Lesvos - Day 7 - 19th January 2026

I headed out for a post breakfast walk around Kalloni Pool. It was very windy and cold but the sun was shining and there were quite a few small birds sheltering in the gardens near the playground with peeping Chiffchaffs, Blue and Great Tits, Goldfinches, Black Redstarts and Blackbirds.

Black Redstart

Black Redstart

Black Redstart

Great Tit

Goldfinch

Both these are 'peeping' Common Chiffchaffs which I presume are 'brevirostris'

Common Chiffchaff

Common Chiffchaff

Common Chiffchaff

Common Chiffchaff

The Teal flock on the pool was now at least 240 and a Green Sandpiper flew around calling.  I could hear a couple of Coots and a Black-necked Grebe was paddling around too.

The tide was well out and four adult Slender-billed Gulls were in the shallows with two Great Crested Grebes while two Sandwich Terns patrolled the same stretch.  Further out 20 Shelduck were heading purposefully towards the pans and ten Pintail did likewise.  They all felt like newly arriving birds.  Two Spoonbills were also along the beach and the Kamares only hosted about 70 Mingos and the small wader flock.  There were four Golden Plover but no sign of the other 90.

Great Crested Grebe

Little Egret

Slender-billed Gull

Over the top to the north this time but it was too windy to stop at the Kalloni Raptor Watchpoint so I kept going and then down to Petra passing Anemones on the verges but they were all closed up.  Kavaki was the next stop and it was chillingly cold but out of habit required a good look!  A line a Yellow-legged Gulls down below did not contain and Audouin’s but there was a 1w Little Gull delicately picking from the surface and foot pattering like a Wilson’s Petrel!  Twelve adult Med Gulls were following seven Yelkouan Shearwaters and stopped whenever they did.  I scanned for a stray Gannet but unsurprisingly there was not one! Five Shags were on the rocks but no Monk Seals.

I love the view and always take this picture

While scanning the sea I could hear a Dunnock calling up the slope and set off to find it with undue enthusiasm but it stayed well hidden in the Cistus (some of which was flowering).  There were Robins and Sardinian Warblers and two Firecrests were in the Olive grove.

French Lavender

Cistus creticus

Mithymna

Robin

On into Mithymna which was a ghost town but at least I could drive down to the harbour to look for Seals but alas they still elude me. Seven Shags and a Cormorant were in the calm sheltered part of the bay and fresh snow was falling on the top of Lepetimnos.  Black Redstart hopped about.

Lepetimnos

Yellow-legged Gull

Cormorant

Lunch at Perasma was taken in the car once again!  The reservoir is now a complete ruin with no water whatsoever and bits of the liner strewn across the countryside beyond its lip.  Some Serins were fizzing away in the Almond tree and a Cetti’s Warbler poked around a damp channel.  Down at the far end the Clematis cirrhosa had already finished flowering and was going to seed but they only birds were some grovelling Chaff and Greenfinches and the odd ticking Robin while Buzzards and Ravens soared above.

Clematis cirrhosa 

The track down to Petra is normally navigable but although I had a 4x4 I decided that I did not have the clearance as the track is seriously water rutted on the first down slope so I retraced and headed back to Petra that way passing a Peregrine on the way before discovering a Bakers with some Orange Sponge (actually filo) and then a cuppa with Alison in Anaxos.

Petra prom has taken a bashing in the recent storms before we came out

It was not even 3.30pm and car lights were on.  It was so grey and windy that I just followed the coast road around and then into Fila and over the top again and down to the KSP. With no roadside birdy stops it did not take too long!  The view down to the pans was bathed in sunshine but I should have gone with my gut and called it a day as the wind was so bitter down at the Alykes that my hour vigil quickly became 20 minutes before I lost the feeling in my face and fingers despite being covered up.  There were birds of course with six Dalmatian Pelicans, a Black Stork and an increase in Wigeon (310) and Gadwall (ten) but I could not hold the scope steady and abandoned with streaming eyes.  The water in the Bay was the lowest I have ever seen and I can’t have been low tide for eight hours so I think that the wind was driving the shallow water away from the beach in the same way that it keeps it at bay at Snettisham sometimes.

Time to retreat and warm up.