirates. Duh!

Today we were heading out to the eastern point of the island for what seemed like a modest limb loosening walk of 4½mls/7kms. Actually, I suspect that relatively gentle start is designed mostly for the tour leader, giving them a chance to assess the abilities of their new set of charges. To get to our start point at São Laurenço, we drove past Madeira’s other engineering highlight (other than its levadas): the airport runway extension which is a large flyover (no pun intended) supported on huge concrete pillars. They are clearly very proud of their runway, on Madeira.

This walk was a there-and-back affair, winding its way in an undulating fashion through an almost desert-type landscape with the Atlantic Ocean on both sides – more dramatic than picturesque. I personally find rocks a little on the dull side, preferring animate objects, but for those with the correct interest I’m sure the geology would prove fascinating. Courtesy of Donal’s instruction, I now know that things called intrusions exist in formerly volcanic regions. An example is shown in the picture on the right; just to the left of centre (Natalie Imbruglia?) are a couple of lighter strata stretching vertically from the shore to the top of the cliff.

We didn’t give Donal any concerns, everyone making it to the easternmost tip of Madeira without mishap where most of us chose to scale the 200m highpoint for the view (or just because it was there) before settling down to a packed lunch. There was also a wildlife highlight for those of us who prefer nature with a pulse. At our lunch spot a few LBJs (Little Brown Jobs) were hopping and flittering about. They looked a bit like Spotted Flycatchers but were more strongly flecked and behaving very differently. The birds turned out to be Berthelot’s Pipits (Anthus berthelotii), according to an information board (and Donal). They are resident to the Canary Islands and Madeira. Well done Carol for snagging a recognisable shot.

Chalk up a new one for our bird page – eventually.

We returned to our transport and noticed we had happily missed a rain shower as we were driven to Santana on the north side of the island for our second night followed by our first encounter with a levada the next day.

[Here's a link to a Google Earth plot of this walk. You'll need to save it to your computer before opening it up in Google Earth.]