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Elizabeth Raikes travelled on our 'Corsica in Autumn' holiday and submitted this entry to our writing competition.
Lammergeier
A Corsican Odyssey: Birds, Beasts & Butterflies
It came out of nowhere and, in the blink of an eye, the creature was in the back of our minibus. Corsican pigs are not cute or cuddly. They are as hard as the granite of this rugged and beautiful island. Crossed with the Wild Boar most are big, black and bristly and this was one of the biggest. But, before you could say Napoleon Bonaparte, Dave (tall and stringy Dave, as opposed to short and chunkier Dave), pipe in mouth and looking as if he had been born and bred in the Corsican mountains, launched himself after the monster. Many of us were paralysed with laughter but others, realising that lunch was under threat, waded in, walking poles waving. The pig, knowing she was beaten, squealed a retreat with only a kitchen roll between her teeth. We had got away lightly. Lunch usually consisted, somewhat ironically in the circumstances, of charcuterie, cheese, baguettes (why don't they taste the same in the UK?) and wine - all Corsican and all purchased locally. The picnic, partaken always amidst the glories of nature in this romantically beautiful island, was eagerly anticipated and we fell upon it like a bunch of Condor chicks.
The Condor, of course, cannot be found in Corsica, but there were other species for our delight and Dave and Dave knew exactly where to look; we were never disappointed. Earlier that morning in the forest of Aitone, we had successfully tracked down the elusive Corsican nuthatch. We spent some time before breakfast watching this little bird defying gravity in a grove not far from our hotel in the mountain village of Evisa. We had also become accustomed to hearing the shout 'Raptor!'; Red Kites and Buzzards there were a plenty and Peregrine Falcons were not uncommon. But the ‘big ticket items’ in Corsica are the Golden Eagle, the Lammergeier - the rarest and largest bird of prey in Europe, and the equally rare and shy Mouflon, Europe's only species of wild sheep.
It was in search of the latter two that we headed for the Niolo, once described by Edward Lear as 'the heart of Corsican romance and liberty.' It is still the land of shepherds, sheep and goats, and the very soul of this extraordinary island. But first we had to get there. Driving in Corsica is an adventure. Few roads are straight. Most are a tortuous contortion of hairpins and switch-backs. Some are terrifying, and all are breathtaking. The gloriously named Scala di Santa Regina was all of these. The famed (Naturetrek) lunch was taken precipitously perched above the road in the midst of a cathedral of pinnacles, buttresses and crags towering over the Golo River where Dippers provided the midday entertainment.
Moving on to the head of the valley by the side of the Lac de Calacuccia, we had our heads down in the maquis amongst a plethora of butterflies when the cry of 'Raptor!' went up. A dozen necks swivelled upward, a dozen pair of eyes followed the pointed finger and there it was, a Lammergeier, one of less than a dozen pairs known to be in the island. It was floating down from the mountains towards us and teased us for a while drifting closer before sweeping away to the safety of Corsica's highest peaks: the shark's fin of Paglia Orba; the jagged teeth of the Cinque Frati; the pierced Monte Tafonato and, tallest of all, the shadowy bulk of Monte Cinto. How lucky were we?
Could it get any better than this? Well, yes. You don't go to Corsica in the autumn for the flowers but there are plenty to see and Dave found us a tiny white orchid - how did he know where to look? On the same day, the only time it rained, in the little-frequented Manganello valley, we came across the salamanders. Despite their yellow and black colouring they are well camouflaged, but once you get your eye in you have to try hard not to step on them. The Audouin's Gull treated us to a fly-past when we visited the beach and we were lulled to sleep at night by the regular piping of the Scops Owl.
And the best was yet to come. Crossing the island from Evisa, we stopped for the picnic on the Col de Sevi. Butterflies and autumn crocus were in profusion and so were the pigs. It was like a scene from the Wild West. With the two buses in the centre, various members of the party stood around them in a circle beating the bush to keep the marauding beasts away. A crust of bread hurled into the maquis would send them scurrying after it but respite was short. It was a windswept and hardly restful place; why on earth did we stop here? I had my answer - a Golden Eagle. There it was on the mountain ridge. In classic imperial pose looking down on us as we were looking up to it; I could swear it was grinning.