A Birding Day Skiathos Style

I’m not back in the local routine just yet, so here are some new pictures from Skiathos 2015. 

Skiathos is not the sort of place where we map out the day ahead; it’s more “jump in the Jimny” to see where it takes you. 

Apart from a number of minor roads in pretty poor condition and countless unmade tracks there’s one “major” road which heads across the island in an east/west direction. So we found ourselves heading through Skiathos Town, past the airport en route to Xanemos Beach, the first coffee stop of the day. 

Skiathos

Right next to the airport is the lake of Aghios Georgios where herons can sometimes be found. In our case this was Grey Heron, Little Egret and Great White Egret. A bonus was at least 4 Common Kingfishers, a species we would also see later in the week at Strofilia Lake, Koukounaries. As Skiathos is entirely dry during the summer months I could only think the Kingfishers were migrants here to take advantage of the abundant fish in the clear blue waters of this the Aegean Sea. 

Aghios Giordios Lake

 

Great White Egret

Little Egret

Skiathos

The roadside is a plane-spotters delight as a series of aircraft arrive and leave throughout most days during the summer months. The island reverts to quiet mode from October to May when many islanders return to the Greek mainland. 

Skiathos Airport

We took a leisurely drive alongside the airport runway abutted by small holdings and agricultural land, much of it devoted to growing fruit and vegetables. The Red-backed Shrike seems commonplace, even abundant on Skiathos in September with between 20 and 30 individuals seen in a typical day of laid back birding. I suspect that many are migrant birds whereby they are invariably found in garden and smallholding situations with often two or more sat along a single perimeter fences or line of vegetation. 

 Red-backed Shrike

Whinchats were equally abundant along the roadside, indeed almost everywhere we visited throughout our two week stay. The Whinchats are migrant birds only, Skiathos a stop-off on their journey from Northern Europe to Africa. We stopped at a tomato farm to find good numbers of Willow Warblers, Chiffchaffs and unseen but ever chattering Sardinian Warblers. 

Whinchat

The beach café was deserted, we the first to arrive. I spotted 6 Eleonora’s Falcons playing over the headland to the right but first we had a date with a reviving drink out of the already blistering heat. In Spain it’s difficult to get a bad cup of coffee. In Skiathos it is the direct opposite - hence the fizzy but thankfully ice-cold lemonade. 

Xanemos Beach

Look Out!

Coffee Time - Skiathos

The first planes of the morning began to arrive, speeding in and landing what seemed like just yards behind the café. Yet others motored slowly along the runway, turned the circle and then paused before a mighty blast of jet engines sent them hurtling back down the runway and out over Skiathos Town. In the café the roof and walls shook but luckily the tables were fastened to the floor. Meanwhile the muddy coffee turned darker still following the addition of a dose of sand, grit and unspent jet fuel. 

Beach Landing

Take Off - Skiathos

The effect of the first few planes upon the playful Eleonoras seemed quite dramatic. I climbed the hill to get a closer look at the falcons and disturbed a Blue Rock Thrush from I knew not where. The falcons had gone to be replaced by a single Kestrel and several Hooded Crows. It’s just a mile or two from here up the coast to Kastro where the Eleonora’s Falcons have their major, and in September, still active breeding colony. We would see them later in the week. 

Eleonora's Falcon

Blue Rock thrush

We drove back through Skiathos Town, Suzuki City as some call it. 

Suzuki City

It was lunch time at the Bourtzi and then back to the ranch for a swim and a soak in the sun. But not before we’d stopped to watch a Yellow-legged Gull finishing off an octopus and a European Shag fishing for lunch. 

The Bourtzi- Skiathos

European Shag

Yellow-legged Gull

It’s a hard life being a birder in Skiathos. Log in soon for back to normal birding or more from Skiathos.

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday Blog.

On The Rocks

What a surpise! It's raining hard again so here's another post about Greece.

 

In Skiathos we took a ride out one morning over the island peaks, crashing over rough, dusty unmade tracks to distant Cape Kastro, the ancient fortified settlement located on high rocks at the northernmost point of the island. (Kastro is the Greek word for castle). It was here in the mid-14th century that the inhabitants of Skiathos moved to when their previous fortress The Bourtzi proved ineffective in protecting the island from pirates. 

The Bourtzi is now a major element of the Skiathos Town scene, where weddings take place and tourists sit to drink coffee whilst watching the world go by and marvel at planes flying into the airport just half a mile away. 

The Bourtzi, Skiathos, viewed from Skaithos Old Harbour

A day or two earlier there had been brief views of an Eleanora's above an island near to Skiathos Aiprot where Hooded Crows drew attention to the falcon, mobbing it mercilessly until the falcon flew off into the distance. Also briefly we saw one alongside the cliffs on the boat journey to Skopelos. 

Apart from the hairy ride in the battered old Jimny, the attraction once at Kastro was the chance of seeing more than one Eleanora’s Falcon, Falco eleonorae. Eleanora’s Falcon is unique in that it is one of the few species that breeds during early autumn, feeding its chicks with other migratory birds in abundance during that period. It is also one of the few falcon species that creates breeding colonies. 

The species breeds on islands in the Mediterranean particularly off Greece where two-thirds of the world's population breeds, but also in the Canary Islands, Ibiza and off Spain, Italy, Croatia, Morocco and Algeria. With its long pointed wings, long tail and slim body Eleonora's Falcon is an elegant bird of prey similar in shape to a large Eurasian Hobby or a small slender Peregrine Falcon. The call is a typical call of most falcons, a high-pitched kek-kek-kek, calls we would hear continuously when we finally arrived at Kastro after our bone-shaking journey. 

Suzuki Jimny

Looking Back - Skiathos

After trekking up and over the rocks then through the ancient remains we reached the topmost point of Kastro from where we could see and hear the Eleanora’s, still a hundred yards away on their secluded and insurmountable stacks of rock. The birds were extremely active and obviously in the throes of breeding, with as many as eight in the air at once and perhaps 15 or more flying above and about the still mountainous rocks beyond our spot. We watched as at least one bird visited rocky ledges where youngsters were located. 

There was much calling amid spectacular headlong plunges and interaction between individual birds as they dived towards the rocks and the sea before disappearing out of sight or climbing back to eye level to cruise along the cliff face once more.. All the time the birds kept their distance from the well walked paths of the tourists but there was no way to get any closer to these magical falcons. It is impossible to describe how wonderful it was to watch so many Eleanora’s Falcons in action at once, but I found a video on You Tube, a video also shot in Greece.  Unfortunately it dosn't have the sounds of the falcons.

Eleanora's Falcon

 

Kastro, Skiathos

Eleanora's Falcon

Kastro, Skiathos

Eleanora's Falcon

Fortress - Kastro, Skiathos

Eleanora's Falcon

In such a hostile environment it was not surprising to find few other birds and although Yellow-legged Gulls were abundant, other birds here were limited to Chaffinch, Sardinian Warbler, Blackcap, Common Kestrel and European Shag. 

Sardinian Warbler

European Shag

Common Kestrel

You can’t go far in Skiathos without encountering a taverna, and here seemingly at the end of the earth was a less than trendy one, but welcoming indeed after our tiring thirsty hike through Ancient Greece. 

A taverna - Kastro, Skiathos

 

More birding adventures soon from Another Bird Blog. Now go back and 'click the pics' to revisit Skiathos. Linking today to Anni's Blog .

Soggy Post And Menorca Returns

Two days of solid rain, no birding and no news for Another Bird Blog readers. Unless of course they are interested in photographs of newly painted garden benches drying off in the garage, a précis of a letter to long-lost aunts in Uxbridge, or a recipe for freshly made tomato soup? I thought not. 

So in place of non-existent news and after tidying up picture files in Photoshop here are a few pictures left over from May in Menorca, with minimal comments from me. 

The Bee Eaters in Menorca are difficult to approach, keeping watchers to what seems a measured distance before they fly off, usually close to the usable limits of a 400mm lens. A 1000mm would be ideal. 

Bee Eater

Here’s a Cattle Egret, a species which still hasn’t managed to colonise the UK to any meaningful extent, despite showing all the signs for a good few years. 

Cattle Egret

The European or Common Shag (Phalacrocorax aristotelis) is fairly common around the rocky Balearic coasts. If anyone wants to learn more about this bird, beware of bizarre outcomes if Googling the word “Shag”. 

European Shag

Garden birds from Menorca - Kestrel, Scops Owl, Hoopoe, Yellow-legged Gull and Audouin’s Gull, the latter a bird ringed as a nestling on Illa de L’Aire, an island off the south coast of Menorca, and a different ringed individual to the one I recorded in 2011. 

Kestrel

Scops Owl

Audouin's Gull

Audouin's Gull

Yellow-legged Gull

Hoopoe

For more Hoopoe pictures see Another Bird Blog here. For more birds from Menorca, click on the "Menorca" or "Menorca Birds" tags in the right hand lower column of the blog page.

Perhaps strangely to our jaded British palates, Menorcan cheese doesn’t stick your teeth together and the island’s sausages actually taste of meat. 

Menorcan sausage and cheese

My rough translation of the street sign in Es Migjorn would be “If you clean up after your dog the whole environment benefits” 

Street sign - Es Migjorn, Menorca

Alaior - Menorca

Mahon - Menorca 

Fingers crossed for less rain this weekend, but Wimbledon begins on Monday.