Spain - Day 2

Oh dear, what a catastrophe!

At teatime on day 2 perhaps still jetlagged after getting up at 3.15 am on Monday to make the flight from Stansted, I managed to permanently delete all the photos I had taken during the day including good views of some notable first time sightings.  So all I can do is tell the story of what I saw without the evidence.

The day started well before dawn when we drove a few miles to an observation post at the Southern corner of the lake.  It was still pitch dark but after half an hour, vague shapes could be made out and I used the moon setting on my camera to see lines and lines of cranes in the distance...

The story with the cranes is that they gather on the Laguna di Gallocanta before migrating northwards across the Pyrenees. Each day at this time of year some will make the flight, some will remain and others will move in.  

So as the light improved, they started to move off in increasing numbers, flying straight over our heads in an overwhelming display except for one lone individual that came back.  Someone joked that it must have forgotten something.

We were told that there were around 15,000 cranes in the area on the day but the hotel organised a competition for us to guess how many there would be on the last day of our stay, just before the start of the "crane weekend" when most are expected to make the move north.  The number counted on that Friday was over 27,500, many more than any of us guessed!

Also seen on or the lake were some distant flamingos, shelduck, shoveler and teal as well as calandra lark, merlin and marsh harrier nearby.

Later in the day we travelled around a bit seeing crested lark, several linnets rock sparrow and roe dear. indeed it was going along in the van that led to a spectacular sighting when one of the guides saw two great bustard crossing behind us in his mirror as he drove along!  They disappeared straight away but we caught up with them again by circling around and managed good views. 

Something similar happened not much later when a bird of prey flew out of a tree in front of the advancing van.  Some thought buzzard and some thought marsh harrier but it flew off speedily to a corner of a distant field, where it could eventually be identified as a booted eagle

You can see why I was fed up about deleting the images.

I did manage one photographic capture that evening. In a garden near the hotel there was a bush full of twittering birds, which could only be seen fleetingly as they left and entered the foliage so I tried without much success to video them:

Tree with invisible birds

The Merlin app suggested spanish sparrows but I think not. Bog standard house sparrow is I think the correct answer.  I later learned that spanish sparrow is a more rural species.

Holiday in Paphos Cyprus 21 April - 1st May

This was mainly intended as a chillout holiday but of course I had some ideas about possible wildlife sightings, which in fact worked out very well - at least in respect of birdlife.

Early success

An early wander around the coast at Chloraka area showed that there were still some healthy flower meadows to investigate - in spite of the fact that the whole area is clearly marked out for immediate further building complete with the roughcast for the access roads.

Pied Wheatear

There were larks and swallows and a good few butterflies, though these were of only two kinds - painted ladies, of which there must have been thousands over the course of the holiday, and whites.  Neither were keen to settle and the painted ladies were markedly more hyperactive than when they appear in the UK in late summer.

On a longer investigation of the coastal path, I was delighted to quickly discover one of my key targets, the pied wheatear hanging around a rather desolate area of perimeter fencing, then later perching helpfully on a nearby rock.

From the balcony of our apartment there were also swifts, hooded

Lesser whitethroat?

crows and feral pigeons.

On a morning forage further inland the day after it was the same story for butterflies, but I did get a rather unclear shot of what I think may have been a lesser whitethroat on the telephone wires.

Pleasant and unpleasant surprises

I went on a visit to the Paphos Archaeological Park with my daughter.  I hadn't realised how nature-friendly it is and wished I'd taken binoculars as, apart from lizards, crested larks and some slender looking northern wheatear, several other species were missed.

One day I managed a bit of time fishing near the Municipal Swimming Pool.  Most of the bites were also missed but I did manage to catch three tiny ones next to the rocks.

Revisiting the coastal area at dusk one evening was productive, proving the crested lark is particularly common but I also stumbled on a group of hoopoe and found a moustached warbler in an area of rough ground.  Cetti's warbler was singing nearby, but, typically, not seen. I also thought I'd found a blue butterfly but it turned out to be a day-flying moth.

Hoopoe

Moth

Moustached Warbler

Unfortunately we chose a poor day to visit the Troodos mountains.  It rained and made the tricky climb to a waterfall hazardous, resulting for me in a heavy fall, a seriously twisted knee and a couple of days enforced rest on a sunlounger.

A strong finish

Cyprus Warbler

Fortunately I was by the penultimate day fit enough to attempt an e-bike ride to the Asprokremmos Dam area in pursuit of the indigenous cyprus warbler.  This proved much easier to find than expected once I could recognise its distinctive song, though it took a good long time to get a half-decent photograph as they wouldn't stay still.

It's funny how the different light conditions can affect sightings.  I found I was often wondering about the swallows I was seeing.  On the way up to Asprokremmos I took the chance to photograph one of them and it was only from looking at the results that I could see they were red-rumped swallows.  Perhaps the ones at the coast were too.

Similarly, it was only examining a photo of a suspected warbler that I realised I'd seen my first woodchat shrike.

Red-rumped Swallow

Woodchat Shrike

After being delayed by around a thousand domesticated goats crossing the road, the area near the Dam also revealed the definitive photo of a crested lark and a brief encounter with a very bright blue butterfly that only settled briefly with its wings closed.  I wondered about adonis blue or even false eros blue but neither would realistically have been on the wing so early in the year.

Goats on road

Crested lark

On the last day, just before leaving, I glimpsed three clouded yellow in flight and equally disinclined to settle as most of the other species.