Larnaca Salt Lake

Larnaca Salt Lake is always worth a stop, though without a telescope viewing can be a bit distant, especially if you're interested in seeing more than just the obligatory greater flamingos. Not that the flamingos aren't worth seeing of course, but they don't present much of a challenge and are the ultimate tourists bird of Cyprus. However, like the water in the lake, they're only here in winter.

For the birder, gulls are the star attraction at this time of year and there are many possible species, but they're usually very distant and without a scope identifying them is very difficult / impossible. See the birds behind the flamingos in the above photo to get an idea of what I mean....  

....but before we dive into the dark and insane world of gull id, lets relax for a moment with this photo of little and large! Five greater flamingos with five Temminck's stints in the foreground. Fortunately the stints were quite close today so I was able to identify them. They could have been a lot further away and beyond the reach of my binoculars as I'm sure that many birds were. In total I saw eight Temminck's stints.

Back to the gulls. Some were a little closer so with the camera on maximum zoom and with a bit of cropping of the photo and some vivid imagination, I can work out that the black-back in the middle is most likely Heuglin's gull given that the only other race / species of black-back here is Baltic gull and that is much darker than this bird and equally as uncommon. 

On the other hand, this black-back is very black and appears long winged so may well be a Baltic gull, but it's all a bit unsatisfactory.

These gulls are probably Armenian, but now we're getting into the realms of fantasy! Good job I've seen all of these species well previously.

Likewise the gull which is landing looks good for Caspian, but in reality the only bird I can be certain of is the black-headed gull in the foreground! Lets stick to flamingos.......

Much better! Who needs gulls?