After yesterday's mammoth day we enjoyed a small lie-in and took a late breakfast at 7:30am. We started the day at the Archaeological Site of Nea Paphos on Paphos headland. This historical landmark consists of a large archaeological area featuring ruins such as tombs, villas, roman mosaics and the famous lighthouse. Its an excellent spot for staging migrants and I really enjoyed our morning jaunt around the site.
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| Entrance to Archaeological Site of Nea Paphos |
Migrants included Nightingale, Yellow Wagtail, Black and Common Redstarts, Wryneck, Whinchat, numerous Red-throated and Meadow Pipits plus many Hoopoes. Nick managed to flush a Quail which was actually a lifer for him and would have been for me had I seen it (I've only ever heard them in the past but never actually set eyes on one). Whilst Nick was birding around by the lighthouse I picked up a smart male Stonechat with a distinctive white rump. I called him over and we had distant and inconclusive views of the bird before it managed to vanish completely. Fortunately we caught up with it again along the fence line by the coastal path. It was still proving tricky to say what it was but with the help of some record shots of the spread tail and underwing and with a little support via mobile phone from Yoav Perlman we manged to tie the bird down as a Caspian Stonechat (L). Star bird of the morning!
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| Black Redstart |
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| Paphos Lighthouse |
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| Paphos Lighthouse |
From Paphos we drove on to Evretou Reservoir which was birdless sadly. So, we decided we'd look for migrants around the Baths of Aphrodite which is near the very north west tip of Cyprus and so seemed like a good staging spot. Unfortunately it was rather full of tourists and also getting quite hot. However, we did manage to find several Eastern Bonelli's Warblers (L) in a nearby olive grove. To my ear their call is a very distinctive House Sparrow-like 'chirp' which helped us pin down their location as they fed busily in the olive trees.
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| Eastern Bonelli's Warbler |
I mentioned Mandria in the first post, this was where we had large flocks of White and assorted races of Yellow Wagtails on the first full day. We returned there in the late afternoon when a Mourning Wheatear had been found with the Northern Wheatears and Yellow Wagtails in a ploughed field. Views were a little distant but acceptable nonetheless. The light was harsh so the apricot blush to undertail coverts isn't so visible in the photo below but it was discernible in the field - honestly!
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| Mourning Wheatear |
We stopped for dinner in Mandria before ending the day with a reconnaissance trip to a hotel which a friendly Northern Ireland birder had told us was good for Cyprus Scops Owl. More on that later!
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