Lake Kerkini for Oriole Birding - Part 1 - 11th-13th May 2026

11^th May:

We touched down at lunchtime in Thessaloniki and collected the crew together and before too long were on the road to Lake Kerkini – our base for the week.  It was actually a fairly uneventful drive with swirls of various Swifts as we negotiated the ongoing ring road works of the city before getting into the countryside where a few wires sitting Shrikes, Bee-eaters and a Roller were seen.

Not far from the Lake itself we came upon a spiral of about 50 Great White Pelicans which were good to see before even reaching water!  Soon we were stopping at the dam where our hotel hosts from the Viglatoras had laid out a table for us with lunch and coffee while we listened to our first Eastern Olivaceous Warblers and Red-backed Shrikes while above us we found Dalmatian Pelicans, Marsh Harriers, Buzzards, a female Red-footed Falcon and even an adult White-tailed Eagle!

 

Pygmy Cormorants flew from the river to the lake and scanning around gave us Great Cormorants, Grey Herons and Great Crested Grebes and all the while the bushes were alive with the hum of Honey Bees and a great selection of Dragonflies and Butterflies.

A Golden Oriole sung from the Poplars and Nightingales and Cetti’s Warblers shouted from the bushes.  It was a great start and all with coffee in hand and spanakopita to mouth!

It was very warm but rather than drive around the lake I opted to try the Chimarros Valley as it was nearby.  It proved a good call and one of the adult Eagle Owls and two fluffy youngsters were quickly found on their cliffside nest. 

Golden orioles were singing here too along with countless Nightingales, Chiffchaffs, Cirl Bunting and a showy pair of Eastern Black-eared Wheatear.  There were plenty of butterflies with Black-veined Whites and Scarce Swallowtails.

Not wanting to wear everyone out before we started I followed the southern shore line and stopped again at a lovely marshy area where Great Reed Warblers were singing loudly and Bee-eaters and Turtle Doves jostled for spots in some dead trees.  Spanish Sparrows were nesting in the bottom of a White Stork’s nest and along the shoreline we found Squaccos and Little Egrets and two fishing Dalmatian Pelicans.  A Hoopoe bounded in front of the van as we continued on towards Kerkini village and we added Black Kite and many more Stork nests before arriving at Viglatoras in the upland village of Ano Poroia..

Dinner was interrupted by a Scops Owl calling at dusk in the garden and we even saw it before it flew off into the village! 

12^th May:

Like everywhere in this part of the world we were awoken by the last of the Scops Owls and the re-starting of the Nightingales and they were joined by the chirps of House and Tree Sparrows, trilling Cirl Buntings, Hoopoes and a host of hirundines and Swifts.

Magpie

Tree Sparrow

Our first fine Viglatoras breakfast and then we were off and up through the village to the Oriental Plane woods and river behind. The water made hearing tricky but once we moved away we started to find the birds and with a bit of perseverance we located an obliging male Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, pairs of Middle Spotted Woodpeckers and Hoopoes that were taking food to and from nests and a selection of smaller woodland birds including nesting Semi-collared Flycatchers (the prize here), Nuthatches, Blackcaps, Short-toed Treecreepers, Tits, Robins and Wrens.

 

Lesser Spotted Woodpecker - Pete Osgood

Furtive Robin

Semi-collared Flycatcher

There were Grey and White Wagtails on the gurgling stream and Spotted Flycatchers seemed to be the commonest bird with several territories discovered as we walked up and back down. The big bonus here was a Black Woodpecker that flew through the canopy which some the crew got onto.

There were plenty of insects too with Nettle and Southern White Admirals and a some dancing Beautiful Demoiselles.

Egyptian Grasshopper

Apparently this is a Bombus pratorum but it still feel wrong.  Input welcome

Ivy Broomrape 

Beautiful Demoiselle

Leaving the village, we headed back through the lanes down towards the Lake and stopped in the farmland on the way which delivered with singing Black-headed and Corn Buntings, Red-backed Shrikes on several bushes and a pair of displaying Short-toed Eagles.  An overspilling water trough attracted some new Dragons with Southern Skimmer and Scarlet Darter and Queen of Spain Fritillary and Balkan Pierrot were the pick of the Butterflies here.

 

Bombylius quadrifarius 

Bombylius quadrifarius 

Balkan Pierrot

Small Heath

Southern Skimmer 

Onwards towards Veronia (passing a dashing Levant Sparrowhawk on the way) for a walk alongside some of the hidden marshy pools north of the Strymonos River.  Golden Orioles were singing all around and two flew over but it was Woodpeckers that ruled here.  A calling Syrian only gave the briefest of views but Great Spotted showed well and Green was calling but it was the Grey-headed Woodpeckers that put on the best show in the intense heat with one repeatedly returning to an old Willow and seemingly in a territorial dispute with a second bird calling behind us.  I thought that it may be too late in the season to get the woodpeckers as they are in the middle of breeding but we had somehow had all seven in the first day.  Quite astonishing.

 

Grey-headed Woodpecker - Pete Osgood

Purple Herons and Pygmy Cormorants erupted from the pools where Balkan Water Frogs croaked and a calling Cuckoo flew by us along with another dashing Levant Sparrowhawk.  Perhaps seeing these were not going to be as tricky as I thought? There were many Butterflies here with Eastern Festoons and Painted Ladies aplenty and we also saw several Garden Tiger Moths too and a very good selection of Dragons.

Eastern Festoon

Common Blue

Painted Lady

Eastern Festoon

Meadow Brown

Variable Damselfly

Southern Emerald Damselfly

Azure Damselflies

Pisaura mirabilis

Garden Tiger pumping up

Scarlet Darter

Scarce Chaser

Seven Toothed Red Resin Bee - Rhodanthidium septemdentatus

Seven Toothed Red Resin Bee - Rhodanthidium septemdentatus

Common Broomrape - Orobanche minor

A brief stop at the river showed high water levels and a flock of Sand Martins whizzed over high while the House Martins were nesting under the actual bridge with the Sparrows.  Bee-eaters and White Storks were hunting the riparian grassland in their own ways and the first Honey Buzzard was seen over the forested hills.

 

The track was followed along the east levee of the Strymonos and provided us with some quality birding. Fifty Great White Pelicans were frenzy feeding with the Great Cormorants and various Egrets and Spoonbills were joining in while nine Dalmatian Pelicans did their thing in a more leisurely dignified manner. There were very few waders with just 30 Ruff, nine Wood Sandpipers and the hoped for Spur-winged Lapwings with two pair discovered amongst the driftwood on the Water Buffalo grazed veldt.

Penduline Tits were heard all the way along and amazingly the very first one we picked up was soon found and watched well as he sung from a small tree. He was rather smart if you ignored the fact that he had no tail!  Olivaceous Warblers, Nightingales and Cetti’s Warblers made the bulk of the background sound with quite a few Golden Orioles, Hoopoes and Bee-eaters creating a more tropical feel.  Some of the Bee-eaters were incredibly close to the van at times.

Penduline Tit

Copyu paddled around to a cry of ‘It’s a giant rat!’ and we even got lucky and found a female Masked Shrike on a Bramble that paused long enough for everyone to watch even from the inside. 

Masked Shrike

The day was getting away from us so we retraced our steps and called in at Mandraki harbour for a look as the light faded.  A Dalmatian Pelican loafed at the end of the jetty and orange Squaccos glowed in the evening light while Great Reed Warblers outshouted all the other local bird life.  Green Lizards were catching some last rays and an adult Dice Snake was still out hunting in the reed margins.  The last of the journey back to Ano Poroia gave us a pair of Rollers and whilst watching them a large Glass Lizard tried but thankfully failed to cross the road and returned to the verge.

Dalmatian Pelican

Great Reed Warbler

Great Reed Warbler

Great Reed Warbler

Squacco

Roller

Sleep came easy after a grand meal.

 

13^th May:

Another day of local birding which began back down in the tough fields where a slightly upgraded selection was present with a male Levant Sparrowhawk dashing through, a pair of Lesser Grey Shrikes joining the Red-backs and Buntings, two rather smart male Black-headed Wagtails, Crested Larks and a singing Quail that we could not even pin down to a field!

 

Lesser Grey Shrike & Black-headed Bunting

Lesser Grey Shrike

East along the lake and a Woodpecker flew alongside as we were going through Mandraki.  I looked in my wing mirror and thought… ‘Syrian’ and could see it land on a telegraph pole so I swung us straight round and went back.  Amazingly it stayed long enough for me to get a scope on it for all the see the salient features.

 

Syrian Woodpecker - Pete Osgood

Back in Veronia we swung up towards the quarry and no sooner had we parked than a pair of Levant Sparrowhawks came out of the wood and during the course of the morning we regularly had the most astonishing views of this enigmatic Accipiter.  They are bold and showy and would perch openly on wires, trees and even the track.  The call was a strange double noted ‘oo-ipp’ that felt more wader-like that raptor.

Levant Sparrowhawk

Levant Sparrowhawk

Levant Sparrowhawk

 

Eyes up gave us a good selection of other raptors with Eurasian Sparrowhawk, Booted Eagle, Short-toed Eagle, Honey Buzzard, Common Buzzard and both Kestrel and Eleonora’s Falcons while a Lesser Spotted Eagle was seen way down over Kerkini where we could see the Pelican feeding frenzy going on.

The woods held several families of Long-tailed Tits and eventually good views were had of a party of Sombre Tits too along with Spotted Flycatchers, Wood Pigeons and many Chaffinches.  Another Syrian Woodpecker posed nicely for us and a female Masked Shrike unexpectedly flew into the same tree and as we walked up to the quarry we found the first of several male Cirl Buntings and Eastern Subalpine Warblers.

 

Syrian Woodpecker

Masked Shrike

There were no Western Rock Nuthatches but we did fine Eastern Black-eared Wheatears of both forms as well as Blue Rock Thrushes and Crag Martins were nesting in the cliffs with both House Martins and Red-rumped Swallows.  Sooty Copper and both Green and Ilex Hairstreak were new and I found our first Owl-fly and under a rock a quite large Scolopendra.  The road back out gave us our first Spur-thighed Tortoise rescue of the trip and I stopped to move it out of the road.

 

Cirl Bunting

Basil Thyme - Clinopodium acinos

Campanula lingulata

Campanula lingulata

Campanula ramosissima  

Onsoma heterophylla 

Woundwort sp 

Great Banded Furrow Bee - Halictus bscabiosae

 Great Green Bush-Cricket - nymph

Hemipenthes morio

Hungarian Emerald Ash Borer - Anthaxia hungarica 

Machimus intermedius

Pholidoptera macedonica -I am getting confused by several very similart species

Scolopendra

Small White cat

Libelloides macaronius - or similar - forewing looks too plane

Cardinal

Green Hairstreak

Ilex Hairstreak

Nettle-tree

Queen of Spain Fritillary

Queen of Spain Fritillary

Sooty Copper

Southern White Admiral

Further east to the town of Sidirokastro where I attempted to find my way up to the old Byzantine fort.  I could see it but whichever way my satnav took my was definitely a no goer and I end up at the base of the same cliff that rises from the town.  It looked good for Western Rock Nuthatch and it took just a minute to find a nest but was it an old one or a new one?  Well, just a couple of minutes later both adults came in and began poking around it.  It looked blotchy and was possibly being rebuilt but they also kept disappearing into the nook above.  Anyway, everyone was very happy to get such good views.  Crag Martins hawked the river and another Dice Snake was seen under water hunting. 

 

The journey back gave us Booted and Short-toed Eagles and given our location I opted to revisit Chimarros where there were now three visible Eagle Owl chicks but no adults but it was not as hot and the views were much better.

Eagle Owl chicks

We explored further up the valley this time and found Woodchats collecting nesting material and a pair of silent but showy Eastern Orphean Warblers.  Golden Orioles were still singing and one male briefly perched up like a glowing lemon in a tree top and a family party of Woodlarks silently fed on the track in front of us.  The blue sky was fast disappearing and we watched the cloud begin to bubble and in doing so found a grand selection of raptors and within 15 minutes we had watched Eastern Imperial, Lesser Spotted and Short-toed Eagles, Buzzards and a Marsh Harrier drift over as well as a squadron of Dalmatian Pelicans on their way back to the lake.

Scarce Swallowtail

Dalmatian Pelican

Lysimachia atropurpurea 

Astragalus onobrychis

Our second Spur-thighed Tortoise of the day ambled across the path as we scampered for the van after the first raindrop and no sooner were we inside with a cup of tea than the heavens opened.  Back around the lake we went (to complete a full day circuit) and the rain started to let up as we neared the wet roadside pools.  Just before that two Golden Jackals crossed the road and we watched them bound through the fields.

Spur-thighed Tortoise

It was quite different this time aside from the mass of Spanish Sparrows, Great Reed Warblers and Squaccos and there were many more of both Turtle Dove and Bee-eater and one bare tree had over 30 of the former in it along with a bright blue and chestnut Roller and a pair of Lesser Grey Shrikes!

Squacco

A Mulberry was full of hungry Common Starlings (no pink ones) and a Hoopoe probed the lake shoreline energetically.  The Black Kite circled through again and a pair of Greylags were actually new for the trip.  The bushes held Eastern Olivaceous Warblers and a Marsh Warbler that got going after a while began mimicking Goldfinch, Swallow and Blue Tit amongst others.  Naturally, it never showed. 

In the renewed sunshine there were many Dragonflies with Broad-bodied Chasers, Scarlet Darters and White-tailed Skimmers.

Dinner awaited and we called it a day.