Blue Eyed Birder: Lesvos - Day 9

East around the bay this morning (after Tree Pipits and Bee-eaters over the Pela for breakfast!) and two Short-toed Eagles were see on approach to Mesa with one on a roadside pole and the other drifting at Tamarisk height over the road! A single adult Black Stork was circling the wetlands and two Mallard flew over – only the second sighting of the trip while a Lesser Grey Shrike was off by the rock island.

Short-toed Eagle (ACV)

Past Achladeri and around the beach road where the ‘waves’ has been obviously making it over the top in places! I checked the birdy field from the other day and it was once again hopping with stuff so I pulled over and gave it some time.

I quickly scanned and counted and found six Hoopoe, eight Tawny Pipit, two Tree Pipit, six Short-toed Larks, Woodchat and four Red-backed Shrikes, 14 Wheatear, 7 Whinchats, 16 Willow Warblers, Sardinian Warbler, 4 Spotted Flycatchers and 20 Crested Larks. The light was still harsh but it was good to have plenty of birds to look through. Can you imagine that (or our local equivalents) in any field back home? ‘Oh look there’s a Whinchat’ does not compare.

Hoopoes

A Short-toed Eagle came in and spooked everything briefly and even perched up on a telegraph pole for a while but the small birds soon came back when they realised who it was. There were eight Med Gulls and nine Shags in the little harbour just beyond these fields.

On through the Olive Groves which were completely bare underneath but I could see and hear Linnets, Chaffinches, Serins and Cirl Buntings and Spotted Flycatchers were almost constantly on view. Some of the smaller Turpentine Trees out here seem to be well laden with berries and I stopped to check some, finding a male Redstart, two Blackcaps and four Whitethroats. Middle Spotted Woodpeckers were very noisy and I saw several fly between the trees or across the road.

Down to the Polichnitos Salt Pans and as usual were greeted by Black Storks with two sat up on a bund while a Little Egret watched proceedings from a telephone wire! Some of the Greater Flamingos were very close and you could see the yellow eyes and 12 Slender-billed Gulls included several very close adults swimming around with their head and neck stuck out like it is in a brace!

Black Storks

Black Stork

Greater Flamingo

Greater Flamingo (ACV)

Grey Heron

Slender-billed Gull

Slender-billed Gull (ACV)

Little Egret (ACV)

The Tern Posts were all occupied and I counted 137 Sandwich Terns and pleasingly six juvenile Common Terns – the first of the trip. Thirteen Med Gulls and some Black-heads were dotted amongst them and a solitary large gull turned out to be a 2w Caspian Gull.

Waving Grass (ACV)

2w Caspian Gull

There were quite a few Avocets, 11 Redshank, two Greenshank, 4 Ruff, three Dunlin (two adults in full breeding plumage?), three Curlew Sandpiper, five Little Stint, Little-ringed and Kentish Plovers. Willow Warblers moved through the purply-red Salicornia.

Willow Warbler

From here it was back up into the woods and lunch at Mikri Limni where a postprandial stroll quickly saw me onto a small bird flock containing ten Medium-Tailed Tits, two Kruper’s Nuthatches, Great Tit and three Short-toed Treecreepers. And everything gave excellent views because my camera was back in the car.

The loop was continued with two failed attempts for Grey Wagtail and then back towards the Pela via the KSP and Loutzaria. Eleven juvenile Flamingos of varying sizes were in the channel up by the road and their numbers seem to be creeping up slowly while the three Curlew Sandpipers were still on the south-west pan. A 1w Slender-billed Gull paddled alongside the car for a while!