Jackie and I visited Longham, Middlebere and around our local patch of Lytchett Bay though we saw many of the usual species we didn't manage to add anything new to our year list. I was lucky whilst doing one of my reptile surveys, I managed to catchup with Dartford Warbler and had a Woodcock which was flushed from a damp area of heathland before any of us saw it on the ground on the 12th. On the 14th Jackie and I did a preliminary walk on our Heathland Bird Survey area on the Purbeck NNR. which was interesting we recorded Woodlark and Dartford Warbler and had an early Tree Pipit fly over north calling.
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| Woodlark - Purbeck PNNR © Nick Hull |
A visit to Durlston with friends on the 17th March proved hard work with the only highlight being a male Cirl Bunting at the start of our walk though we did manage a single Fulmar for our year list.
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| male Cirl Bunting - Durlston CP © Nick Hull |
The next day Jackie and I went off to Cyprus to try out a Naturetrek Go Slow Holiday for Birds and Botany. We were not expecting a large bird list but hoped for the chance to see the endemic species and a few species that we haven't seen for a while. Cyprus has around 87 breeding species 30 of which migrate to the island to breed. The island has around 120 species that over winter, 57 of which are considered resident species. Going in March there was hope that a few of the wintering species would be still present and a few of the migrant breeding birds would have returned plus migrants that would be passing through moving on north but like any birding trip it depends alot on the weather condition at the time of your visit.
It's about a 4 hour flight to Paphos in southern Cyprus where we were to stay for three days before moving to the Aphrodite Beach Hotel further up the coast for the remainder of the holiday.
After clearing the airport where we met our leaders Jane and Yiannis we headed towards our hotel via the Pathos Sewage Works. Here we saw our first new species or lifer in Spur-winged Lapwing which was standing on the edge of one of the filter beds. But we walked on up the road to the fields and we found 13 others in a more natural habitat which made for a better photograph.
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| Spur-winged Lapwing - Paphos Sewage Works |
We also had our first Spanish and House Sparrow, White Wagtail, Wood Pigeon, Kestrel, Ruff and a Green Sandpiper. Then it was off to our hotel to unpack and relax, I was looking at the view from our balcony and watching Swifts zooming around. I caught sight of a large swift with an off white belly, bins up and yes an Alpine Swift passed by, not a bad start. Then it was to meet for the introduction and brief on what was to come and then walk out to a local restaurant for our evening meal.
Day 2
There were three locations planned The Tomb of the Kings, Aprokremos Reservoir and Agia Varvar as with day one the weather was windy and cool and there had been some early morning rain. The short journey to the Tombs of the Kings didn't take long and we were soon out exploring around this archaeological site. Here we had views of our first Laughing Dove, Yellow-legged Gulls, Hoopoe, Crested Lark, Sand and House Martin, Swallow and Red-rumped Swallow, Sardinian Warbler, Black Redstart, Northern Wheatear, Greenfinch, Linnet, Goldfinch and the highlight here for us and particularly for me as I spotted them first was a pair of Cretzschmar's Bunting our second lifer of the trip.
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| Hoopoe - Tomb of the Kings © Nick Hull |
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| Laughing Dove seen almost everywhere © Nick Hull |
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| male Cretzschmar's Bunting - Tomb of the Kings © Nick Hull |
Our next location was Aprokremos Reservoir (Dam). We had a picnic lunch here before we started our walk. During lunch we had sightings of 3 Long-legged Buzzard and Kestrel. After our luch we walked up towards the dam and recorded many Sardinian Warbler, Zitting Cisticola we also had a very distant Chukar which was nice for Jackie as she missed seeing the species when we visited Bulgaria.
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| male Chukar - Aprokremos Reservoir © Nick Hull |
We continued on and eventually arrive at an area where we should see our first Cyprus endemic. After a while we heard one singing and eventually there were three males singing and one was very close to us. With a little 'pishing' it popped up near the top of a bush then flew across the front of us giving close flight views of a cracking looking Cyprus Warbler. It pitched in more or less in front of me and I had brief views of it moving around in the bush until it flew again over us into the scrub behind. We continued to get brief views and eventually it was decided we should leave before we disturbed them too much.
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| male Great Spotted Cuckoo (1 of 4 seen) © Nick Hull |
Our next location was Agia Varvar this was a set of settling pond further along the valley. Unfortunately due to the the dry condition the ponds had dried up considerably but we managed to add a few species of water birds such as Coot and Moorhen, Green Sandpiper and a Spotted Crake other birds sen in the area were Water Pipit, Serin, Linnet, Goldfinch, Great Spotted Cuckoo, Green Sandpiper and hundreds of Swift and Alpine Swift, Sand and House Martin, Red-rumped and Barn Swallow.
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| Green Sandpiper - Agia Varvar © Nick Hull |
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| few of the many Barn Swallow - Agia Varvar © Nick Hull |
Day 3
Our visits today were to Kensington Cliffs, Zahaki, Ladies Mile, Bishop's Pool and Akrotiri Marsh.
On the bird perspective Akrotiri Marsh was the outstanding location for the birds. Though we did get our first views of Greater Short-toed Larks and Lesser Whitethroat at Zahaki along with a flock of 50 feeding Little Stint with a couple of Dunlin. Little Ringed Plover and our only Kentish Plover of the trip. A little further on we had Great Flamingo at Bishop's Pool (Salt Lake) though they were very distant and in heat haze.
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| Black-winged Stilt - Zahaki © Nick Hull |
At the Akrotiri Marsh we had closer views of Spur-winged Plover, Ruff, Wood Sandpiper, Black-winged Stilt and probably the outstanding bird for me was a Marsh Sandpiper. We also had Yellow Wagtail of the race known as Black-headed Wagtail M.f.feldegg in the reeds and flying over.
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| Ruff - Akrotiri Marsh © Nick Hull |
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| Wood Sandpiper - Akrotiri Marsh © Nick Hull |
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| Marsh Sandpiper - Akrotiri Marsh © Nick Hull |
Other birds seen on the marsh were at least 4 Garganey our first Little Grebe, Pintail, Gadwall, Teal, Mallard, Snipe and Marsh Harrier. A further up the road we stopped again and added Cattle Egret, Little Egret, Spoonbill and Starling.
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| drake Garganey - Akrotiri Marsh © Nick Hull |
Day 4
Halfway through our holiday and this morning we were changing hotels but we had time to visit Paphos Archaeological Park before moving along the coast to our next hotel. The park covered a large area with scrubby patches dotted around between various remnants of old buildings foundations which had been excavated.
Our first real sighting here wasn't a bird but a lizard, a Cyprus Rock Agama which was a fairy large lizard compared to our British species. We did see other species but photographing them was next to impossible as it was so hot they were very alert and sped off very quickly.
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| Cyprus Rock Agama - Paphos Archaeologycal Park © Nick Hull |
It was here that we saw our first Isabelline Wheatear, a species we hadn't seen before though they are often recorded in the UK. They are similar to Northern Wheatear in size though paler in colour and they have a very upright stance. They have a very narrow dark eye-stripe with a whitish supercillium and a peachy coloured breast and brown upperparts white rump black tail and primaries. Though the black centre tail feathers do not extend as far up the middle of the tail as in Northern Wheatear. Isabelline also shows a small black alula on the bend of the wing. Isabelline Wheatear is a fairly common species here in Cyprus though it took us four days to find one. In fact there was a couple of pairs around the site.
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| Isabelline Wheatear - Paphos Archaeologycal Park © Nick Hull |
Here we also had our first Blue Rock Thrush which was first thought to have been a Starling until it was scrutinised through binoculars. It was sat on the corner of a bungalow in the grounds not where you would imagine it to be. Though saying this we saw one in Stow on the Wold and that was on a house roof.
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| Blue Rock Thrush - Paphos Archaeologycal Park © Nick Hull |
We also saw Hoopoe, Sardinian Warbler, Corn Bunting, Cretzschmar's Bunting, Linnet, Black-headed Yellow Wagtail, Spanish and House Sparrows, Black Redstart and Robin, Goldfinch and Greenfinch the latter species seem to be much more yellow toned here and look much brighter than our UK birds.
Jackie was finding the heat and the walk was about as far as she could do, so we did a short cut through the middle back to the entrance/exit whilst the rest of the group continued on around the parameter of the site. I managed to get a few close shots of Crested Lark a species we saw every day but rarely had them in camera range.
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| Crested Lark - Paphos Archaeologycal Park © Nick Hull |
WE obviously were back before the rest of the group so we took the opportunity to go and have a coffee in a cafe on the sea front called the Pelican Cafe/Restaurant. As we were leaving we found out why it was called the Pelican.
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| Resident Pelican at the cafe © Nick Hull |
After our coffee break we met up again with the rest of the group and found we actually didn't miss anything we hadn't seen already which was a real bonus. Anyway we boarded the bus and were off to the Aphrodite Beach Hotel.
