Time for the second half of the week on Lesvos. Not quite as stunning as the first half as I had seen quite a few of the species I wanted to see on the first part of the week. We were doing more tourist stuff and seeing the sights of Lesvos.
Thursday saw us heading North to the fishing village of Molyvos which is where a lot of tourists end up and where Jet2 were trying to send us before Howard re-directed us to Skalla Kalloni. This involved a drive through pine forest on twisty roads and finding a parking spot before walking into the village which is much more of a tourist trap than Kalloni. Shops, cafes, wee market stalls and locals trying to interest you in buying something before the season ends and they are left with unwanted stock. We then went north along the coast looking across to Turkey which is about 15 miles away, before cutting back on the new road towards Kalloni. We were looking for somewhere to picnic when we came across Limnos Monastery so we stopped off, had our picnic and did the tour. Lovely old monastery but no monks. Some nice birds in the surroundings but nothing startling apart from a pair of ravens overhead. The most interesting thing we learnt was that the main monastery is surrounded by lots of little beehive chapels and apparently visiting monks could come for a retreat and have their own little chapel for prayer and meditation.
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| Coast at Molyvos |
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| Greek Orthodox chapel at Limnos |
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| ....and the ceiling |
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| Cloisters |
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| Overview of Limnos |
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| Small chapel in the grounds |
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| Lots of small chapels dotted around |
We returned to Kalloni to chill out and took an evening walk towards the mouth of the Tsikinas river. Beautiful walk but along soft sand which did not do my recovering hips a lot of good, offset however by red-backed shrike, willow warbler and spotted flycatcher in the bushes behind the beach, a jay on the way back and the usual stunning Greek sunset. This happened every evening, but if you have too many stunning sunsets they sort of lose their impact.
Friday started with a 0600 alarm and a drive to the Kalloni salt pans for a sunrise spectacular with Howard and Colin (from Wales). We had good views of a variety of birds and with three scopes going I think we saw everything there was to see. Interesting fact was that my travel scope is not in the same league as Howard's Swarovski or Colin's £20 e-bay scope he takes with him when he goes abroad. Here is what we saw and heard, plus a few sunrise photos and a link to Howard's account of the same outing. Dalmatian pelican, black stork, spoonbill, teal, kingfisher, curlew, ringed plover, grey plover, greenshank, redshank, black-necked grebe, cormorant, little egret, great white egret, grey heron, greater flamingo, buzzard, avocet, black-headed gull, yellow-legged gull, sandwich tern, stonechat, crested lark and corn bunting - all before an 0830 breakfast.
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| Sunrise |
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| Kalloni salt pans |
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| Moonset |
Link to Howard's blog is here:https://blueeyedbirding.blogspot.com/2024/09/lesvos-day-6-20th-september-2024.html
Post breakfast saw us back to being tourists again and calling at Ipsolos Monastery which has monks, the petrified forest, Sigri, and Faneromani beach. We stopped quite a bit on the new road but every interesting bird was a raven (or 12) , the monastery is on a hilltop with fantastic views and the petrified forest was a real eye opener in terms of the variety of trees which have been petrified. The Sigri museum was also well worth a visit and the drive back via Erosos caused shredded nerves as the wee orange light came on in the middle of the mountains. All the common species were noted but we also saw wheatear, whinchat, sand martin drinking from the hotel pool, 25+ yellow wagtails behind the beach at Faneromani and bird of the day a stunning Eleanora's falcon which flew over us at the petrified forest.
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| Ipsolos monastery |
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| Turkey in the distance |
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| Stunning location |
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| Petrified tree stump and roots - it is actually solid rock!! |
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| Looks wooden but it is solid rock |
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| Self with petrified trees - no funny comments please! |
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| Tree stump and fallen tree |
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| Faneromani beach |
And so to Saturday and another tourist trip to the Roman aqueduct, Moria and Mytilene which is the capital. We had an amble around, bought a few gifts and had lunch in a seafront cafe. The aqueduct is very impressive considering it is only a vestige of its former self. It was a tad warm and it also involved an interesting drive through very narrow streets some of which were one way (whoops!!). Mytilene is a large town and ferry port but it has a nice little pedestrian area with narrow streets and interesting shops for wandering tourists. Nice touristy day out but not much birding. Some aqueduct views below, I didn't take any photos in Mytilene and back we drove to Kalloni for a break.
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| The streets of Moria |
After a rest and a drink I took off to look for two little reservoirs within 10 minutes drive of the hotel. I found them both using Google and was quite impressed. Lake Metochi had water and one spotted flycatcher, Periana reservoir had water and no birds BUT en route home through olive groves a small flock of birds flew up into the trees so I stopped and looked. It was a great tit flock of 10/12 birds so always worth a look to see if anything else is in the flock. I found a willow warbler and then noticed an odd brown bird feeding in the grass and bingo it is a wryneck. Only the second time I have seen one, the first time was on a French camp site in 1985 - 39 years ago. I was quite excited as I had picked it up myself ( It had been reported earlier in the week) and it might even make bird of the week even though I had three lifers on Monday. Anyway a nice way to finish and here is a celebratory sunset.
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| Final sunset from the hotel balcony |
Sunday was basically, breakfast, pack, checkout and drive to the airport. Unlike Howard I didn't pick up any final species en route and we checked in and flew out to Belfast via Manchester going from 30C to 13C and from Greek hooded crows to Irish hooded crows. C'est la vie.
No change obviously to the patch lists but the 2024 list took a bit of a boost as follows:
2024
152: Sanderling
153: Greater flamingo
154: Dalmatian pelican LIFER 😎
|155: Black-necked grebe
156: Black stork
157: Montague's harrier
158: Osprey
159: Kentish plover
160: Yellow-legged gull
161: Slender-billed gull LIFER 😎
162: Scops owl LIFER 😎
163: Crested lark
164: Red-rumped swallow
165: Yellow wagtail
166: Whinchat
167: Spotted flycatcher
168: Red-backed shrike
169: Jay
170: Hoopoe
171: Bee-eater
172: Ruddy shelduck
173: Corn bunting
174: Spoonbill
175: Woodchat shrike
176: Eleanora's falcon
177: Wryneck
