Another Bird Blog: Skiathos birds

Thursday, June 25, 2026

Καλές μέρες. Part Two

Wow, it’s hot up here in the North West England, 24 degrees it seems.

Not as hot as London and the South East but the folk down there have a lot more to enjoy and celebrate than us barbarians.

As promised, here’s more news, views and photos from Skiathos May 2026. There’s lots of photos to pic and click for the full experience.

The hired Suzuki Jimny took us to places mere cars cannot reach although even in a 4x4, and following a winter of rain, mudslides and essential traffic, the island’s many unmade tracks to the north of the island were not pleasant to ride.

Skiathos

A visit to Evangelistria Monastery for breakfast is an easier option. A fast uphill drive in first gear taking care to avoid oncoming local traffic more familiar with the gradient and endless twists & turns. There’s a good view down to JSI Airport and places in between with always a very high Buzzard, a passing Hobby or two and the inevitable shrike.

Evangelistria

Evangelistria Monastery of Greek Orthodoxy is an active working monastery and the only fully operational one on the island of Skiathos.

A small community of monks still lives, worships and maintain the grounds. Alongside their religious duties the monks manage various traditional operation including wine production of their famous Alypiakos wine, olive pressing and looking after the on site museum.

There is also a fine cafe to serve the many tourists in the summer months and locals throughout the off season. We once made the mistake of going there on a Sunday morning but found it impossible to park in the large car park or leading up to it such were the huge numbers of people arriving to worship.

Red-backed Shrike

Hobby

Evangelistria Monastery

Church at the Monastery

Monastery Garden

Our newly made friends, two discerning monastery doggies, were interested in our omelette containing Gouda & bacon but not the accompanying bread which both chose to leave. We said goodbye to them, promising to return another day with Greek sausage. That might be to their liking.

Evangelistria

The drive down to Skiathos Town passes Aghia Zoni, a tiny and immaculately kept chapel with fabulous views and the ever-present blue & white flags of Greece, a common sight throughout the entire country. Would that we Brits were encouraged to show pride in our nation and culture by displaying The Union Flag, a reminder of a remarkable success story of enterprise, endeavour, creativity and history that stretches back thousands of years.

Aghia Zoni

From Aghia Zoni a chapel on the hillside

A left turn at the bottom of the never ending downhill slalom took us towards the International Airport JSI, the traditional boatyard and the paralia (coastline) that leads into Skiathos Town. We stopped for a look towards the town from a favourite view point where some times there are egrets, shags and occasionally a Kingfisher.

Viewpoint

The Boatyard - Skiathos

European Shag

Grey Heron

We stopped as instructed at Skiathos’ only set of traffic lights even though not many vehicles do so but where a photo of Mylos Taverna proved irresistible.

Stop!

The SAS

Jet2

Mylos Taverna

Super Star Two is the latest and magnificent giant super-ferry to travel between the islands, the main stopping points being Skopelos, Skiathos, Alonissos and the Greek mainland at Volos, Thessaloniki. We set off to get closer views of the monster ship and watch the activity of the arrivals, departure and inevitable drama of this daily occurrence. Remarkably, the entire turnaround of hundreds of people and dozens of vehicles large & and small is so well organised, practised and choreographed that within 15 minutes the ship pulls away from the quayside and off through the outlying islands to the next timetabled stop.

Walking along the sunny jetty, camera in hand is a photographer’s dream.

Skiathos 2026

Another Jimny

I heard that real cameras are making a comeback now that many people have realised the limitations of mobile phone pictures. In a couple of weeks I saw a tiny handful of people using a real camera, a mobile phone the default for 99.9% of would be photographers. A shame really because it is impossible to better pictures from a SLR or mirrorless device with a couple of lenses.

A smart phone is convenient for instant editing, and is useful for everyday use and social media. However, a dedicated quality camera provides superior images from larger sensors, natural depth of field and complete manual control for all users, amateur or professional.

The hot weather made me stay indoors and revert to blogging for a change. Whether that means there will be Happy Days Part 3 is anyone's guess. Stay tuned to find out.

Sunday, October 1, 2017

This And That - Sunday October 1st

A run around the block on Saturday before the rains came didn’t produce too much in the way of birds. Sunday and it's still raining.

I checked out the Linnet flock at Gulf Lane in the hope of a ringing session soon but a glance at the weather for the coming week doesn’t hold out much hope. While I was away in Greece Andy added another 25 Linnets and a handful of Goldfinch to the totals. Looking today most of the Goldfinch seemed to have moved on with the flock of 100+ birds almost exclusively Linnet. October is the peak migration time for Linnets so we expect the flock to increase again soon and also that those birds will include Linnets from further afield.

Of course in Greece I’d missed the mid-September first arrivals of Pink-footed Geese to Lancashire but rather made up for it with many skeins flying off the marsh and over my head towards an inland destination. I’d counted more than 1700 in dozens of flocks before the movement died off and I too moved on.

Pink-footed Geese

There was a Wheatear on the gateposts at Braides Farm with approximately 90 Lapwing and 100 Curlew scattered across the long grassy fields.

Wheatear

A good find on a flooded field at Pilling/Rawcliffe Moss was a single Ruff feeding amongst a flock of 95 Lapwing but little else with a Saturday shoot with its accompanying noise and disturbance about to begin.

Ruff

So in the absence of local news, and not much prospect for the coming week against the tail ends of two hurricanes, here’s more from Greece, 14-28 September 2017.

A friendly horse - Platanias, Skiathos

Alonisos, Skiathos

The Yellow-legged Gulls of Skiathos are quite unlike our large UK gulls in exploiting the process of rubbish disposal and the British love of feeding birds. The Yellow-legged Gulls of Skiathos rarely come ashore but spend their time feeding offshore and sitting on the mostly flat sea, apart from on windy days. It was along the shore here at Alonisos that we had super views of an Eleonora's Falcon as one dashed left to right and quickly out of sight after being chased off by a Kestrel.

Yellow-legged Gulls, Alonisos, Skiathos

I didn’t get any new birds this year but had a butterfly “tick” by way of a White Admiral Limenitis arthemis, a woodland species that we found along the margins of an olive grove near Alonisos. It took me a while to find this on Google because perhaps naturally enough, I searched for “black butterfly”. Doh! Seemingly, this species occurs in the UK and is increasing.

White Admiral

We saw many, many Swallowtails this year, probably hundreds - a very beautiful butterfly that we also see during May in Menorca. “Papilio demoleus is an aggressive and very common butterfly. It is perhaps the most widely distributed swallowtail in the world.” – Wiki.

Swallowtail

Below is yet another Red-backed Shrike and then a Whinchat. We saw very few Whinchats this year due to the lack of migrant birds as a whole. Also, not a single Wheatear and very few Yellow Wagtails.

Red-backed Shrike

Whinchat

I knew that Spotted Flycatchers occasionally eat fruit but never witnessed it until this year in Skiathos. In the dry summer of Greece blackberries aren’t nearly as plump as those from a UK hedgerow but clearly good enough for a Spotted Flycatcher.