Blue Eyed Birder

14^th May:

This was our big day out and an early start abetted by our hotel hosts meant that by 5.30 were on the road with breakfast and lunch packed! The Vrontous mountains above Serres were the destination and after driving through rain and climbing through cloud we popped out with a clearing view over the rocky landscape where we hoped to see Rock Partridge – one of the most difficult of all European species to catch up with. Rosemary saw the first one scoot down the slope but a short while later two more flew across the valley allowing most of the group to get bins up in time. A short while later they started singing but they were within the closest Juniper scrub and unfortunately never came out again. Target acquired.

There were Red-backed and Woodchat Shrikes on territory along with Sardinian, Eastern Orphean and Eastern Subalpine Warblers while a Lesser Whitethroat rattled from up the slope where Sombre Tits called and Woodlarks sung. There were Northern Wheatears too and like on Lesvos they are of the race libanotica which appears smaller and slighter and finer billed with a narrower mask, almost no hint of colour underneath and the palest shade of grey above. In fact they feel more like an Eastern Black-eared Wheatear. A pair of Short-toed Eagles cruised across the view and a Hoopoe was singing off the telegraph poles and down below us a Red Fox was patrolling but did not spook any more Partridges.

Red-backed Shrike

Northern Wheatear - O o libanotica

Red-backed Shrike

Upwards from here to another spot amongst the pine and beech treeline where a walk opened up into a fine view across to the Vrontous itself with its sheer shiny rock faces. The birding changed immediately and within the woods there were Crested Tits, Coal Tits, Firecrests, Common Treecreepers, Song Thrushes and Blackbirds.

Crested Tit

Firecrest - Pete Osgood

It was quite a bit cooler up here but it did not deter the Tree Pipits from displaying but it made the Rock Buntings a little reticent and although we heard them calling, only the briefest views were had. Cuckoos on the other hand were all around and with a zillion Pine Processionary Moth caterpillars to consume there was enough food and space to accommodate several males. The flora was impressive too and Eastern Wood White and Small Tortoiseshell were new Butterfly additions.

Wood Ants

Cuckoo

Viola tricola

Tephroseris helenitis

Primula veris

Euphorbia cyparissias

Erysimim diffusum

Centaurua thirkei

Anthophora retusa

A little further up the road we stopped where the pine and beech met and immediately heard a Black Woodpecker which then showed amazingly well much to the delight and shock of everyone.

Black Woodpecker

The top by the ski centre and lifts was very quiet with just Chaffinches, Robins and Marsh Tits and so I opted to head back down the mountain and find a sunny spot to have lunch with a view and the chance of more Partridge action.

Leaves bursting on the Beech trees

None were forthcoming but we did see Hobby and very low Honey Buzzard and there were some Serins and Mistle Thrushes around the closed taverna. Some Green-winged Orchids were flowering on the slope where a family of Stonechats were seen too.

Green Winged Orchids

Nick, the Orchids and the view

Honey Buzzard - Pete Osgood

I took the scenic route back to the main road that avoided lunchtime Serres and this gave us a couple of little stops with rescuing a Hermann’s Tortoise from the road and gearing a couple of Green Woodpeckers. I am not allowed to mention the Hawfinches…

Hermann’s Tortoise

It had been a long and tiring day and we all agreed to head back and have some down time before dinner. Pallid Swifts joined the Ano Poroia evening scream and the Scops Owls started up early including one with am off pitch song.

15^th May:

It dawned gloomy and with rain threatening which was not deal for our boat trip on Kerkini and we still had time beforehand to check the trough fields once again. The Levant Sparrowhawk did a flyby once again and the Black-headed Buntings and Wagtails were both still present but we could not find the Lesser Grey Shrikes this time.

Black-headed Wagtail

Down at Mandraki harbour we had a short while to wait for our boat and it was time well spent with Night Herons, Whiskered Terns and a Mute Swan (yay!) flying around. The cloud retreated to the hills, the sun came out, the wind dropped and we ended up with a perfectly calm and reflective three hours puttering around in the competent hands of Vasilias. There were many more Squaccos and Night Herons to be found along with both Pelicans which included both species nesting and young already fledged of the Dalmatians, Spoonbills and both Cormorants. A single Cattle Egret was the only one we saw all trip. They really are scarce in the eastern Med.

Black-crowned Night Herons

Squacco

Pygmy Cormorant

Great White Pelican

Dalmatian Pelican

Great White Pelican

Dalmatian Pelican

A flock of 25 mostly uber scruffy 2cy Little Gulls dipped down into the clouds of Chironomids and amongst then were a handful of Black Terns and 2cy Black-headed Gulls. The Whiskered Terns that we found were nesting nearer the main bank around some islands and they posed nicely for us along with a very dapper White-winged Black Tern. A single Yellow-legged Gull was sat on one of the Pelican viewing platforms.

Whiskered Tern

Black Tern & Little |Gulls

White-winged Black Tern

Great Reed Warblers were the dominant singer and I have not ever been anywhere with so many. A couple of Penduline Tits were heard and Hobby and Marsh Harriers were hunting but there was no Eagle action at all.

Osgood's China Mark

The Yellow waterlily lake

Great Reed Warbler

Brown China Mark

Hundreds of Great-crested Grebes were breeding on weedy platforms and unlike at home they seem quite happy nesting in close proximity with each other and although we found 25 Black-necked Grebes they clearly had not even begun to settle down and were all out feeding in small groups way out in the middle of the shallow lake.

Black-necked Grebes

Great Crested Grebes

Great Crested Grebe

The undoubted highlight for some on the boat was the Golden Jackal that we watched bounding through the water on one of the main Cormorant islands. I suspect that there is easy picking there this time of year.

Golden Jackal

Golden Jackal - I had not noticed the red ear tag

Our time flew by and may have accidentally increased by half hour which Vasilias told Nikos was because of trouble with Hippos…

Amphibious Bistort - Persicaria amphibia

Red-veined darter

Eastern Green Lizard

European Pond Terrapin

A Hoopoe showed well in the village as we headed for lunch

Hoopoe

Following some guidance from Vasilias we headed inland and up above the amazing hermitage of Timios Prodromos to have lunch around a beautiful natural reservoir overlooking the whole of the lake one way and the quickly rising mountains the other. The sky gave us five Honey Buzzards, Common Buzzard, both phases of Booted Eagle, two Short-toed eagles, Peregrine and a female Eurasian Sparrowhawk

The lake itself was more insect heavy than birds with Cleopatra and Lattice (not lettuce) Brown being new Butterflies and both Blue and Lesser Emperors new for the Dragons. But there was so much more with Smyrna Bush-crickets, Egyptian Grasshoppers, Mammoth Wasps (Regiscolia maculata) and one of the funkiest and largest Robber Flies I have ever seen.

Sulphur Cinquefoil - Potentilla recta

Small Eggar

Scarlet Darter

Rampion Bellflower - Campanula rapunculus

Molobratia teutonus - quite a Robberfly!

Meadow Brown

Lattice Brown

Cream Spot Tiger

Deraeocoris ruber or similar

Anastrangalia sanguinolenta

Long-tailed Tit

Toadlet

Honey Buzzard

The crew agreed that the ‘Owl Valley’ as Chimarros was now known warranted a further look and longer walk and so off we went for our third visit. One of the adult Eagle Owls was with the three chicks this time but we soon moved on as we could tell they were watching us even from such a distance. Golden Orioles bounced around and I did NOT see a Hawfinch (again). Sardinian Warblers gave themselves up and the other usual species were all seen again but a quietly singing Icterine Warbler was a green and yellow surprise.

Eagle Owls

There was no big raptor action this time bar the Short-toed Eagles that obviously live here and so it was easy to spend time looking down where Spotted and Queen of Spain Fritillaries danced and Thread Lacewings flounced on impossible wings from bloom to bloom. Back near the van there were hundreds of Ant-lions pits on the sandy track.

Green Hairstreak

Small Eggar

Black-tailed Skimmer

Dragon Lily

Common Blue

Southern White Admiral

Lomatia sp

Machimus arthriticus

Maiden Pink - Dianthus deltoides

Nemoptera sinuata

Achillea coarctata

It was time to head back and I chose the quicker anti-clockwise route – well it would have been if I had not stopped just past the Strymonos River bridge as an Eagle caught my eye. Ten minutes later we had seen Lesser Spotted, Eastern Imperial, Short-toed and Booted Eagles along with a much better Long-legged Buzzard, Common Buzzard, Levant Sparrowhawk and amazingly a Black Stork that was descending from its forest realm way up the mountain for an evening feed somewhere around the lake. Golden Orioles flew across and the Grey-headed Woodpeckers were still being noisy. I apologised for making us slightly later but no one cared!

16^th May:

‘Plans may differ from advertised’ – well this was one of those day and so instead of heading all the way back to Thessaloniki I opted to investigate some of the almost steppe-like countryside about half way there. It proved to be a very good call and we had already seen Rollers and Bee-eaters on the journey by the time we arrived at the Chorigi archaeological site which sits on a rocky hill top that from above looks like a battleship.

I was hoping for Calandra Larks and we quickly found several singing males with their black underwings along with Crested and Skylarks. Corn Buntings were everywhere and were bush battling with Olivaceous Warblers, Whitethroats and Black-headed Buntings.

Black-headed Bunting

All three Swift species were cruising around the rocky hill with the Alpines coming especially close while a singing Quail did the unthinkable and got up and flew across in front of us before landing back into cover. I was for once speechless. Not sure I need two hands for the number of times I have actually seen a Quail?

We went from no raptors to a sky suddenly full of Falcons with two Common Kestrels off hunting the valley and at least 11 Lesser Kestrels and a 2cy female Red-footed Falcon using the rock updrafts to allow then to catch aerial insects sucked in their direction.

Clouded Yellows and Meadow Browns were in the grasslands which danced with many black and yellow Owl-flies with their deely bopper antenna. They are simply one of the most outlandish insects I have ever seen.

Common Blue

Small Skipper

Feathered Footman

Libelloides macaronius

We bumped back to the main road and then turned off towards the reservoir of Vafiochori and it began well with a Long-legged Buzzard on a pole and a singing Marsh Warbler when we got out to look at it! Onward to the quarries where a pair of Ferruginous Ducks were snoozing with a Pygmy Cormorant and Coypu for company and then it was down to the lake itself which started excellently.

Ferruginous Ducks - Pete Osgood

Three new trip birds in a minute – Lapwing, Collared Pratincole and then a 2cy male Montagu’s Harrier that paused in its hunting to have a wash and brush up on the largely dried up lake bottom.

We soon found about a dozen more Pratincoles and ended up conducting a full circuit of the site which gave us a few more waders too with more Lapwing, six Black-winged Stilts, two Wood Sandpipers and a Little Ringed Plover as well as quite a few duck. Most were Mallard but there were three Gadwall, three Garganey, four more Ferruginous Ducks and two male Pochard too. A single Mute Swan was pretending to be a Dalmatian Pelican and by the time we left several groups of both pelicans had either dropped in or spiralled over.

Dalmatian Pelicans

Great White Pelicans

There were 12 Spoonbills and some Little Egrets and White Storks in a flooded field and a Black Stork circled with more White Storks and I suspect it was a tardy migrant rather than a local breeder. Both Kestrels, and two each of Red-footed Falcon and Hobby were hunting the lake and I think all were after Dragonflies rather than birds.

Spoonbills & White Stork

Collared Pratincole

There were Terns too with a large colony of Common Terns on the main island with a few Yellow-legged Gulls but there were also four Whiskereds and surprisingly 13 Little Terns. I am not sure if they breed inland here or not?

Great Reed Warblers were in the channel the whole way round and we at last found both Sedge and Common Reed Warbler too and plenty of accompanying Cuckoo action. One of each Tortoise species had to be moved off the track to aid our passage!

Knapweed Fritillary

Balkan Marsh Frog I think

Cuckoo

Small White

Pyramidal Orchid

After lunch it started to rain and I chose a cross country route back to the main road which gave us lots of Spanish Sparrows and a Black-headed Wagtail but also a Greater Short-toed Lark that I heard singing but was actually doing so on the ground as it fed in a ploughed field which was a little odd but everyone was happy with another new bird.

Purple Closer - Trifolium purpureum

My route got a little dubious after this point and I decided that getting the van stuck on an isolated farmland track was not such a good plan and retraced our steps to the main road and headed for home!

It rained quite steadily most of the way back but lightened enough to attempt to have a look at the far eastern end of the lake at Livadia harbour. The rain was grounding Swallows and Bee-eaters in the road and I had to wait for them to move and in doing so heard some Golden Orioles in a stand of Poplars but as usual we still could not find them although Great and Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers were heard.

Down at the end we gave it our best shot at finding Little Bittern but to no avail but there were rewards with a pair of Golden Oriole perched up on top of a bush before a Cuckoo pushed them off which was in turn mobbed by a Cetti’s Warbler. Another Marsh Warbler was found but it was difficult to hear over the Great Reeds and this made focusing in on the very distant Savi’s Warbler even more difficult.

Golden Oriole - Pete Osgood

Great Green Bush Cricket

Turkish Snail - Helix lucorum

A Green Woodpecker bounded across and the Bee-eaters that were on the wing were seeking shelter as the rain closed in once again and finished up our final day for us.

A last meal - as usual they were giving me their full attention

17^th May:

Going home day. We had to leave early for the run back to Thessaloniki but the Scops Owls were still calling before breakfast and it was good to leave with the sound of Tree Sparrows and Nightingales in our heads. It was a quiet journey back and in good time we were in the airport and watching coffee coloured Pallid Swifts zooming in and out under the terminal eaves while awaiting the flight home after a successful and rewarding tour.

Blue Eyed Birder

Sunday, 5 July 2026

Lake Kerkini for Oriole Birding - Part 2 - 14th-17th May 2026