Waders at Paphos Headland

Question: What does Paphos Headland, Cyprus share with Four Mile Beach, Queensland, Australia? Answer: They are the only two places in the world where I have seen greater sand plover.

Having failed spectacularly to see the greater sand plover at Paphos Headland last Saturday, today  was a different story, with quite stunning views of four birds down to about 3m. I almost stood on one it was so close when I first got there! Apparently the birds which winter in small numbers on Cyprus are unsurprisingly a different race to those which winter in Australia, and therefore are a potential armchair tick at some point in the future!

In Britain grey plover always seem to me to be one of the more unapproachable waders, and I've never managed a photo anywhere near as good as this, but like all of the waders I've seen here in Cyprus they're quite tame. I got within 5m of these birds, and they just walked away from me.

Here's another bird I almost stood on, this dunlin didn't fly away from me, it just walked quickly away and even allowed me to approach it again to take these photographs.

Whimbrel.

Around 100 golden plover were on the Point at Paphos Headland, and seemed quite tame until some bloke walked straight through the middle of the flock for no apparent reason, putting them all up. Also today, four turnstones.

Finsch's wheatears at Kidasi

Finsch's wheatears are cracking birds and possibly the star attraction of any birding visit to Cyprus at this time of year. All of my previous sightings have been in the deserted Foinikas village near Nata on the banks of the Asprokremmos Dam. Today however I decided to try my luck at a second well known site for the species, near Kidasi in the Diarizos valley. To access this site you park near the old road bridge just north of the village and walk up the valley. The trick here is to walk up the right hand side of the valley, not the left which is what I did at first, before realising my mistake. The track on the right hand side is easily drivable (at your own risk!), but I prefered to walk. After about 1km the track bends to the right, and this is where the the best birding is to be had. I saw two male Finsch's wheatears in this area. Apparently the males outnumber the females in Cyprus, and this is certainly my experience, I've had about six sightings of the species and never seen a female yet.

This species is rather timid compared to the northern wheatear which we get in the UK, and usually flushes at about 40m, sometimes a lot more. Digiscoping is probably the best bet for a photograph, but there was no way I was carrying my telescope and tripod up there, so I had to make do with these bridge camera photos.

Finsch's wheatear is superficially very similar to Cyprus wheatear, but the latter does not overwinter on the island and is long gone by December, and also Finsch's wheatear has a diagnostic creamy white back.

Kidasi is also an excellent place for raptors, but today I had to be content with this single griffon vulture. Other birds I saw today included about 30 woodlarks, several chukar and the ubiqiutous stonechat.

Road bridges old and new.

The track bends to the right and this is where most of the action is (at least in December).

Endemic races in Paphos Forest

Cyprus has three endemic races of common birds, two of which we get in the UK, and all are fairly easy to see in the Troodos Mountains and Paphos Forest. Today we managed to connect with them all with very little effort, namely coal tit, short-toed treecreeper and jay, but only coal tit was obliging enough to stick around for the photo shoot.

Paphos forest.

Awesome Saker at Paphos Sewage Works

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.

An unexpected Western Palearctic tick

An unexpected bonus today with two laughing doves in Kouklia village, a Western Palearctic tick for me. I wasn't expecting any lifers this holiday so that's not bad on our first proper birding day out. Actually we'd only called in at Kouklia to visit Gabriel's taverna, and I didn't have my binoculars or my camera with me when I spotted the doves, so I had to dash back to the car. Lesson learned there, but at least I recognised that the doves were something different even without binoculars, and the car wasn't too far away! Earlier we had visited Asprokremmos Dam and the ruined Turkish village of Finikas which is well known for a handful of wintering Finsch's wheatear, and is where I saw them in 2014.

Laughing doves in Kouklia village. I've been in touch with Jane Stylianou, the bird recorder for BirdLife Cyprus who informs me that up until about eight years ago laughing dove was a vagrant to Cyprus. A few birds - assumed escapes - started breeding outside Agia Napa, then others were found breeding in at least two locations in Limassol and then outside Larnaca and the last two years in Kouklia and Mandria outside Paphos. No doubt now that they are a resident breeder and probably expanding their range but whether from escapes or as a coloniser its hard to say. Possibly a mixture of both I guess.

Finsch's wheatear. This took some finding today and photographing it was even more challenging. This was the best I could manage so below is a much closer image from our last visit in December 2014.

Finsch's wheatear December 2014.

Finikas village and the much reduced Asprokremmos Dam. In December 2014 the water completely covered the mud on the left of the photo.

Finikas village still attracts Turkish visitors in winter. Finsch's wheatear is a Turkish breeding bird.

Chiffchaff from our hotel balcony.

Larking around at Paphos

Following our enjoyable visit in December 2014, we're back in Cyprus for a couple of weeks, this time staying on the outskirts of Paphos, near to the town of Geroskipou. Today we just had a walk around Paphos town and on to the headland, not birding as such, really just getting our bearings and trying to wind down. The headland is always worth a visit from a birding perspective, and though today I dipped on greater sandplover, I still managed some exceptional views of woodlark and crested lark, and a few other species as well, including turnstone, which is apparently a bit of a Cyprus scarcity.

Skylark!

I've never managed such good photos of crested lark before!

Chiffchaff of the race brevirostris.This race breeds in Turkey and replaces the breeding collybita race in Cyprus in the winter. It has a 'peep' call very similar to Siberian Chiffchaff and this has led to a few misidentifications on the island in the past. Amazingly it was my recording of this race which I posted on xeno-canto (below) and on my blog (here) which first raised awareness that these peepers were in fact brevirostris. Prior to my visit in 2014 it was thought that brevirostris had never occured in Cyprus, but now we know that actually it's by far the commonest race of chiffchaff on the island in winter! I'm not going to repeat all of that again from 2014, but it's worth a read if you're interested. Just goes to show that even in this day and age and even on such a well birded island as Cyrpus, you can still make discoveries.

Hooded crow.

Turnstone, quite a scarcity in Cyprus apparently.

White wagtail.