Switzerland June 2004 

Even if your view of Switzerland is one of cuckoo clocks, Toblerone and men in silly costumes blowing the Alpenhorn across mountain tops, hopefully this following article will give you my own impression of Switzerland. 

Becky and I travelled with friends like clockwork (excuse the pun) to Zermatt on the border with Italy.  At the end of the valley, it’s dominated by stunning views of the Matterhorn (Pic 1 below) (which appears on the end of Toblerone packets). It’s where the smart set go to ski in winter and in summer it’s transformed into a walkers’ paradise with birds, butterflies and alpine flowers, which kept us enthralled for a week in late June.

We were entertained on the train transfer from Zurich airport by Red Kites that were seen periodically en route. Our first full day in Zermatt was one of getting our bearings.  We decided on a circular walk through the woods and meadows, which we hoped, would give us a good selection of sightings.  Sheila found our first Serin, a lovely yellow male singing from the top of a conifer.  Then came the first butterflies, including Apollos and Swallowtails.  The former is a large butterfly, smoky white and grey with huge red spots on the hind-wing.  One of the birds Roger and I were both desperate to see was the Nutcracker (Pic2 below) and we were rewarded

with excellent views of this, one of Europe’s special birds.  The size of a Jay, which it recalls in flight, but short-tailed and chocolate-brown body with white spots; definitely my bird of the trip.  In fact, we saw them every day as they tucked into the seeds of the Arolla pine.  Other good birds seen were a soaring Goshawk, numerous Black Redstarts (Pic 3 below) and Water Pipits and Sheila turned up trumps again with a male Red-backed Shrike. 

The following day we took the cable car to Klein Matterhorn and then walked back down to Zermatt from the first station on our return, traveling through lots of habitat zones from scree to mountain pasture, on through woodland to alpine meadows.  The one bird we were all hoping for was Snow Finch and as we ate our packed lunch surrounded by Spring Gentians and saxifrages high in the mountain pastures we had good views of both males and females.  It was only in flight that we could really appreciate the white across the secondaries and coverts.  Our two target birds seen in two days!  What a way to start a holiday. 

On the Sunday we took the underground funicular to Sunnegga.  More mountain pasture on a beautiful warm morning and we soon located Trumpet Gentian and Alpine Pasque flowers – a lovely lemony colour.  Alas, no Edelweiss and conflicting stories of too early/ too late/ too high or too low meant we only managed to see Switzerland’s national flower in the hotel grounds.  Overall, as amateur botanists and with Sheila’s and Becky’s perseverance, approx. 75 species of flower were identified.  Good birds were found here such as Rock Thrush, Rock Bunting, Black-eared Wheatear as well as the alpine race of Ring Ouzel which all kept the list ticking over. 

Sunnegga is a noted site for Marmots and one group in particular was used to humans.  One came on a food-run around the watching walkers; I’m pleased to say that no-one fed him, but some real close-up photos were taken. 

On the Monday we walked the slopes to the west of Zermatt and again the flowers were tremendous.  We spent a long time looking at the many blue, fritillary and hairstreak butterflies that in my opinion were far trickier than the birds.  The following day we caught the mountain railway to the Gornergratt observatory where 29 peaks over four thousand metres can be seen on a clear day.  It became apparent how popular this part of Switzerland is with the Japanese as great long crocodile-file parties descended the footpaths.  The Alpine Choughs (Pic 4 below) are nearly hand-tame there and lower down there were many parties of Nutcrackers but Roger found the bird of the day in Crested Tit.  

Our last full day was spent locally walking and site-seeing around Zermatt.  An added attraction to this wonderful spot is that cars are banned from the town, adding to the clean and stress-free environment.   

I cannot recommend this location highly enough and would gladly give anybody the details.