21st April 2026 - Day 5 Northern Greece for Bird's Wildlife & Nature

A short walk before breakfast down to the Fanari foreshore was rewarding with flocks of Yelkouan Shearwaters flickering across the bay and dropping down to feed in frenzied flocks with Yellow-legged Gulls and a few Med Gulls in tow.  A couple of Med Shags flew in too and an Arctic Skua gave chase to some distant terns.

Flocks of Spanish Sparrows moved overhead along with high Bee-eaters and a pair of Spur-winged Lapwings were trying to tell us that they had a nest on the beach so we back away and watched a Sardinian Warbler instead.

We were soon on the road and following the east beach where a stop allowed us to check both the seaward and inland side. The saline pools held a variety of waders with a good spread of Tringas with Greenshanks, Marsh Sandpiper, Spotted and Common Redshanks while Avocets, Oystercatchers, Stilts and a Grey Plover were also found on a spit where Black-headed and Slender-billed Gulls rested. 

Black-headed, Slender-billed Gull and Grey Plover

Black-headed Gull and the only two 'Mingos we saw that day

Spotted Redshank, Slender-billed Gulls, Common Terns and an Oystercatcher

2cy Slender-billed Gull

There was a good number of Common Terns on an island in the lagoon and a Caspian Tern was loafing out there too.  A Lesser Whitethroat popped up in a Tamarisk and a male Black-headed Wagtail joined him and sung wheezily from the top.

Black-headed Wagtail

Black-headed Wagtail

Out to sea we picked up several Sandwich Terns and a flock of nine Purple Herons and three Little Egrets battling their way in high from the south after a long sea crossing.  It is always good to see migration in action.

Purple Herons 

From here our route took us inland and the farmland was amazingly productive despite the appearance of endless rolling fields.  In quick succession we found two male Red-backed, Lesser Grey and Woodchat Shrikes but they were obviously on the move and quickly headed onto the next hedgeline.  There were four Larks with singing Calandras, Sky, Short-toed and Crested and the first two Harriers that we saw both required a quick van exit to confirm that we had found adult females of both Pallid and then Hen! 

On down to some amazing lagoons where we spent a very happy couple of hours.  There were clouds of birds and we counted over 100 White-winged Black Terns, 40 Black Terns, three Whiskered Terns and three Gull-billed Terns swirling around and there were more than double that of Little Gulls.  They were still dropping in from up high where they had been hawking and we suspected that our count was on the low side. 

Collared Pratincoles were up with them and back on the marsh there were hundreds of Ruff and Wood Sandpipers frantically stocked up on the wealth of tiny flies.  Amongst them we found Marsh Sandpipers and a good selection of ducks with Shoveler, Teal, Garganey, Mallard and some Pochard while Mute Swans were dotted around in pairs.

A showy Hoopoe

Mute Swan

A flock of 14 Glossy Ibises afforded us better views than on Kerkini and there were orange Squaccos here too along with snaky-necked Purple Herons.  The odd reedy clumps we found had Reed and Sedge Warblers and we heard the odd Nightingale and Great Reed Warbler too.  There were Larks here too and the Calandras were the clear favourites and our first Red-throated Pipits flew around calling but only landed out of sight in the long grass.

Purple Heron

There were a few raptors around with a pale Booted Eagle and several Common Buzzards, four Marsh Harriers, Kestrels and a dashing Hobby. Suddenly a Snipe flew up the wet field alongside us and Smiffy and I shouted ‘Great Snipe!’ The others were unsighted by the van but we saw where it landed but despite searching we did not see it again which was disappointing.

Our next spot gave us Willow and Eastern Subalpine Warblers in the bushes and a female Red-backed Shrike briefly perched up. 

Lunch in a local village was opposite a typical Greek town square and it felt like it might be good for Scops Owl.  We walked across the road and two minutes later one started calling and no we did not play a tape!  However, it then took twenty minutes to find the little rufous devil as his calls just echoed off the building and trees and it was the Starlings that found him at the same time as we did!  There were other birds in the square with Collared and Pied Flycatchers and a Wood Warbler.  A Syrian Woodpecker was drumming off a telegraph pole on the main street. They really are an urban bird.

Syrian Woodpecker 

A nearby village is famous for its breeding Lesser Kestrels and they did not disappoint with many using specially provided nestboxes and others heading into old ramshackle out buildings.  The views were exceptional and they were very obliging.  The parroty type calls were very odd and I had not been close enough to a colony before to experience the sound of so many together.

Lesser Kestrels

Lesser Kestrel condo

We headed back to that fabulous lagoon where we enjoyed seconds of all the terns and waders but with the rather hefty additions of 25 circling Great White Pelicans and a hunting male Peregrine.  Having a second look for the Great Snipe was the right call and we got fantastic views of it as it flew up and performed a fine low level circuit.  Dancho was especially pleased.

Wood Sandpiper

Great White Pelicans 

Stone-curlews were the next target and we found a pair in a field alongside Elous Lagoon and whilst watching them we enjoyed a bit of a Harrier fest with a 2cy female and creamy 2cy male Pallid, a full adult male Montagu’s and three Marsh.  The young male Pallid was an absolute beauty and was sat in the same field as the knobbly knees before gracefully setting off on a hunting mission.  A day with all four Harriers is always a good one.

A brief beach stop gave us both Yelkouan and a single languid Scopoli’s Shearwater offshore and the beach was littered with perfectly spherical balls of fine weed that had been gentle accreted as they rolled back and forth up and down the shallow sandy beaches.  They reminded me of ‘The Trouble With Tribbles’ Original Star trek episode and henceforth that is what we called them.  I offered to fill up the glove compartment of Dancho’s van with them for artistic effect but for some reason he said no.

Tribbles

Cottonweed - Achillea maritima

Sea Holly - Eryngium maritimum

Sea Medick - Medicago marina

Our final stop of the day was at the nearby headland with a small chapel but we did not stay long as the mosquitos were truly awful.  Both Shearwaters were seen from here too and the bushes held Chiffchaffs, Red -backed Shrike, both Whitethroats and a stonker of a male Collared Flycatcher.  Back at our lodgings in Fanari there were a similar suite of species feeding in the big tree out the back. 

Cornflower - Centaura cyanus - and friends

Eastern Dappled White

Hairy Yellow Vetch - Cicia hybrida 

Horistus orientalis

Jersey Toadflax - Linaria pelisseriana

Large Venus's Looking Glass - Legousia speculum-veneris

Oneflower Clover - Trifolium uniflorum

Purple Viper's Bugloss - Echium plantagineum

The skies were brooding as we walked to dinner and a deluge flooded the streets and we got a little damp on the walk back. Even the Scops Owl was quiet.

20th April 2026 - Day 4 Northern Greece for Bird's Wildlife & Nature

The day dawned with howling Golden Jackals, the Scops Owls and just three moths to my light before our very early start to head for the Vrontous mountains to the west above Serres. 

Brindled Beauty

Dicranura ulmi

Pale Shoulder

After wiggling through the narrow streets we the habitat began to open out and the quest for Rock Partridge truly began.

We parked up and found ourselves in the midst of a beautiful dawn chorus.  Eastern Black-eared Wheatears and slim, pale libanotica Northern Wheatears sung from the boulder fields, along with Wood and Crested Larks, Cuckoos, Cirl Buntings and both Eastern Orphean and Subalpine Warblers. 

Eastern Subalpine Warbler

Up slope a Sombre Tit was properly singing which was not something I had heard before and there were Stonechats and Woodchats too.  Of our quarry there was no sign or sound but with Golden Oriole and Black Woodpeckers calling in the valley below and Hoopoes and a spectacular Rock Thrush both using the telegraph poles as song perches, it was a great place to spend breakfast.

Rock Thrush and a Kestrel

Hoopoe

Rock Thrush

Hoopoe

And I never knew that the call of a Hoopoe sounds a bit like a distant cawing Rook

The Rock Thrush was spectacular and my best views since the famous Holme golf course male of over 30 years ago.  Such vibrant colours and a fluttering display flight that allowed him to puff out his white rump and lower back.  I still reckon that this one of the whole trip highlights for me.

Rock Thrush

We had a few bits and bobs fly over while we waited and watched for Partridges with Crossbills and Short-toed Larks, Ravens and a male Montagu’s Harrier that purposefully headed north.

Montagu’s Harrier

Dancho opted to carry on up the mountain road and we chose a spot that took us on a forest track through the pines to a more open vista with a view up to the Vrontous itself.  The woods held our first Song Thrushes along with Blackbirds, Coal, Blue, Great, Long-tailed, Marsh and Crested Tits along with Goldcrest and a couple of showy Firecrests.  Cuckoos were singing all around and there was plenty of food with all the Pine Processionary Moth nests dotted around.

Crested Tit

Wood Ant nest

There was an outside chance of Wallcreeper but a microscopic Black Redstart, Crag Martins and Red-rumped Swallows were al we could see way up there but a Tree Pipit was parachuting below us and a pair of Rock Buntings were nesting close to the path so we backed off and had a good view of the male singing from a dead pine.  A Dunnock briefly sung as we started to walk back.  

Florally it was completely different and the micro Violas were my favourite. Queen of Spain Fritillaries zipped back and forth and there were a few Bumbles to be seen.

Euphorbia cyparissias

Cowslip - Primula veris - although these feel different o ours back home

Grape Hyacinth - Muscari botryoides

Viola parvula

Viola parvula

Viola tricolor

Wood Spurge - Euphorbia amygdaloides

Red-tailed Bumblebee

White-tailed Bumblebee

Queen of Spain Fritillary

Not far from the van a Black Woodpecker started to yaffle and we were able to track it down and had close views as it played peekaboo.  We looped around and could hear more than one and soon had at least three birds playing chase through the trees and giving quite good views if you moved back and forth to look through the trunks.  This was my no means a guaranteed species on this tour so there were smiles all round.  Nuthatches and Common Treecreepers were added and a Bullfinch, Semi-collared Flycatcher and several Chiffchaffs were heard.

We continued all the way to the end of the road at the seasonally closed ski ‘resort’ and had a wander around the still winter Beech woods.  Mistle Thrushes on the Crocus and Squill covered grassy ski-slope were the only signs of life and unsurprisingly Nutcrackers were unresponsive.

Condemned but no fencing.  We marvelled at the variety of H&S risks available

Alpine Squill - Scilla bifolia

Meadow Gagea - Gagea pratensis

Spring Crocus - Crocus vernus

With time pressing on we descended the mountain and had a last look at the Partridge spot which was now very quiet before dropping back into Serres and continuing on our way east.  Lunch was taken at a fabulous patisserie (Estonian Tarvo would have been very impressed with Dancho’s cake finding skills) where an after lunch ice-cream was taken while watching and listening to the jingle jangle of Serins.  I think I may have slept for a while but remember a Middle Spotted Woodpecker bouncing across the road at some point before we reached the Nestos Gorge for what was too short a walk but the views along the fast flowing crystal clear river and up into the towering cliffs above was superb and although Wallcreepers did not flutter by we still found several Short-toed Eagles and hawking Crag Martins and in the Willows on the other side of the river we could hear the chipping of Eastern Bonelli’s Warbler and a calling Lesser Spotted Woodpecker.  Eastern Greenish Black Tip was the pick of the butterflies – quite superb but like Orange Tips – never stopped but it was the botany that wowed above all else.

Garden Heliotrope - Valeriana officinalis

Haberlea rhodopensis - endemic to the range

Hypericum aucheri 

Iris reichenbachii - normally yellow but in the Rhondos they are lilac

King's Spear - Asphodeline lutea - almost over

Maidenhair Spleenwort - Asplenium trichomanes

Med Spurge - Euphorbia characias

Mountain Pennycress - Noccaea montana

Muscari matritense

Muscari matritense

Onosma viridis

Rustyback Fern - Asplenium ceterach

Southern Dame's violet - Hesperis laciniata

Southern Polypody - Polypodium cambricum

Tulipa agenensis - too far up to look inside!

Bladderpod - Alyssoides utriculata

Crosswort - Cruciata laevipes

Downy Buttercup - Ranunculus lanuginosus

Smiffy in the river

Onwards to our new hotel in the small coastal village of Fanari.  It was a delightful place and overlooked the harbour where Yellow-legged Gulls loafed.  Redshanks, Stilts and Spur-winged Lapwings were seen on the drive in through the saltmarshes and offshore I could see Yelkouan Shearwaters from my apartment window while a Scops Owl began singing as we walked back from our dinner in town.

Fanari harbour view

Fanari Dinner Tom

While above your head...