Dawn this morning found me (minus Elaine) at that well known Cypriot hotspot, Paphos sewage works, surely a must see on every visitors agenda. It's an excellent site for birds and particularly at this time of year for spur-winged plover, and today I counted 14 birds. At first they were on the sewage works themselves, but I noticed that they kept flying towards some distant horse paddocks so I had a drive down and with the permission of a farmer walked around the perimeter of the paddocks for a good look at them. It was great to see them and photograph them in a more natural habitat than the sewage works, but ironically the light always seems better at the sewage works, and combined with the associated infrastructure makes for arguably better photos.
Bird of the day by a mile though was an awesome saker falcon which had
200 woodpigeons scattering in panic. What a bird! It was absolutely
huge, and at close range for a few seconds, I saw its upper and lower
parts well, and I had to pinch myself to rule out gyr it was so big and
pale looking, especially above. That's my second new bird
of the holiday and I'll have to go some to top that!
Also at the sewage works today, 13 cattle egrets and a red-throated pipit. I counted 10 chiffchaffs, eight were peeping
breverostris, plus two huweeting
abietinus.
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