I'll finish with a nice sunset from the coastal path at Stricklands to cheer us all up and a view over the reserve at Castle Espie from the coffee shop!
Bangor West Patchwork Challenge
Thursday, 14 November 2024
Post Lesvos inertia
I'll finish with a nice sunset from the coastal path at Stricklands to cheer us all up and a view over the reserve at Castle Espie from the coffee shop!
Tuesday, 8 October 2024
Report from Lesvos Part 2
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.
Coast at Molyvos |
Greek Orthodox chapel at Limnos |
....and the ceiling |
Cloisters |
Overview of Limnos |
Small chapel in the grounds |
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.
Sunrise |
Kalloni salt pans |
Moonset |
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.
Ipsolos monastery |
Turkey in the distance |
Stunning location |
Petrified tree stump and roots - it is actually solid rock!! |
Looks wooden but it is solid rock |
Self with petrified trees - no funny comments please! |
Tree stump and fallen tree |
Faneromani beach |
Final sunset from the hotel balcony |
Saturday, 28 September 2024
Report from Lesvos - Part 1
I have always wanted to get to Lesvos as it has a wealth of birds as well as a bit of history and culture. Spring was always going to be difficult with commitments at home and when we were looking for a short warm autumn break I had a look at Lesvos and a chat with Howard Vaughan (ex RSPB warden at Rainham Marshes) to see whether we could do a "non birding" holiday which gave me a chance to see some birds as well. The answer was a very positive yes with the added bonus that Howard and his wife Andrea would be there the same time as we were and were happy to give a few pointers. Jump forward three weeks and we had flights sorted, hotel sorted, car hire sorted and a guide to get us from Mithylini to the Hotel Pela in Skala Kalloni.
I managed a couple of outings which were bird related - a tour of good spots near the Kalloni salt pans on the first Monday morning and a dawn trip to the pans to see the birds moving out of the roost very early on Friday, and still back to the hotel in time for breakfast at 0830. Other than that everything else was picked up en route, from the hotel, local walks, picnic stops or tourist sites. One bonus was the excellent road network and the lack of traffic which meant you could pull off if a bird appeared overhead. At one point I spotted two birds on a fence along a main road and was able to stop, reverse back and get a look at a wheatear and a whinchat. Try doing that on the A1.
I'm going to do a daily log with a few photos thrown in, as usual my efforts were not the best, the digiscoping didn't work well with distance and heat haze. I will however put a link at the end to Howard's excellent blog and better photos than mine - as usual a man with a good camera who knows how to use it. If the bird is in green it's a first for the year, lifers get special mention in red.
The first afternoon saw the default birds which were everywhere and easy to see - hooded crow, collared dove, yellow-legged gull and house sparrow as well as greater flamingo which were always easy to see if you drove past the salt pans which we did quite a lot. We also had a raven en route and a marsh harrier behind the hotel. If you read Howard's blog you will see that while Tanya and I were crashing out in the afternoon heat, he was out spotting exotic raptors and passerines. Apparently I missed a flock of 100+ bee-eaters one afternoon as I had crashed out.
Sunset at Skalla Kalloni |
Ditto at 26C |
Ruins of Apollos' temple |
And again |
A river with water - a rare sight in temperatures of 30C+ |
This river is close to a Kreuper's nuthatch site but not surprisingly we missed them.
Typical hillside scrub |
No water in the weir |
Thursday, 12 September 2024
Another patch lifer!!
Not often you get a lifer on your patch like the grey phalarope we spotted last year, but this year it has happened again at WOW when an American golden plover dropped in for a couple of days. They do pop up on the north coast every so often but don't usually stray south. Having said that, any wintering golden plover flock is always worth a close look just in case. Only difference for this patch lifer is that it had been spotted by someone else and reported on the NI birds website. It was always on the far side and frequently went missing behind the grass, but when it appeared it was clearly different from your run-of-the-mill goldie. With lower water levels there has been a good run of waders through WOW - ruff, common sandpiper, sanderling, whimbrel and an immature little ringed plover. Like last year the abundance of small fish has meant good numbers of cormorants, (11) grey herons (15), and little egrets (13) as well as the now regular kingfisher. WOW also provided my last swift of the year on August 8th. A look down Belfast Lough added guillemot and gannet as well as an unexpected great northern diver which flew up as I was getting the scope on it, looped round and flew east towards the open sea. Apologies for the blurry photos of the American golden plover - it was the best I could do!!
Male ruff |
Female ruff |
Other than that things have been quiet. England gave good views of nuthatch on Richard's feeder in Bolton and marsh harrier at Leighton Moss plus two great white egrets. We normally travel overnight to Liverpool but the daylight sailing gave me a "little" bonus from the ferry as we approached the Mersey estuary in the shape of two little gulls.
The coastal path finally provided a rock pipit but has been noteworthy this year for what it hasn't produced - curlew, lapwing, mallard, grey wagtail, swallow and house martin which I have always regarded as nailed on certainties on the patch. I haven't give up on curlew, lapwing, mallard and grey wagtail but there has been no sign of swallow and house martin which used to nest in the area and were regularly seen in previous years, but this year nothing and I have been desperately looking for flyovers along the coast. I haven't seen or heard a raven either, again I would normally have heard one over the garden by now.
147: Sedge warbler
148: Little gull
149: Whimbrel
150: American golden plover LIFER 😎
151: Little ringed plover
152: Sanderling
NDCP
57: Common tern
58: Rock pipit
WOW
80: Greenshank
81: Great northern diver
82: Gannet
83: Guillemot
84: American golden plover
85: Whimbrel
86: Little ringed plover
87: Sanderling