Birding in Lesvos 29 th April to 6 th May 2010

‘For Spring birdwatching in beautiful surroundings, Lesvos is hard to beat. The wooded hillsides of this lovely Aegean island offer welcome refuge for tired migrants and it is also home to some sought-after Mediterranean species..'. This is how the opening paragraph started in the brochure of the company I chose to go with. Despite ash and Greek strike scares we made it there and back on schedule and saw over 150 species with twelve new species for me and two others if you believe in splitting species up into western and eastern races.

The island is the third biggest in Greece and only five miles off the Turkish coast. The party was the second party to arrive with the company and one leader had been there with the party the week before so knew where birds were but the weeks can be quite different. He had a cold week with birds that were seen in good numbers like Pallid Harrier but we saw none in our week of really warm weather and blue skies. I would have thought two weeks are the ideal. Last week in April and first in May are the birdwatchers prime time. In fact, our Thompson flight from Manchester (and picking up at Gatwick) is the only direct flight to Lesvos from the UK so probably 75% of passengers were birdwatchers with many others being walkers!

We stayed in one of the hotels that most birders stay at and that has a log at reception to fill in what has been seen where, which is then fed into a web-site by Steve Dudley daily. He is the author of the most comprehensive site guide to the island. So having never been to the Scilly Islands in autumn or whisked off to a mega twitch I found it all a very new experience to see so many birdwatchers altogether in one place and to come across them so frequently. Great areas of wet marsh and salt pans (before they dry up) create dazzling birding and sometimes so close you get Glossy Ibis and Whiskered Tern within touching distance. In these areas so near to the hotel I saw my first new bird with stunning Ruddy Shelduck standing side by side with common Shelduck. Also seen were flocks of White-winged Black Terns and some Gull-billed ones too, all herons with Squacco most common, Great White Egret being more common than little, large numbers of Flamingo and good numbers of Black Storks but only one white one. Many waders were also seen with big numbers of Avocet and a few Pratincoles being overlooked by Red-footed Falcons on telegraph wires. In a small ‘lake' nearby both Baillon's and Little Crake were found and obliged all onlookers by posing together in the open on a partly submerged tree trunk. Identification heaven for our two leaders!

In one special wooded area we watched Kruper's Nuthatch feeding young in a tree trunk and at one stage male and female posed together for the many photographers around. If any bird could upstage this then a male Masked Shrike made a good effort to do that by continually sitting at the top of a nearby tree. Everywhere you go on this island you hear and see buntings. There's the common and stunning Black-headed one, the nostalgic Corn, the smart-looking Cretzschmar's and Cirl ones and the totally unspectacular but rare and localised Cinereous Bunting. The latter were found around the beautiful setting of the Ypsilou monastery where we saw three wheatears. Our own version plus the spectacular display of Isabelline type and then the stunning Black-eared Wheatear that could possibly be the most ubiquitous bird on the island. But then I am forgetting the skulking Olivaceous Warbler that also seems to be in many places although it's more seen than heard as also are the many Nightingales. Apparently one of the hardest birds to see, however, is the Olive Tree Warbler and after waiting some time at one site and berating two selfish birders who had crossed the fence to see them we got good views of one and felt very pleased to see such a drab bird. If it wasn't such a big warbler you could call it the original ‘Little Brown Job'! But more startling and longer seen were Orphean and Subalpine Warblers. Eclipsing both of these, however, is the Ruppell's Warbler, which is just about as dashing as a warbler can get and in a beautiful setting on the coast overlooking the stunning Aegean sea.

One place in the hills allowed us to watch Rock Sparrow, Blue Rock Thrush and Crag Martin and passing on to the coast a view over a migration trap Rock Nuthatch and Lesser Kestrel were seen. On the coast we were happy to see amongst olive groves and fig trees flycatchers, black and blue headed wagtails, Golden Oriole, Cuckoo and Icterine Warbler all ready to fly on before somebody told us just down the road on a dung heap was a Spur-winged Plover. All of us were excited but I became even more so when one of the leaders said turn round and in a bush nearby was a very smart Lesser Grey Shrike, which was one of my target birds for the holiday.

On an island where the most common raptors are Long-legged Buzzards, Short-toed Eagles and some days Eleonora's Falcon it's easy to see how wonderful a place Lesvos is but there are always those special unexpected moments that stick in your memory like the time we stopped to see the most ancient and fragile of bridges and whilst wandering around I found a Sombre Tit nesting and somebody else in the party found a nesting Middle Spotted Woodpecker. In the same groves were Turtle Dove and Hoopoe and it was all off the beaten track with not another birdwatcher in view. Finally even our two experienced leaders Bernie and Neil can see things and lose their cool. Neil, for example, was in raptures when he pointed out to us a Purple Heron twisting its neck round to keep its beady eyes on a passing Marsh Harrier. Bernie on the penultimate day of his two-week stay stopped the mini-bus when some-one spotted a Little Bittern beside a fish-rich canal. This wasn't that unusual because this was another species that had been frequently seen at close quarters but just before he set off again he noticed in the field just behind the bittern a snipe. We all got out and then the unravelling of its identity began as he was convinced it was a Great Snipe. After it flew off it was easier to confirm by white tail markings and then when it landed the bill size was easier to calculate. Our hearts were in our mouths, however, as we then watched a large cat stalk it but it turned round just as it got too close. All part of the ‘Magic of Lesvos'!

Peter Gibbon - May 2010