Breakfast was done, lunch made
and the road hit by 8.20 and it was good to be on the Eresos end of the Meladia
track but just after nine. We found Mel, Gill and John around the first bend
where a Great Spotted Cuckoo had been seen. A scout around gave a brief view
and some calling as it encountered a Jay. The first Collared Flycatchers were
‘peeping’ in the oaks and it was to become a ficedula day. By the time I had reached the top of the escarpment I
was already up to seven and there was even a singing male in the solitary
little bush by the top cattlegrid.
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| Collared Flycatcher |
Rock Nuthatches attended a fresh nest under a rock overhang and you could hear
hungry young begging inside the flask shaped mud construction while the usual
Buntings sang around us.
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| Rock Nuthatch at the nest |
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| Cinereous Bunting |
The first big oak at the top of the side valley was full
of song and the distinctive tones of a Thrush Nightingale were heard from the
cover around it while several more Collared and two Spotted Flycatchers flicked
from cover and an Orphean was trying to outsing the Sprosser. A Hoopoe flopped
into view and bathed in the first rays of sunshine to break through while
another serenaded from the hillside.
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| Spot the Hoopoe |
I stopped a little way before the ford and ambled back up the road to check out
the Magic Tree but before I got there two large grey warblers flew in across
the road. Bins up to more bars! Surely not but yes, not one but two more Barred
Warblers! Before this trip I had only seen one here before. One was poorly
marked but the other was fully vermiculated and over the next half hour he gave
me some great views and even started to sing. I forgot about trying to get a
picture and just enjoyed looking at his fierce expression, pale edged wings and
often almost crested crown. There were two male Eastern Orphean Warblers and
three Great Reeds in the same scruffy patches and the latter really did not
like the interlopers. An Eastern Subalpine was my first here and several Lesser
Whitethroats and Common Whitethroats were dotted about. A family party of
Woodlarks fed amongst the asphodel stalks with a similarly spotty family of
Stonechats using the spent flowerheads as perches.
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| Stonechat |
Down at the Ford there were five Ruddy Shelducklings and their honking parents
and the river sides were full of Flycatchers with Collareds outnumbering Pieds.
Both species were a joy to watch and several Spotteds joined them as they
flicked out after prey. Wood and Willow Warblers were seen and more ‘throats
were clambering about while Nightingales were particularly showy. By the time I
had checked the fig grove and wandered up the valley a ways I had seen over 20
Collared Flys and added both Tree and Red-throated Pipits to the day tally
along with a Little Bittern, male Redstart, plenty of Whinchats and two pair of
Rock Sparrows at the rocky overhang beyond the grove.
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| Ruddy Shelduck |
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| Ruddy Shelducklings |
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| male Collared Flycatcher |
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| female Collared Flycatcher |
Other than a pair of
Woodchats there were no Shrikes whatsoever. Three Glossy Ibis circled the river
mouth and Wood Sandpipers dotted the stream bed.
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| Woodchat singing his head off |
Lunch was taken down a track
before the Chapel that we followed until it would have required spooking some
sheep so we had lunch by the invigorated river with calling Collareds and
Wagtails for company.
We bumped onwards past the typically angry Little Owl and down towards the Sigri Old
Sanitorium where two pair of Tawny Pipits were found on the road and a
Quail was giving it large in the Whinchat infested garden on the left but as
usual stayed well hidden.
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| No blue seas today for this shot |
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| Sigri Old
Sanitorium |
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| Little Owl |
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| Spur Thighed Tortoise that I found because I could hear it munching! |
Unsurprisingly, there were Flycatchers in the OSS
gardens with two Collareds and a Pied being seen and a Purple Heron lumbered up
from the stream bed. What appeared to be four Harrier Jump Jets tore through
the valley at low elevation before banking over Sigri.
The rest of the afternoon was spent patrolling the fields of Faneromeni and
adding to the already impressive haul of flycatchers and I suspect that I was
somewhere close to the 50 mark for the day for Collareds and 20 for Pieds. They
were everywhere I looked; on fences, in olives and figs, in riverside
mega-reeds, on shopping trollies, telegraph wires and Giant Fennel. It was a
pleasure to be amongst them.
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| Pied Flycatcher |
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| Pied Flycatcher |
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| Pied Flycatcher |
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| Spotted Flycatcher |
There were other birds too with Chiffchaff and Wood Warbler, Blackcaps and
‘throats, Hoopoe, Spot Flys and Nightingales all seen well, another singing
Quail eluded me, while hundreds of Spanish Sparrows and flava Wagtails gathered
in the fields. The cacophony of chirping and rasping was deafening at times.
Two female Red-footed Falcons headed up valley and an adult Night Heron moved
between the two fords as I was watching a couple of Turtle Doves feeding on the
road.
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| Turtle Dove |
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| Hoopoe |
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| female Masked Shrike |
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| Spanish Sparrows |
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| Spanish Sparrows |
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| Serapias carica |
It had just started to lightly rain and the sound of a small party of
Bee-eaters descending below the cloud was my cue to pack up and drive back to the
hotel after another magnificent day out scouring the Lesvos landscape for
incoming migrants.
There was just time for one last diversion on the way home and a Chukar duly
obliged along the Petrified Forest road affording me with my most prolonged
views ever of this charismatic and often hard to see partridge.
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| Chukar |
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| Chukar |
Back at the pela there was just enough time for a mini heron fix at the Kallonis Pool and better view of the Eastern Tree Frog before dinner called me back and the dream dessert of Thekla's Orange cake sent me to bed with a full belly and a smile.
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| Eastern Tree Frog |
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