No not the weather, but in the absence of birding or ringing today here are more pictures from the recent Cyprus holiday. Maybe the blue sky in the pictures will cheer us all up. The idea of our holiday was a relaxing, sunny break, a bit of exploration and walking, a chance to inject a dose of warmth into creaking bones before the British winter set in. Alright it cost a few quid, but as the sayings goes, “you can’t take it with you”, and anyway we are fully paid up members of the SKI Club.
I know the island of Cyprus is a good place to bird during spring and autumn situated as it is in the Mediterranean Sea halfway between Europe and Africa. In the winter it appears that bird variety is much more predictable, seemingly dominated by larks, chats and finches, with for instance very small numbers of gulls and waders. I couldn’t find any information on the Internet about winter birding on Cyprus and although birding wasn’t the holiday objective, no birder goes on holiday without bins and camera.
I got a handful of the local specialties, Black Francolin, Cyprus Warbler and Greater Sand Plover, all so distant and unapproachable that pictures were out of the question. Otherwise on the outskirts of towns and away from the tourist areas, it was the common and numerous winterers everywhere, Crested Lark and Skylark, Black Redstart, Linnet, Goldfinch, Chaffinch and Greenfinch, Stonechat and White Wagtail. A couple of coastal Kingfishers brightened up other days, plus Common Sandpiper near the hotel and what may have been a pretty good bird for the island, a Barn Owl that we watched from our balcony whilst taking a sun downer.
And I came back to this.
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