Cyprus 2012, a set on Flickr.
A gallery of photos from the March 2012 Cyprus trip: 30+ orchid species, Mediterranean Chameleon, 2 species of Tulip, a new plant species for Yiannis (2nd year in a row, at exactly the same spot!), 3 Demoiselle Cranes and blue skies throughout... Brilliant
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Cyprus 2012: 27th March
With the access to Aprokremmos Dam washed out by the recent rains and just a single distant singing male Cyprus Warbler at Kourion, my hopes for the 'birding day' were perhaps beginning to fall...
Phassouri Marsh was a bit busier, with four Marsh Sandpipers overhead, a male Ferruginous Duck and a nice Squacco Heron, but still not quite as busy as I would have hoped for this time of year. Where are all the wagtails and pipits, the warblers and chats?
Driving out onto the dry salt marshes of Akrotiri, we turned our attention to plants while being plagued by mosquitoes... and then three large birds were spotted flying in the distance. Three cranes... three thin-necked, slightly faster flapping than normal... three small cranes with black breasts! Three small cranes which appeared to be gaining height, but then turned and came in to land just over the rise! Driving the bus in the general direction, we came to a sudden halt with three Demoiselle Cranes walking across the track about 20 metres in front of us. Spellbinding...
Monday, March 26, 2012
Cyprus 2012: 26th March
A morning ambling around the lanes up behind the hotel, finding plenty of orchids along the way. A handful of Orchis punctulata were just hanging on around the edge of what was once a fantastic olive grove filled with orchids, now scraped bare and (even more ominously) the parking place for a bulldozer... Slightly more positive was the sight of a rough field full of Serapias orchids with all four local species present, including the delicate local endemic S. aphrodite.
But for me, the highlight of today wasn't an orchid or a bird. It was a lovely male jumping bristletail Silvestrichilis trispina, a very primitive insect of the order Archaeognatha. Exciting, honest!
Ranunculus asiaticus
Acrida hungarica, a grasshopper pretending to be a stick insect pretending to be a stick...
Silvestrichilis trispina. A very active little male... do creepy crawlies get much cooler than this??
Adonis annua. Any day with Adonis is a good day.
But for me, the highlight of today wasn't an orchid or a bird. It was a lovely male jumping bristletail Silvestrichilis trispina, a very primitive insect of the order Archaeognatha. Exciting, honest!
Ranunculus asiaticus
Acrida hungarica, a grasshopper pretending to be a stick insect pretending to be a stick...
Silvestrichilis trispina. A very active little male... do creepy crawlies get much cooler than this??
Adonis annua. Any day with Adonis is a good day.Saturday, March 24, 2012
Cyprus 2012: 24th March
Cyprus botany, from the sublime to the somewhat esoteric...
Tulipa agenensis, a spectacular little plant just hanging on on the edge of cultivated fields near the village of Stroumbi, 24th March
Ophioglossum lusitanicum, the appropriately-named Small Adder's Tongue, all 1cm of it. Last seen on a bare patch on the edge of Wingletang on St Agnes in torrential rain, quite bizarre to catch up with it again growing on a hot sandy hilltop in the foothills of the Troodos. 23rd March 2012.
Tulipa agenensis, a spectacular little plant just hanging on on the edge of cultivated fields near the village of Stroumbi, 24th March
Ophioglossum lusitanicum, the appropriately-named Small Adder's Tongue, all 1cm of it. Last seen on a bare patch on the edge of Wingletang on St Agnes in torrential rain, quite bizarre to catch up with it again growing on a hot sandy hilltop in the foothills of the Troodos. 23rd March 2012.Thursday, March 22, 2012
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Cyprus 2012: 21st March
Still not entirely sure how half the group (two leader's included!) managed to walk past/around/over this wonderful beast before anyone noticed that there was a BIG GREEN CHAMELEON in the middle of the track!!
Very cool though. A definite highlight... and only the first day!
Very cool though. A definite highlight... and only the first day!
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Weasel-ly recognised
I'm obviously not the only person enjoying all the voles who have woken up lately...
This lovely little fella sped across the path in front of us into a rock wall. A bit of squeaking, he was stopped in his tracks and proceeded to put on a great show, popping out of a crack in the rocks here, a burrow there, trying to work out just what these two giant squeaking voles were all about... a real poser!
Thursday, March 1, 2012
If you go down to the woods today...
Well, maybe it's no great surprise...
The deep snow and freezing temperatures of a couple of weeks ago were but a distant memory today, cycling along the River Isar south from Munich city centre, where my first butterfly of the year (well, in Europe anyway!) was a male Brimstone flying across the path and off into the zoo...
The Great Tits and Nuthatches were as noisy as ever, full of the joys of the lengthening days, as were several Great Spotted Woodpeckers, chasing each other around the trees or drumming a little half heartedly.
Equally noisy were a pair of Marsh Tits: now I'm not sure if I've ever actually heard Marsh Tits singing before, or if I have it must have been so long ago that I didn't register it. But this pair put on a lovely display, torn as they were between coming down to eye ball me and paying more amorous attention to each other.
It is still too early for many other birds in the woods, to be honest. A Wren here or a Blackbird there, maybe a couple of Treecreepers, but nothing else.
However, quite a surprise was the level of activity on the woodland floor. Pretty much every time I stopped cycling, there would be the noise of scurrying amongst the fallen leaves as yet another Bank Vole bounced away. In the couple of hours I was out I saw easily 15 or more, some of whom were quite happy to go about their business with me watching a couple of metres away: clearing out their burrows, searching through the wood piles and leave litter for those nuts and seeds that they stashed before the snows came.
They weren't the only ones cache-emptying, as a beautifully sooty Red Squirrel was also patting about a little absent mindedly, wondering just where it was he left those last few beech nuts...
But entertaining though Marsh Tits and Bank Voles are, they weren't what I'd come out to find...
Back in November, when I first came out along this stretch of river I noticed plenty of tri-lobed leathery leaves of Hepatica nobilis, a flower I've previously only seen from a moving vehicle and I've been waiting ever since for the chance to come out and find the first flowers of the spring. And only in ones and twos, but find them I did.
Not far away, a sunny glade was pretty much full of flowering Crocuses, with plenty of noisy Honey Bees in attendance. Something tells me these were probably planted (as with the clumps of Snowdrops and Winter Aconite elsewhere), but they looked pretty nice nonetheless.
And finally back on the river and into the city again, where the Mute Swans are always very friendly. One pair in particular, after some displaying and general nuzzling of each other, decided to waddle up the bank and sit down next to me for a sun bathe...
Not quite so photogenic but equally appreciative of the warm sun were the first nudists of the year... now I know it's warm, but it really isn't THAT warm!
The deep snow and freezing temperatures of a couple of weeks ago were but a distant memory today, cycling along the River Isar south from Munich city centre, where my first butterfly of the year (well, in Europe anyway!) was a male Brimstone flying across the path and off into the zoo...
The Great Tits and Nuthatches were as noisy as ever, full of the joys of the lengthening days, as were several Great Spotted Woodpeckers, chasing each other around the trees or drumming a little half heartedly.
Equally noisy were a pair of Marsh Tits: now I'm not sure if I've ever actually heard Marsh Tits singing before, or if I have it must have been so long ago that I didn't register it. But this pair put on a lovely display, torn as they were between coming down to eye ball me and paying more amorous attention to each other.
It is still too early for many other birds in the woods, to be honest. A Wren here or a Blackbird there, maybe a couple of Treecreepers, but nothing else.
However, quite a surprise was the level of activity on the woodland floor. Pretty much every time I stopped cycling, there would be the noise of scurrying amongst the fallen leaves as yet another Bank Vole bounced away. In the couple of hours I was out I saw easily 15 or more, some of whom were quite happy to go about their business with me watching a couple of metres away: clearing out their burrows, searching through the wood piles and leave litter for those nuts and seeds that they stashed before the snows came.
They weren't the only ones cache-emptying, as a beautifully sooty Red Squirrel was also patting about a little absent mindedly, wondering just where it was he left those last few beech nuts...
But entertaining though Marsh Tits and Bank Voles are, they weren't what I'd come out to find...
Back in November, when I first came out along this stretch of river I noticed plenty of tri-lobed leathery leaves of Hepatica nobilis, a flower I've previously only seen from a moving vehicle and I've been waiting ever since for the chance to come out and find the first flowers of the spring. And only in ones and twos, but find them I did.
Not far away, a sunny glade was pretty much full of flowering Crocuses, with plenty of noisy Honey Bees in attendance. Something tells me these were probably planted (as with the clumps of Snowdrops and Winter Aconite elsewhere), but they looked pretty nice nonetheless.
And finally back on the river and into the city again, where the Mute Swans are always very friendly. One pair in particular, after some displaying and general nuzzling of each other, decided to waddle up the bank and sit down next to me for a sun bathe...
Not quite so photogenic but equally appreciative of the warm sun were the first nudists of the year... now I know it's warm, but it really isn't THAT warm!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)