Dermot Breen's Blog: lesser grey shrike

Showing posts with label lesser grey shrike. Show all posts

Thursday, 24 January 2019

Cyprus 31st August 2018

I had another look at Limassol Salt Lake this morning but no sign of any cranes again. I checked an area of shrub around Kourion about 15km west of Limassol and had a nice selection of passerines in the area including my first Cyprus Wheatears. I had one probable fly-over Cretzschmar's Bunitng the previous day and another around the Kourion in the morning but I eventually had cracking views of an adult male feeding by the roadside further inland near Kouris Reservoir.
For the remainder of the day I headed inland and up to the Troodos Mountains. I caught up with all of the endemic subspecies up there excluding of course the Scops Owl which is very hard to pick up if they aren't calling like they do in Spring. At my first stop I could hear a pair of Jays kicking up a right racket and was amazed to see that they were mobbing a perched Goshawk. I haven't seen many perched Goshawks before.

Cyprus Warbler

Cyprus Wheatear

Lesser Grey Shrike and Woodchat Shrike.

Woodchat Shrike

Lesser Grey Shrike

Cyprus Jay Garrulus glandarius glaszneri

Adult Northern Goshawk

Cyprus Coal Tit Parus ater cypriotes

Cyprus Short-toed Treecreeper Certhia brachydactyla dorotheae

Eurasian Wren

Tuesday, 22 January 2019

Cyprus 30th August 2018

More serious catchup. I spent a few days in Cyprus back in late August/early September. I was hoping for five new birds which I managed to successfully see in the end. The Autumn migration had yet to kick into full effect but I still managed to record 117 species in just over five days. I stayed in Limassol for the duration which meant I was centrally located on the south side of the island and more importantly very close to the Limassol Salt Lake to check for Demoiselle Cranes first thing in the mornings. The weather proved to be very hot throughout the stay and the country had undergone a long period of drought meaning that standing bodies of freshwater were very difficult to come across. Most of these consisted of extremely deep reservoirs with concrete or rocky sides which weren't particularly popular with birds.
I found Cyprus Warblers to be quite tough to see during the trip. It would appear that there has been an explosion in the population of Sardinian Warblers in the last decade or two on the island and this seems to have had a negative effect on the closely related Cyprus Warbler. Sardinians were extremely common and combined with the skulking behaviour of both species meant it took a while to see the endemic species. Sardinians also winter on the island unlike Cyprus Warbler so may be out competing them?

Adult Red-backed Shrike

Juvenile Lesser Grey Shrike

Adult Lesser Grey Shrike

Crested Lark

Ferruginous Duck

Juvenile Northern Goshawk

Eleonora's Falcon

Cyprus Warbler

Thursday, 23 May 2013

Armenia; Megri & Sisian

We pushed on to Meghri which is located just a few kilometres away from the Iranian border. Our accommodation for the next two nights here could best be described as "rustic". Breakfast consisted of an egg and bread with butter or cheese. Otherwise the food during the duration of the trip really was fantastic.
We moved right down to the sensitive area next to the border to a disused quarry at the entrance of a large wadi/valley to look for Persian Wheatear. We managed to pick up at least one pair here who were feeding very recently fledged young. Also seen here over the evening and the following day were Upcher's Warblers, Chuckar, Eastern Black-eared Wheatear, Blue Rock Thrush, Sombre Tit, Eastern & Western Rock Nuthatch, lots of Eastern Orphean Warblers, Red-backed, Woodchat & Lesser Grey Shrikes and Black-headed Bunting.

We also tried for Caspian Snowcock during our two day stay. We managed to get one distant view of a single bird but despite hiking up after it we didn't have any others. Great views of Rock Thrushes, Alpine Accentor, Shore Lark and Twite up there also.

On the long way back North we jammed in on a pair of Bimaculated Larks in a ploughed field near Sisian. Some of the ploughed fields in this area were filled with resident and migrant species such as Northern Wheatears, Whinchat, Skylark, Horned Lark, Water Pipit, Red-throated Pipits, Goldfinch, Linnet, Twite and Ortolan Bunting. Some of the migrants well probably grounded by dank misty conditions. We also had a few flocks of Wood Sandpipers and White-winged Black Terns flying over arable and grass fields.