Lesbos Trip Report 21-28th April 2011 - Part 1

Hi all

I have just returned from a week's birding trip to Lesbos in Greece. This is my report with some of the many photos I took.

Lesbos is a top spot for birds at this time of the year. It is situated at the eastern end of the Mediterranean close to Turkey and is thus close to one of the main migration routes for birds coming from Africa and elsewhere heading for central and northern Europe.

The reason it is so good for birds is the wide variety of habitat that the island offers. There are marshes, salt pans, bare rocky hillsides, olive groves, scrub and woodlands. This makes it an ideal stopover for for many species of birds on passage as well as those that stay to breed.

Our small group stayed for the whole week at a family run hotel at Skala Kallonis which is situated at the head of the Kalloni Gulf. The hotel is run by Thekla (how cool a name is that for birders) who is the daughter of the owner. Without any prompting she actually remembered me from two years ago. I wish I'd had that effect on other women I've met.

As you can see from the map Skala Kallonis is sited pretty much in the centre of the island making it an ideal location from which to explore. I'm not going to give you a blow by blow account of all the places we visited. Suffice it to say we went to the prime locations around the Kalloni Gulf and to the wilder more remote areas of the north and west of the island.

The week before we arrived it had been very cold and wet. This meant that many of the migrants that had already arrived stayed put and had not moved on. That was good for us because we saw a lot of collared and semi-collared flycatchers. When we arrived it was bright and sunny but there was a cold north/north-easterly wind and it was about 10 degrees colder than in the UK. It stayed like this for the next 5 days so it was a case of several layers and fleeces. Some of the migrants like shrikes and buntings which were expected to arrive were late because of the wind direction. The last two days the wind direction changed to the south-west and there was a sudden influx of migrants at the west of the island. Unfortunately, it also turned cloudy with heavy rain at times but we saw some good birds as a result.

Now for the birds and other critters. We saw or heard about 170 species of birds in total. Many of the small birds were not easy or impossible to photograph. Some birds were photographed through the vehicle window so the pictures are not of the highest quality. Some have had to be heavily cropped so the image is somewhat degraded. I've grouped the photos by type rather than by place to try to give you a flavour of what we saw.

Gulls and Terns

The most populous gulls were yellow-legged and black-headed as you would expect. However, we came across this Slender-billed Gull which was rather a nice find.

Terns encountered included Common Terns, Gull-billed Terns (too far away to photograph) and Whiskered Terns who obligingly posed for us.

My favourite by far are the White-winged Black Terns. These are really gorgeous birds but sadly my photos don't really do them justice. For those of you who have seen them you'll know what I mean. These are the best shots I could get.

Waders and Wagtails

The salt pans and marshes around Skala Kallonis are excellent for waders. These are some I managed to photograph that were within range.

A Spur-winged Lapwing - a fairly unusual visitor.

A Teminck's Stint - a first for me and one I wouldn't have been able to identify on my own.

Black-winged Stilt - everyone's favourite and unmistakeable.

Wood Sandpiper - probably the most common wader in Lesbos.

Black-tailed Godwits getting stuck in.

And everyone likes a bit of Ruff.

Glossy Ibis - not strictly waders but looking sensational in the early morning sunshine.

And my personal favourite the Collared Pratincole - never seen them so close before.

There were lots more waders including Avocets, Little Stints and Flamingos (if you can call them waders but curiously no Spoonbills. All were too far away to photograph.

The Yellow Wagtails were sensational. The Black-headed variety (feldegg) were absolutely stunning but infuriatingly I didn't get a picture. However, I did manage to get a shot of a Blue-headed variety

And more importantly especially for Kezmo (she'll know why) this stunning Citrine Wagtail.

I'm going to stop there. Part 2 coming up so you'll know what to look out for if you are getting bored.

Aiki, if I've got any of my ID's wrong please tell me, I won't be offended.

TJ