We had been looking forward to our second visit to Portugal not only to see our friends again but the prospect of taking the DSLR this time filled us with an optimism of some excellent images of moths and butterflies not seen in the UK.
Having learnt lessons from our second Ireland trip we knew that any chance of doing any identifications would be impossible as the Internet speed was far too slow.
Luggage restrictions meant space would be tight, so we decided just to take our tablets and a 1tb USB drive to store the images on and enjoy our break and sort things out when we returned home.
This plan had one slight flaw however in that downloading images from the SD cards from the camera to the tablet seemed to take a lifetime.
Our friend came up with the solution of using his PC to download the images directly to our USB drive which proved to be the plan that saved the day.
I would take a series of images on one of the two SD cards installed in the camera and pass them in turn to the wife for downloading to the drive.
This methodology worked fine until we started having problems with the camera recognising one of the SD cards slots until finally it failed completely leaving us reliant on just one which obviously slowed things down dramatically.
Anyway, we carried on regardless and did successfully get all our pictures back home.
Our first trip to Portugal had been in May and although the temperature was hot it did not compare with the heat experienced on this second trip which was in early September.
Although our friend’s garden was lush due to regular watering the surrounding countryside was scorched and dry.
The soil in the area we were staying reminded me of the red weed from War of the Worlds and the dust coated everything in sight helped on by the prevailing winds.
We did manage a number of good records but the best proved to be a Green Drab who didn’t come to the trap at all but decided to rest in the shade next to the log store adjoining the villa during the day.
The icing on the cake this trip was a chance to trap in Spain as our friends needed to pick up a relative who would be staying with them when we left, and we could trap for two nights prior to our return.
Our trap would be placed high in the mountains of Malaga with a panorama reaching out as far as Gibraltar in the distance which not only could we see but also hear as they were having rather a lively festival with music and fireworks.
This in no way affected our trapping as we managed good catches which were only marred by the numerous ants mentioned in a previous post.
When abroad there are not only moths which we do not see in the UK but also some interesting predators such as praying mantis who was a regular visitor both in Spain and Portugal.
It is natural to be wary of something you have never seen before but how could such a charmer be any threat.
Just before leaving for home after a successful and enjoyable trip I began to experience problems with the second SD slot in my camera which leads nicely to my next post entitled True Grit.