Kalloni Salt Pans - Skala
Kalloni – Mytiline Airport.
Some of the
group decided to go out early on the last morning and the others took a
leisurely walk around the village and the hotel grounds.
Our outing at
6:30am was to the salt pans at Kalloni where a Dalmatian Pelican had been seen the previous night coming in to
roost. Sure enough there it was sitting like a giant prehistoric bird amongst
the much smaller Avocets. We saw it
in flight a couple of times and a bit later sitting on the dead-calm sea in
Kalloni Bay.
In the meantime
we spent an looking into the flooded field behind the pans, it was full of
birds. There was a good variety of waders as well as herons and egrets but no Glossy Ibis. Over the hour our
highlights were: a single Garganey,
Spotted Redshank, summer plumaged Curlew
Sandpipers, Little Stint, a huge number of Ruff, 2 Greenshank, Avocets,
Black-winged Stilts, Ruddy Shelduck, Little Ringed Plover and lots of Squacco Herons which looked fabulous in
the early morning light as the orange sunlight enhanced their beautiful
plummage. Flying over the pools were good numbers of Terns, Common, Little and White-winged as well as several Whiskered Terns.
We set off back
to hotel for an 8am breakfast before departing for the airport at 9:30am. One
last stop at Dipi Larisos along the way to the airport proved fruitless as we
search for a Spur-winged Plover that
had been been on a number of occasions over the last few days.
After
checking-in our hold luggage we were able to sit on the beach and watch Scolopi’s Shearwaters in the distance
and the last bird of note for the trip list was a Honey Buzzard that drifted over the distance hills beyond the
airfield. Our flight was on time and we arrived back in London mid-afternoon,
it was 9C and raining, oh........ to be back on a Greek Island in 25C
again.......I am looking forward to next year’s trip already.
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