Tuesday 10 October 2017

Cyprus autumn 2017 - 5th October

On our last day we had a few things to do at the house and had a late start, heading first to Limassol before finishing up at Larnaca where we were to catch our flight home.

We spent some time at Phassouri, seeing nothing additional to our other trips and missing the Levant's Sparrowhawk by a day. There were some fairly distant raptors from the South Hide, Bonelli's Eagle, Montagu's Harrier and Eleanora's Falcon.

At Zakaki Marsh we were fortunate enough to see the Little Crake, as it spent a lot of time wandering around in the open. The Bluethroat was still showing, as was a single Little Swift still, along with up to ten Red-rumped Swallows.

Little Crake

At Larnaca we found that the Salt Lake, Meneou Pools and Spiro Pools were all completely dry. At the sewage farm, one basin was dry, holding some groups of waders although the light angle towards the end of the day made viewing and identification difficult. But, most appeared to be either Little Stint, Ringed Plover, Little Ringed Plover, Kentish Plover or Dunlin, but a single Collared Pratincole was also present. The filled basin had a lot of ducks around its banks with Flamingo gathered at the far end, with couple of White-winged Black and a single Whiskered Tern, single Black-necked Grebe, nine Ferruginous Duck, a couple of Grey Plover and Spotted Redshank, a Black-tailed Godwit, and the usual large group of Ruff.