While emphatically not a birding trip (just a 3 day break to get away from the cold), the binoculars and cameras naturally squirrelled themselves away in our rucksacks. We stayed in the small town of Agia Efimia, in an apartment with a good view over the harbour (exclusively Yellow Legged Gulls and Common Sandpipers).
Agia Efimia (spelling varies - this is Greece)
The common birds around the town were singing and nest building like crazy, hundreds of Swallows and House Martins, very loud Chaffinches and Blackbirds. I had never really realised just how vocal Swallows could be. My favourite nest was being built on top of the security camera in the porch of the supermarket.
Singing Chaffinch
Swallows (loud)
One of the highlights of Kefalonia is Mount Ainos (1,628 metres) - part of a National Park of the the same name. We completely failed to see the black woodpeckers that are meant to live here (or for that matter, the wild horses). We did see a very nice Peregrine, a Wheatear doing sentry duty and a couple of Sombre Tits (a lifer at last).
Wheatear
Sombre Tit
There was one location I'd read about as being something a little special, the marsh at the top of the lagoon between Argostoli and Lixouri (named by another UK birder as the Livadi Marshes).
There's a convenient dirt track that goes most of the way around the marsh (I'd say all the way, but we stopped before we got to the quarry) and you can park at the start of the track - just don't block it. We only spent an hour there, so we certainly didn't see all we could have done, and there was plenty out of binocular and camera reach, but it was still profitable and enjoyable.
There were 50+ Little Egrets on the marsh and 20+ Black Winged Stilts.
Little Egrets
Black Winged Stilts
The stilts took grave exception to a female Marsh Harrier when it flew over them, flying up to send it on its way. Three Buzzards were also cruising around the area.
I was very happy to see a couple of very dapper Woodchat Shrikes, another lifer (yep, the photo is a bit rubbish, but I can't resist posting it!)
Woodchat Shrike
There were a good number of very elusive birds in the area, mostly warblers of various (unidentifiable) kinds, but also a nice Pied Flycatcher (we don't get many of these in Surrey) and a couple of juveniles which happily posed for pictures, but those are going to be posted in the "can you identify this" forum, because I sure as hell can't.
As a finale we were returning to the car and Erica startled a very, very, large bird perched on a tree stump at the edge of the pine trees. It flew out into the marsh and perched on a tree stump a very long way away. Given its large size and appearance I'd say it was an Imperial Eagle - annoyingly it landed too far away to get a half decent photo.
Livadi Marshes
While I don't think Kefalonia will ever be a major birding destination, it is a lovely island filled with nice people and a few good birds. We'll have to go back for longer and explore the rest of the island's habitats and see what else we can find.
"Let loose the Kraken!"
Nice photos , John. I've been to Kefalonia several times but I wasn't much into birding in those days.
My gallery here
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Nice photos. Obviously a time of year for foreign trips. Never been there but there is an ever growing list of places to visit appearing in my wish list.
The Cotswold Water park sightings website
My Flicker page
I think I'm going to have to bow to superior knowledge here and rename the "Sombre Tit" to Coal Tit ;-) Had a good look at the "Pied Flycatcher". It doesn't have the continuous collar and the white patch above the beak is fairly small. It looks like a pied, but there is a possibility of it being a female semi-collared.
All our holidays aren't strictly birding - but we do keep our eyes open all the time and if there are any birding hotspots nearby we will always pop in and see what's around. My partner isn' a birder, but she really likes stalking them to get decent photos :-)