Another Bird Blog: Red-backed Shrike

Showing posts with label Red-backed Shrike. Show all posts

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

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

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.

Saturday, September 18, 2021

Happy Holidays

Wednesday 15 September. Sue and I had jumped through hoops and clambered over obstacles to reach this point. There was no stopping us now as the jet finally climbed into the sky over Manchester Airport to leave England behind. We were on bang on time in our Boeing 737/800, along with 137 other hopeful holidaymakers on the way to Destination Skiathos.

Three and a half hours later we arrived on the magical isle at 1355 local time to clear blue skies and 26 degrees. We trotted down the passenger staircase to waiting buses as the air crew wished us "Happy Holidays". We were set for 2 weeks in the sun, the crew to turn the plane around in an hour, fill it with fuel and more passengers, and then head back to Manchester. It's a hard life for some.

We negotiated a few minor Greek hoops, (or maybe it seemed that way), grabbed our cases and quickly located Magda waiting at Arrivals with a Suzuki Jeep. In high spirits if a little cramped by suitcases and photo gear, plus Sue's suntan creams & mossie sprays, we set off for Agia Paraskevi and Hotel Ostria, a 20 minute drive via Skiathos' Ring Road and the winding coastal route.

Ostria Hotel

Agia Paraskevi is a tiny hamlet and tourist resort on the south coast of Skiathos at the start of the Platanias Valley, an unspoilt landscape that meanders inland through dusty unkempt tracks and scented pine clad hills to eventually reach the wild rocky north of Skiathos Island. That's for another day.

The weather is hot, dry and sunny so not too good for birding or dropping migrants. The usual species crossed our path in small numbers – Red-backed Shrike, Yellow Wagtail, Whinchat, Little Owl, Chiffchaff and Red-rumped Swallow, Spotted Flycatcher.

Whinchat

Spotted Flycatcher

Red-backed Shrike

Aselinos

The highlight of Thursday was a a road runner, an Isabelline Wheatear at Aselinos beach. I call them road runners because of the characteristic way they run over the landscape in pursuit of prey rather than the wait and see feeding of Northern Wheatears. Unfortunately this one ran so fast that I couldn’t get a photo.

Shopping and Skiathos Town today. Wish me luck.

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

The Old Ones (AreThe Best)

There’s little chance of birding or ringing until next week as an Atlantic storm heads this way towards us for the weekend. Friday looked a possibility but Sue and I have to go for our flu jabs at precisely 1012 on Friday morning.

Instead and for this post I’m raiding the archives for pictures from Skiathos, Greece, this year and past years. Birds, landscapes, people. Enjoy and come back soon. Don’t forget to “click the pic” for best effect.