Showing posts with label Birding Greece. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Birding Greece. Show all posts

Thursday, September 29, 2022

Return Leg

We’re back from Skiathos - eventually. More of that little saga later. Two weeks of unbridled sunshine left us browned off in the normal way with a healthy outdoor tan from our favourite holiday destination. 

As ever and due to unrelenting sunshine, clear skies and temperatures in the high twenties the birding was pretty poor. Nonetheless most would be happy with seeing raptors like Eleanora’s Falcon, Hobbies and Buzzards. Daily sightings of Spotted Flycatchers, wagtails, Whinchats, Sardinian Warblers and the ubiquitous Red-backed Shrike added to the feeling that a day spent in the beautiful countryside of Skiathos was equal to if not far better than a day of burning on Koukounaries beach. 

I returned with very few new bird photos but lots of scenes of Skiathos, the most photogenic of destinations. I am now catching up with two weeks post, business, news, and household jobs like gardening. And there are two new bird books to unpack and then review here on the blog. 

In the meantime here is a selection of photos from Skiathos September 2022. Sorry there aren’t too many birdy pics but I’m sure that regular readers will know how I like to take holiday snaps too. 

Enjoy the pics and don't forget to click for a better view.

Woodchat Shrike

Sardinian Warbler

Goats at Aselinos

Agia Paraskevi

Pomegranate

Morning Flight

A Spot of Rain

Milos Taverna

Bus Stop 

Dry Dock Time

Loading Up

Spotted Flycatcher

Grey Heron

Little Egret

Shop Window

Net Repairs

Windswept Tree

Unloading

The Bourtzi

Yammas

Red-backed Shrike

Feta

Skiathos Carob Tree

Waiting for The Ferry

Boat Repairs

Skiathos

The Bells

Hee Haw

Mini Sub

The Bourtzi

Plane Watchers

Skiathos Rainbow

Day Trip?

Waterline

Sunny Skiathos

And now for a rant about TUI, our flight provider. 

We arrived in plenty of time for our 1345 flight back to Manchester on Wednesday. We learnt that the flight was over two hours late in setting off from Manchester after early morning fog. Fair enough but this “ferry flight”, empty and solely to take a plane load of people back to Manchester then took one and a half hours to turn around. 

Tui

Worse was to come when the pilot announced to already grumpy passengers that our journey to Manchester needed for a “splash of fuel” that would entail a refuelling stop at Dusseldorf, a German hub of TUI where fuel is probably cheaper than topping up in Greece. A sceptic might say, “follow the money rather than TUI's customer service”.  

The “splash of fuel”  added two hours to the flight time and we eventually arrived at our front door over six hours later than anticipated. The joys of travel. This unexpected addition to our holiday rather took the gloss off our wonderful time in Greece. 

Back soon with local birds, ringing, birding and a couple of new book reviews. 

Linking at weekend to Eileen's Blogspot and Anni in Texas.

 

Thursday, September 30, 2021

Trip Over

We’re back from Greece. I’m catching up with the world as Sue unpacks suitcases while being careful I hope not to drop the two bottles of ouzo packed between the sun towels. There’s a question for Mr Sunak. Why is Ouzo 12 just £9 a bottle in Skiathos and £16.50 or more in the UK? 

An offer to help with emptying the cases is met with “You will just get in the way”. Outside its raining and will do so all day. Welcome back to Britain. 

Being absent for two weeks, I decided to revisit the blogging world and post a few photographs. In Skiathos we had 14 days of glorious sunshine marred one morning by a couple of hours of dark cloud and intermittent rain before the sun reappeared as temperatures rose to their normal early thirties. The wealth of sunshine and clear nights led to little in the way of bird migration, just small numbers of the usual – shrikes, wagtails, chats, swallows, Chiffchaffs, Spotted Flycatchers and Blackcaps. 

Red-rumped Swallow

The “best” bird of the two weeks may have been a single Magpie, glimpsed one morning flying overhead. Although Hooded Crows are common and Ravens less so, other members of the crow family are very rare. In any case, birdwatching and bird recording is not a pastime of the average Skiathan resulting in a poor bird list for this unwatched island. 

Red-backed Shrike and Spotted Flycatchers dominated our mostly casual birding during trips to various beaches and viewpoints.

Red-backed Shrike
 
It seems that the only shrikes left in late September are juveniles of the year and perhaps females as adult males have by now all left for Africa. The shrikes are mostly wary and difficult to bring into photo range except for the occasional and innocent youngster like this one near Aselinos beach. Aselinos is located in the rugged north of the island, and while it can be wild and windswept, it is simply beautiful. 

Aselinos

Aselinos

Likewise, Spotted Flycatchers were difficult to approach until we found this very confiding one in the same location, Aselinos. 

Spotted Flycatcher

Wheatear

Late in the day the goatherd brings his goats down to Aselinos and corrals them for the night so that this valuable stock cannot roam and revert back to their wild ancestry.

Aselinos

It was here at Aselinos that after brief morning showers we found a flock of forty and more Yellow Wagtails. The same species plus occasional Grey Wagtails could be seen and heard on a numbers of days in this and other locations but only where a semblance of water could be found.

Yellow Wagtail

Whinchat

Spotted Flycatcher

Now follows a set of non-birdy photos from Skiathos. Click each picture to get a feel for this beautiful and friendly island. 

Skiathos Town

The Bourtzi

The Old Harbour

Skiathos Town

Skiathos

Skiathos

Skiathos

The Bourtzi

Xanemos

Skiathos

View to Skiathos Town

Ligaries

Aselinos

Spiti Oneiro (Dream House)

Coffee and Cake - Fresh Cafe

Ferry to Thessaloniki mainland Greece

Ligaries

Papadiamantis Street

Bakaliko

Rain over Skopelos Island

Skiathos Town

I’ll be back soon with a new book review, WILDGuides Europe’s Birds. The book arrived mid-way through the holiday. 

Europe's Birds

Hopefully I can get a review out before the book arrives on general sale. 

Linking this weekend to Eileen's Blogspot and Anni in Texas.


 

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