Greater Sandplover, Timi beach

This stunning greater sandplover in breeding plumage was on Timi Beach this morning. I've seen plenty of these previously in Cyprus and also in India and Australia, but I've never seen one that looked anywhere near as good as this before.

Slightly less photogenic but no less exciting, male and female eastern orphean warblers were also here but refused to be photographed. This is the best I could get of the female.

Twenty two glossy ibis headed south over the sea.

Stone curlews breed in the area.

Meanwhile on a rocky offshore island, the Mediterranean race of shag desmarestii.

This warbler had me flummoxed for a while. Turns out that it's just a male whitethroat but it just doesn't have the jizz of whitethroat for me, apart from anything else it's very pale underneath. Apparently 

 a couple of races of whitethroat pass through Cyprus and there's also an eastern variant that is very grey looking, so that probably explains why it looks different to me.