A great start to this wonderful week on my favourite Greek Island, we all turned up on time at Gatwick the flight was perfect and on time and we met up with Terry, our last group member, at Mytiline. The only downside was the weather, it was dull in places, it had been raining heavily and it was very windy.
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| the motley crew at the river Christou |
We collected the bus in no time and set off for Skala Kalloni in the centre of the island, we arrived at 2pm with plenty of time to get ready for some birding. We notched a few species along the way, Hooded Crow, Yellow-legged Gull, Little Egret, Greater Flamingo, Crested Lark and Collared Dove.
By 3pm we were back in the bus and setting off for our first birding trip of this exquisite birding venue. We stopped near the bridge over the River Christou where we spent an hour in blustery conditions trying to find birds. A couple of Black Storks were a good find as well as two Ruddy Shelduck. A small group of Wood Sandpipers were joined by a Common Sandpiper and we had great views of Common Tern as several whizzes by.
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| view towards the Tsiknias river mouth in the Gulf of Kalloni |
Passerines finds were limited to Spanish Sparrow, Crested Lark and a few Goldfinches. We walked back towards Kalloni along the beach road which overlooks the salt marsh, we found Little Ringed and Kentish Plover as a single Slender-billed Gull sat in a pool and a single Black Tern joined about 20 Common Terns over the marsh. We did als find Squacco Heron, Little Egret and a Marsh Harrier but all were distant.
It was just as windy at the mouth of the River Tsiknias but we had great views of another Squacco Heron and the Common Terns were closer and at eye level. On the sand bar we found many Yellow-legged Gull, 4 Slender-billed Gulls, 2 Sandwich Terns a single Great Cormorant and lots more Common Terns.
Up near the ford we spent our last birding hour of the day looking for birds in the reeds and bushes we also scanned the power wires and hedgerows which produced a nice collection of species. The sky was full of hirundines, mostly Sand Martins, but also Barn Swallow and Red-rumped Swallow and House Martin. In the hedgerows we found Eastern Olivaceous Warbler, Whinchat (3), Lesser Grey Shrike, Woodchat Shrike and down in the reeds we had good views of Great Reed Warbler.
A bonus was the finding of not one but two Little Cakes, one male and one female, they showed intermittently, however, the star of the show was the Black-headed Yellow Wagtails (Feldegg), they looked stunning in the afternoon sunlight.
We called it a day after that and drove back to the hotel, dinner was taken at 8, we all enjoyed a nice beer and good conversation with dinner.
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