Kourion Stadium

I decided to spend most of my last full day in Cyprus at Kourion stadium near Episokpi. It's just a wonderful place, especially at this time of year with many colourful flowers and some great birds hoping around on the ruins, including Cretzschmar's buntings, eastern black-eared wheatear and Cyprus wheatear.

Cretzschmar's buntings are just fabulous birds, the combination of the grey head with a white eye ring and the red /brown of the wings and body just works so well!

This annoyed little guy is a singing male Cyprus wheatear. Some of my best views of this species have been at the stadium.

Of course, these weren't the only birds I saw today, but I just don't have photos of the rest. For example, this morning I found two male semicollared flycatchers at Asprokremmos Dam, two Capsian terns which flew west at Mandria and this afternoon two little crakes at Agia Varvara and a roller and wryneck at Anarita Park. These blog posts are really just little windows into my day, they only tell a fraction of the story. It's basically non-stop birding from 6am to 6pm! I barely have time to eat. I'm knackered, somebody save me!

There are some lovely flowers around the stadium including this one, pink rock-rose Cistus creticus. This has been a favourite of mine since I saw it on the first morning of my first ever holiday abroad to northern Greece in 1985. I think my love of rock-roses, including common and hoary which grows in places such as the Great Orme, is as a result of the impression it left on me back then, and probably also partly explains my love of the Great Orme because sub-consciously the rock-roses link that wonderful headland in North Wales with a very special and exciting holiday to the eastern Mediterranean all those years ago.

This is Sage-leaved Rock-rose Cistus salviifolius which grows in equal profusion around the stadium, and is nearly as lovely. It just lacks the crinkly petals which is a more common feature of the family. It's other common name is Gallipoli rose, and I believe is so named because it grows on the battlefields of the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey where Australian and New Zealand forces landed during World War I.

Sanctuary of Apollo Hylates.