We stayed fairly local today trying to see species absent from our list and to get better views of others, it was another lovely day but a huge thunderstorm developed in the late afternoon.
Our first excursion was made before breakfast, we set off at 6:30am and headed straight to the pines at Achladeri to try to get better views of the Kruper's Nuthatch, most of the group missed it the first time around. We staked out the nest site and within minutes a bird appeared, it was the male carrying food, he came back and forth several times during our stay and many great pictures were taken by some the 'photographers' in the group, not by me though!
 |
| a female Little Crake at Metochi Lake |
After breakfast we visited the river mouth of the Tsiknias river to view the sand bar. We found 5 Grey Plover which were new for the list, an Oystercatcher and 2 Slender-billed Gulls as well as Sandwich, Little and Common Terns. We then drove to Metochi Lake for the second time hoping for more species of crakes, we had great views of 5 different Little Crakes and we saw a Little Bittern in flight but nothing new. An Olivaceous Warbler sat up nicely for us just before we left.
 |
| Little Grebe also at Metochi Lake |
 |
| Eastern Olivaceous Warbler |
We ate our lunch in the car park at the Limonas Monastery because an active nest of the Middle Spotted Woodpecker was situated in the base of a telegraph pole right in the car park. We didn't have to wait long before a bird appeared and over the next hour we all had excellent views of the adult birds, they were obviously feeding young.
 |
| Yellow Wagtail (Feldegg) seen on the same fence as the Citrine Wagtail that was seen yesterday |
The rest of the afternoon was spent at the Kalloni Salt Pans, the Alykes Wetlands and we finished off with a short second visit to the river mouth of the Tsiknias River.
We added Black-tailed Godwit to our waders list as two were feeding on the first pan, then in a side channel we found our second Spur-winged Lapwing (Plover), this one was much closer much to the delight of the photographers, there was no-one else around so we couldn't pass on the news of our find.
 |
| Black-winged Stilt - male |
We walked across the Alykes meadows for the last time as a huge thunderstorm was developing in the distant hills. Lots of waders were still feeding in the pools we saw over twenty Little Stints, a Temminck's Stint, Little-ringed, Ringed and Kentish Plovers, many Wood Sandpipers and a few Ruff.
 |
| Temminck's Stint |
We saw a couple of White-winged Terns, they flew high over the pans, they looked fantastic with sun shining on them and very dark blue clouds behind them, it was magical. As we left the area we stopped to view a raptor in the sky which was a Marsh Harrier then two smaller Harriers flew over a ridge, one of them came much closer and we could see that it was a sub-adult male Montagu's Harrier.
 |
| Spur-winged Lapwing (Plover) |
From the pans we made our last visit of the day to the Tsiknias River to see if anything had turned up on the sand-bar. We came with nothing mew but had great views of Slender-billed Gulls. We finished on that note and set off back to the hotel in good to pack and get ready for dinner.
No comments:
Post a Comment