Malta wrap

Back from Malta and despite keeping my eyes and ears open it was more or less birdless- just a few Sardinian Warblers, Italian (Maltese) Sparrows, a couple of Swallows, a few Yellow-legged Gulls and what looked like a high Honey Buzzard going over.  Had a nice encounter with a Swallowtail butterfly and had a Rush Veneer in a restuarant. That was basically it! 

It was absolutely not a birding trip though and I didn't spend any time in decent habitat and spent most of the time doing admin, meetings, purchases and family meet ups- the family meet ups were great and the admin and other bits went well. 

The trip objectives were to meet up with family, sign off on a new build and get it rented out and get Maltese citizenship and an EU passport. Everything went to plan and all the balls are rolling so a good success.  

What's this got to do with birding? Well, this is part of the machine in the background that generates the time and money to go birding and do our projects. Next trip will be a full on birding trip. 

Marsaskala Bay- my mum's home village. 

We randomly bumped into an old hunter who showed me his collection- some good Med birds in there- all four skuas by the looks of it. 

As part of the joint venture with another owner in this block we built two extra floors and painted the building pink. Looks alright to me. 

Family meet up- my mum and brothers and sisters. The main reason for this trip was to meet up with my brother Paul (on the right) who lives more or less anywhere in the world and refuses to visit the UK for various reasons so we have to meet up on 'neutral' ground.  I spent a lot of the week eating all my favourite Maltese dishes - hence the strained holiday shirt!