First Day back at Cape Tenaro

So after missing the last two spring migration seasons because of the Covid-19 pandemic we are finally back at Cape Tenaro - hurray!!

Summary - Monday 28th March

A pleasant enough start to our visit (after a 3 year gap!) with a proper arrival of Subalpine Warblers. A decent selection of other migrants, given it is still March, of which Hoopoe and Redstart were the most conspicuous. The only scarcity seen was an Isabelline Wheatear on the road to Porto Kagio.

Grounded Migrants: A decent showing of Subalpine Warblers with 91 logged however they were very patchily distributed and given our late arrival and the wind were probably under-counted. No other migrants were present in large numbers however we did see a good mix of species including: 1 Common Sandpiper, 1 Wryneck, 10 Hoopoe, 12 Nightingale, 4 Rüppell's Warbler, 10 Blackcap, 1 Whitethroat, 7 Woodchat Shrike, 4 Northern Wheatear, 7 Redstart, 3 Black Redstart and a single Robin. There was also a single Isabelline Wheatear on the ‘narrows’ on the Porto Kagio road.

Visible Passage: very limited with the exception of Linnet, of the 35 counted most appeared to be north bound migrants. There was also a single Swallow at Kokinoghia that also headed north.

Raptors: no migrants seen, with just a single local Peregrine and two Short-toed Eagles recorded.

Bird Ringing: Weather allowing ringing will start on 31st March

Weather: Wind mostly northeast however the weather maps show strong south easterlies to the south of us. Mostly overcast with poor to moderate visibility.

Subalpine Warbler at Koureli

Woodchat Shrike near Beehive Pass

Black Redstart at Paliros

Redstart at Paliros