Agia Triada

A day of contrasts, we started at the small fishing harbour of Agia Triada just outside Paralimni and walked along the coast for a couple of kilometres enabling me to spot a greater sand plover with 7 grey plover, plus an Audouin's gull. The latter was a Cyprus first for me and the sand plover was the first I have seen on Cyprus away from Paphos headland. 

Then we went to Famagusta view point and saw the abandoned holiday resort of Varosha, apparently one of the most exclusive resorts in Europe until as recently as the early 1970's, a favourite of  stars such as Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Raquel Welch, and Brigitte Bardot. These days it's all distant views, photography is strictly prohibited and I couldn't even look at it through my binoculars. 

A visit to northern Cyrpus - Famagusta South Lake

Local birder Peter Bromley and I visited Turkish occupied northern Cyprus today. It's the first time I've been able to go because car hire companies in southern Cyprus which I rely on won't allow it, but as a passenger in Peter's car there were no problems. We had to show our passports at two check points before driving through parts of the no go zone in Famagusta, with abandoned houses and businesses falling into ruins. 

The reason for the visit was to go to Famagusta south lake where there have been two white-headed ducks for about a week. After spending an hour here, we headed off to Mia Milia just east Nicosia, an outstanding site for water birds, before ending at the completely dry Kouklia wetlands where we saw a good selection of farmland birds including many larks. More of that later.

All of my previous sightings of white-headed duck have been in Spain with the last being at Laguna la Tarelo, Donana north of Cadiz in 2017. Smart little ducks and although there are apparently no recognised subspecies, I was still delighted to see these birds from the Asian population, most likely Turkey.

It's difficult photographing a bird with a white head and dark body in bright sunlight, hand held on your phone, through somebody else's scope at a distance of about 200m when the bloody things keep diving and are seemingly determined not to be on the surface at the same time, so give me a break here.....

Viewing at Famagusta was not particularly easy but the light was good. There were about 50 Greater flamingos, 50 ferruginous ducks, 40 pochard, loads of shoveler and teal, five great white egrets and about 30 cattle egrets, plus a couple each of Armenian and Caspian gulls. 

Continuing our journey in the north - Mia Milia and Kouklia Wetlands

Following our visit to Famagusta south lake we decided to make the most of our excursion into the north and pressed on towards Nicosia and Mia Milia sewage works. Regular readers will know that when on holiday abroad, nothing gets the Davies pulse racing like a visit to the nearest sewage works. In these hot dry countries they're often the only source of water for miles around and of course there's an abundance of food for the birds. In 2018 I spent three weeks in Melbourne Australia, of which two weeks were spent at Werribee sewage works (opens in a new window)! Sewage works are often top birding spots, I read somewhere that Werribee was rated as the second best wetland in the whole of Australia. So I was more than happy to visit Mia Milia today.

Highlight today was a juvenile common crane, a Cyprus first for me, as was an avocet, which obligingly posed in the same photo as the crane. There were good numbers of waders, with 50 spur-winged plover, 10 spotted redshanks, 3 Temminck's stints, little stint, ruff and redshank with 3 green, 8 wood and 3 common sandpipers, plus 110 lapwings.

There were lots of cattle egrets in the area, mainly roosting at the sewage works and feeding in nearby fields.