Showing posts with label Hooded Crow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hooded Crow. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 18, 2022

May Days

Apologies to regular readers who perhaps realised I had gone AWOL without leaving a forwarding address. I promise to get back to you all very soon. Yes, it was holiday time in Greece.

This was our eleventh time in Skiathos and our first visit to the island in spring. Sue and I missed out in both May 2020 and May 2021 due to Covid but at last we made it, despite the best efforts of TUI and Manchester Airport.  

Skiathos runway

Spring was only slightly different from late September trips when the landscape is parched following a typical Greek summer and when many summer birds have gone south. In early May the weather was initially cooler but by the second week scorching sun and a familiar twenty five degrees. Once again I was the only birder on the island, birding as much as possible, if you get the drift. When is a birder not birding is the question?

Skiathos
 
Our usual hotel The Ostria at Agia Paraskevi opens in late May so this year we stayed within a stone’s throw at Spiti Oneiro, a Greek title that translates as ‘Dream House’. It’s an apt name for so many homes in faraway, relaxing Skiathos. 

Dream House - Skiathos

We know Dream House well as one of our welcoming watering holes and places to eat during September stays. It’s a little off the beaten track so very quiet, a friendly, laid-back sort of place with just nine apartments, bed & breakfast if required or room only. Proprietors are Dad Kostas and daughter Efie, two wonderful, helpful and kind people who go out of their way to make guests feel at home. 

Kostas Stergiopoulos


We reserved a room via Efie and book flights directly. This makes for a more personal experience as well as ensuring our money goes into the local economy rather than a percentage into commission to third parties.

Courtesy of Magda of Mustang Motors https://www.skiathosrent.com we picked up the Jimny jeep at the airport and filled it with expensive petrol, fuel that lasts a while on quite tiny Skiathos Island. At Euros 25 a day the jeep works out as both convenient and cost effective when a couple of trips to other parts of the island by local bus costs about Euros 8 each time, e.g into Skiathos Town or the opposite ends of the island Koukounaries, or Troulos. 

The furthermost north part of the island is in any case accessible mostly by car, sometimes a 4x4, more so after a wet winter. It was in January and into March this year that Skiathos had several bouts of snow followed by a legacy of soggy roads and tracks.


Skiathos Life - Facebook January 2022

Two weeks of uninterrupted sun and zero rain made for lots of photos of Skiathos if not too many bird photos as early May proved a little late for heavy migration and in any case Skiathos has a quite small bird list. 

The "best" and most unexpected bird proved to be a Little Bittern which I saw on and off for two weeks in a reedy ditch where stream frogs Rana gracea were probably the reason for the bittern's presence. Most of the time I glimpsed the thing climbing through the thick reeds and only once did I get a decent photo. My sighting may be the first recorded sighting of this small bittern species  on Skiathos where birders are rare even non-existent but I imagine the Little Bittern is pretty common in Greece as a whole.

Rana gracea

Little Bittern

The first week included Bee Eaters, Black-headed Buntings, Red-throated Pipits, Richard's Pipits, Yellow Wagtails, Red-backed Shrikes, Woodchat Shrikes, Whinchats, Red-rumped Swallows, Barn Swallows, Marsh Warblers & Reed Warblers, Hobbies, Buzzard, Olivaceous Warblers, Scops Owl and a good number of daytime singing Nightingales. Sea birds consisted of the ever-present Yellow-legged Gulls, European Shag and numbers of Cory's/Scopoli's Shearwaters searching the mill pond Aegean Sea.


Barn Swallow

Black-headed Bunting

Red-rumped Swallow

Woodchat Shrike

Yellow Wagtail

Red-throated Pipit

Red-backed Shrike

Red-backed Shrike

Yellow Wagtail feldegg

By the second week the birds dried up with the increased temperatures and we were left to enjoy the sunshine, deserted beaches and the company of Hooded Crows and Yellow-legged Gulls.   

Hooded Crow

Yellow-legged Gull

There are lots of photos of Sunny Skiathos below. Enjoy and don't forget to "click the pic" for a better view.

Skiathos Town

Skiathos Town

The Bourtzi 

Skiathos Town

The Bourtzi

Rural Skiathos

Above Skiathos

Essential Shopping in Skiathos

Skiathos Town

Skiathos Boatyard

Skiathos Boatyard

In the Boatyard

View from Mylos Taverna

Ligaries

Ligaries

Ligaries

Back soon with local news and views.

Linking this weekend to Eileen's Blogspot and Anni in Texas.




Thursday, February 20, 2020

Another January

We’re into the third week of storms with no prospect of birding or ringing for several days. Storm Ella is lined up to be next. 

Almost every day has been so awful that I have struggled to get out birding or ringing, even for the occasional “window of opportunity”. Everyone is pretty fed up, not least those people whose homes have been flooded.  Fortunately here in coastal Lancashire, apart from fencing panels, we have escaped any serious damage, but there’s more to come from the current cycle with its misplaced and overactive jet stream.  

UK 2020 - Getty Images 

Meanwhile the Government is happy to blame so called “climate change” for the damage and destruction while muddying the waters, diverting attention from building on flood plains; or forgetting to mention the Environment Agency’s failure to properly maintain dykes, ditches and rivers because of the European Water Framework Directive 2000. Roll on 2021 when Britain becomes again an independent nation, free from the dictats of unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, and when our politicians will be paid for making decisions of their own. 

For those of an enquiring mind willing to read other than mainstream media I recommend:



That’s the whinge over for now.  Meanwhile a few pictures from January 2011 and a holiday in sunny Egypt where we saw a somewhat limited range of species within the confines of the resort of Makadi Bay, Hurghada.  A couple of miles of beach plus 15 or so lush hotel grounds provided ample time and opportunity for birding while soaking up the winter sun. 

Makadi Bay, Egypt

 Red-throated Pipit

Bluethroat

Kingfisher

 Kestrel

Laughing Dove

Makadi Bay 

Sleepy Camel

Striated Heron

Osprey

Cattle Egret 

 Makadi Bay, Egypt

Makadi Bay, Egypt

Hooded Crow

Bluethroat

Kingfisher

Greater Sand Plover

Greenshank

Cattle Egret

We had a great time with two weeks of unbroken sunshine in the eighties when back home there would be rain, wind and whatever else the British weather might throw at us.   

I know someone who went to Hurghada just two years ago. Following terrorist atrocities in Egypt the rules are now more controlling whereby tourists are unable to leave the confines of their hotel grounds, barred even from walking into neighbouring hotel surroundings because of security concerns - such a shame.

It's raining now.  Back soon - sometime, never?

Linking today to Anni's Birding and Eileen's Saturday Blogspot.



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