Sitting on the balcony

The end of a good time is always in itself a sad thing but as we sat on the balcony of our last port of call on Faial I couldn’t help feeling what a wonderful, beautiful place we had chosen to spend a little time. From our high point in the village the evening sun was glowing red and cast a peach luminescence on Pico in the distance. As we sat there lenticular round clouds stacked themselves over the dormant volcano in a captivating formation. Below us a quail constantly called for him to ‘wet my lips’; a special quail this ‘conturbans’ is a sub species only found on these islands. Above us the also endemic Azores Noctule bats flew around the hillside.

Almost everything here is slightly different from those with which we are familiar; the Blackbirds, Buzzards, Grey Wagtails, Blackcaps, Chaffinches and even the Wood Pigeons are all endemic sub species. Special birds in a special place.