A pre-breakfast wander down to the beach revealed some amazingly showy Nightingales on territory and a typically drab (but actually rather exciting!) female Common Rosefinch passing through.
We started, in the rain, at Shabla Lake, with plenty of ducks including good numbers of very smart Ferruginous Ducks, some nice waders and some wonderfully smart male Collared Flycatchers in the bushes.
After lunch, we moved on to the archaeological reserve at Yailata, where distractions from the archaeology came in the form of a male Pied Wheatear, plenty of singing Calandra Larks, some close-in Yelkouan Shearwaters off shore, a great display of the lovely dwarf irises Iris pumila and a good population of (as yet still in bud) Peonia peregrina.
We ended the day on an area of surviving 'virgin' steppe, land never cultivated and almost carpeted in the wonderful little irises. Short-toed Lark sang overhead, a pair of Stone Curlews stalked around and a superb male Rock Thrush gave a great display as he hopped about on the steppe, somewhat lost on his way north. But even he couldn't compete with the irises...
Pied Wheatear. A lovely male, and a long-awaited 'tick'
Green Toad. So much smarter (and friendlier!) than the toads in Cyprus
Just some of the many colour variations of the superb Iris pumila, a lovely dwarf iris of the surviving areas of coastal steppe. For some reason, I only took photos of the purple colour varieties, but there were just as many yellows, creams and whites... more tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment