Lesvos - Day 10 & 11 - 24th-25th September 2024

And so off to Vafios I went after breakfast stopping first to watch five Dalmatian Pelicans and a Med Gull in the perfectly calm Bay on my way to pick up a koulouri before a brief pause at Persama on the way up.  

Med Gull

Happy pulling in little silvery fishes

Dalmatian Pelicans

Shag

Persama

The small pool was now no more than a muddy puddle with 40 White Wagtails bobbing around it so I pressed on up to the view point and had it to myself for the first hour and a bit.  The drive up suggested that there had been another fall of passerines with Spotted Flycatchers zipping this way and that and at least three Common Redstarts flashing orange tails across my path.  There was a good gathering of Cirl Bunting at the leaky hose on the right hand side and at least a dozen came up but I could not stop as I had a car behind me.

At the view point there was a thick layer of lowish cloud but it was already 22c and the breeze was light and coming from visible Turkey.

Vafios view down to Mithymna with Turkey and its raptors beyond

A Grey Heron lumbering over the hill side and inland was my first migrant and I picked up several Spotted Flycatchers actually dropping down out of the cloud base – birds were still arriving! Chaffinches and House Sparrows bimbled east and Cirl Bunting called around.  The first Honey Buzzard came in at 1020 and this dark juvenile flew straight at me and by 1100 I had seen another single, five spiralling Sparrowhawks, a male Goshawk, Kestrel and Short-toed Eagle while hundreds of House Martins and a few Swallows swirled through at great height. Ravens are a constant presence and have a wonderful vocal repertoire here and at one stage we had about 50 in one giant kettle of black.

Ravens

Jed, Ralph, David and Sue joined me shortly afterwards and up until 1345 we amassed another 98 Honey Buzzards including several small groups and one of 26. Four Short-toed Eagles, a juvenile Marsh Harrier, two Hobbies, three Peregrines, an Osprey and many more Sparrowhawks were seen. This was all capped off but a beautiful pale Booted Eagle.  Spot Flys continued to drop in and a Hawfinch flew in to the Oaks below us while more hirundines moved through.  

Honey Buzzard

Honey Buzzard

Sparrowhawk

Honey Buzzards

Honey Buzzards

I left Jed and Ralph to their diligent sky watching in the now blazing sun and headed for home wondering if their Eagle luck of yesterday would continue.  They did not even wait till I got back before they had Steppe Eagle again!  Amazing.  For my troubles of being stuck behind two coaches and a lorry over the top road I did manage to see a Honey Buzzard and two female a male Goshawk at eye level as I started the drop back into Kalloni.

Great Banded Grayling

The rest of the afternoon was spent tinkering with packing and generally doing that relaxing thing that I so rarely take the opportunity to do.

Clancy's Rustic

Rush Veneer

Vestal

Looks like a Small Ranunculus

A last dinner at the Pela this evening with the noisy Hooded Crows heading off to roost in one direction and three Great White Egrets and a Little Egret going the other way.

There was time for one last bump in the morning through Loutzaria before the flight home to a cool and damp Suffolk.  Fences of Willow Warblers, Tree Pipits, Spot Flys and Red-backed Shrikes bid their farewells and once again I could even see Dalmatian Pelicans as we headed out past the saltpans for one last time.

 Goodbye to the Pela 

 And Hyde and Elvis

Back at Mytilene we stopped on the sea front to sort out the final bit of packing (emptying water bottles and stashing cheese koulouri).  Yellow-legged Gulls were loafing on the flat shining sea and a bonus first-winter Audouin’s Gull was a pleasant surprise (and my first of this age here) and it flew to join a bobbing adult.  Just behind them a Scopoli’s Shearwater languidly flew just inches above the water and was a fitting final bird for the trip.

Every year is different out here in the autumn. It felt quieter this time with fewer of the commoner regulars (but still zillions more than you would ever see back home!) and a little less variety and wader numbers were certainly much lower than expected but it was still a magical ten days and it was good to venture up soe new tracks.

Raptoring is undoubtedly getting better and with more eyes looking I am sure that we can very firmly put Lesvos on the map as somewhere to head for in late September for excellent but not overwhelming skywatching experience. Steppe Eagle (cue sobbing…) was big rarity this time but surely we can eventually pick up an autumn Oriental Honey-Buzzard or even an Amur Falcon given the regular carrier species here?

I am still sure that some of the eastern passerines that make their way to the UK each autumn must dribble down this way too.  Two Yellow-browed Warblers have been seen on Antikythera Bird Observatory this autumn so why not on Lesvos?  A Little Bunting was seen last year too so I really think that anything is possible and it will just take more eyes checking all those hundreds of Willow Warblers and occasional flicking brown jobbies and perhaps a braver visit later into October after the package season flights have finished.  We just need to cost of getting there with Aegeon Airlines out of season to come down to something mere mortals can afford and the whole late autumn, winter and early spring will open up and who knows what we can find then?