Saturday, 29 April 2017

White Stork visits the headland

The bird of the day was a White Stork that headed south over Paliros as most of the team were having lunch. It continued south towards the lighthouse before returning north about 30 to 40 minutes later and was last seen heading up the east coast. This is our first spring recorded for the headland; an unfortunate separation of people cameras meant that we only got one poor and rather distant record shot.


There were far fewer birds around today though stil enough to keep us interested and although we lacked numbers there were several noteworthy sightings. This include a strong arrival of hirundines with over 90 on the wires at Kokinoghia late morning.


Other birds of interest were a Nightjar ar Marmari, 1 Little Egret in Porto Sternes, a Shag in Marmari Bay and best of all a flock of 23 Glossy Ibis that were flying northeast out to sea from Porto Sternes.

Of the grounded migrants only Whitethroat and Sedge and Garden Warblers showed an increase. Migrant totals for the day were: 22 Woodchat Shrike, 4 Golden Oriole, 7 Great Reed Warbler, 11 Sedge Warbler, 3 Icterine Warbler, 40 Whitethroat, 5 Wood Warbler, 9 Whinchat, 5 Nightingale, 6 Redstart, 31 Spotted Flycatcher, 11 Pied Flycatcher and  3 Collared Flycatcher.

Visible migration: 38 Bee-eater, 46 Common Swift, 1 Pallid Swift,13 Red-rumped Swallow, 183 Swallow, 15 Sand Martin and 1 House Martin

Raptors: 1 Hobby, 6 Kestrel and 1 unidentified Accipiter 

Ringing totals: Woodchat Shrike 1, Sedge Warbler 9, Garden Warbler 11, Subalpine Warbler 1, Whitethroat 4, Sardinian Warbler 1, Wood Warbler 4, Nightingale 1, Whinchat 1, Spotted Flycatcher 2, Pied Flycatcher 4, Linnet 1 and Corn Bunting 1.
Overall total 41 birds from 78m of nets.

Weather: Calm to cyclonic 1 to start, increasing to west-southwest 4 occasionally 5 in afternoon (though this was probably just an onshore wind). Clear with excellent visibility, the western mountains of Crete visible for much of the day (they are over 150km away !!).

Bee-eater on the wires at Paliros

A view of the west coast from near the lighthouse

A great insect - does anyone know what this is?

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