The Wilds of Albania

I wrote last year about Corfu; an island in the Ionian Sea with spectacular flora and fauna. My love of Corfu only grows each time we visit or I re-read Gerry Durrell’s outstanding Corfu Trilogy (if you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it!). But today, after days looking across the water, we made it across to Albania. Albania is a mere 20ish miles from Corfu via a short ferry ride from Corfu Town. Despite being such a short distance away from Corfu, the landscape is noticeably different, much more arid with scrub bushes near the coast and darker scrub and pine trees in the mountains.

During our trip we spotted so many amazing plants and animals. My personal favourite was looking out over the flood plain where the salt water channel meets with fresh water in one of the largest lakes in southern Albania. The area around the lake is a protected wildlife area which contains a dizzying array of plants and animals, all of which are indigenous to Albania and this part of Europe. The best spot of the day was seen here, hovering superbly over the wetland, wings rotating at high speed, it hovered for a long moment before diving downwards with a flash of blue. There was only one type of bird it could be – a kingfisher! From our viewpoint, it looked like the hunt was unsuccessful as it flew off and out of sight. Some research this evening has led me to discover that it was the Common European kingfisher. This seems somewhat unfair to the beauty of the kingfisher to call it common especially as I have never seen one at home. But it was a very exciting spot!

Later in the day, we found that the waters and pools in Butrint hosted lots of turtles. These came in all different sizes and colours. I confess I may have missed some of the guide’s key historical information as I was too busy looking at the turtles. There are also turtles in Corfu and we know a little saltwater inlet which they like to visit. The Albanian turtles were smaller and had distinctly different shell patterns.

As if that wasn’t enough excitement for the day, I spotted an eagle. The eagle is the symbol of Albania, proudly displayed on their flag with two heads, one facing east, the other west. As I looked up into the sparkling blue sky, the eagle circled, catching a thermal which took it even higher. Screwing up my eyes, I caught a glimpse of dark brown on the underside of the wings and a lighter brown body. Further reading leads me to think that it might have been a booted eagle as these are common across Albania and it didn’t have a flash of white on the tail which would make it a white-tailed eagle. The Booted Eagle is migratory and is often seen over southern Albania in March and September. They hunt from the air, circling over open land, preying on smaller birds, reptiles and mammals. Although we didn’t hear it call, Booted Eagles have a gentle chirp, much more like the little songbirds we have at home (e.g. blackbirds, thrush, robins etc). Albania really is the ‘Land of the Eagle’.

Albania is also home to many National Parks including Butrint National Park. Butrint covers nearly 95km squared of hills, freshwater lakes, wetlands, salt marshes, plains and islands. It’s an area of recognised international importance for biodiversity with over 400 different animals and between 800-900 varieties of plants. If you ever get the opportunity to go to Butrint, I would highly recommend it!