April 20th is another brilliant day and Lake Skader ice flat, blue gin under blue sky. The villages and hamlets are alive with sprouting vines and emerging vegetables; an old woman bends over hoeing carefully along the rows. The surrounding wooded slopes are bright green swathes of hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) spattered with vanilla ice creams of flowering manna ash (Fraxinus ornus)….
Tag: butterflies
The Road to Čukovići
The old chalk quarry just outside of Virpazar on the road to Rijeka Crnojevića is a sheltered sun trap. Rank grassland and shrubs have not developed, perhaps because of the shallow soils and regular grazing by goats from the nearby smallholding. Hence it is floristically diverse and this, in turn, supports a range of butterflies. A…
Plavnica Water Meadows
The road from Golubovci runs arrow straight for six kilometres, so the sign says, to the isolated riverside resort of Plavnica through a flat landscape of small farms. Each holding and their house is different but nearly all are growing vegetables in neat plots, with cabbage and lettuce being most prominent. These are planted out by hand with a long…
April Blues
Two species of blue butterfly (the Lycaenid family) are now out, both flying low in patches of rough grassland between Virpazar and Rijeka Crnojevića. One is the chequered blue (Scolitantides orion) and the other the short-tailed blue (Cupido argiades). The first is quite different from most blues with its lovely dark shades and heavy marking and…
Komaji, near Čilipi, Croatia
On the way back to Montenegro from the airport at Čilipi on the 13th April, I stopped below the village of Komaji where what looks like part of an old railway track runs along the hillside. I think this was built between Dubrovnik and Herceg Novi in the early 20th Century when all belonged to Croatia and…
Ascent of Rumija
Yesterday, we set out to climb Rumija mountain, well a goodly part of its 1,595m. The mountain tops were still snow-covered but the target was to reach the steep beech forests at around 1,200m. We began in the ancient sweet chestnut woods and followed the way-marked path, passing through the hamlet of Gornji Briska. The…
Crkva Sv. Petke
This little stone church sits high above the town of Virpazar, remote and quiet, with one of the best views of Lake Skadar. The place is always picturesque and this was the sunset on 6th March when winter was still hanging on hard in the mountains to the north. Crkva Sv. Petke or Church of…
Farming around Lake Skadar
In the Spring when water levels are high, the northern shores of Lake Skadar are huge areas of flooded field and woodland and difficult to explore. To the north is the southern edge of the Podgorica plain and, together with the airport, a patchwork of towns, villages and farmland. The eastern shore is Albanian territory. I have spent most…
Buljarica Spring
A week later and the weather is balmy; cool first thing in the sharp breeze but soon warming into a cloudless and hot day. The back road that skirts the eastern end of the reed bed passes through small pastures and fallow fields divided by thorn shelter belts, untended olive groves and finally a few houses…