Cyprus Kouklia - 9th November 2016

9^th November

We changed from our original idea to visit Ayis Minas over Polis way, as we seem in the last week, to be driving all over the island in an effort to find a reasonable number of birds to catch in the extremely dry conditions – and not always very successfully. We opted for one of our favoured spring sites and went to Kouklia, expecting the catch to be limited to Cetti’s Warblers and Sardinian Warblers with a total haul somewhere in the region of 20, if we were lucky.

We set up two 18m nets near the car with a further two across the dry river bed. A first check of the first net left us wondering whether we had enough bags. There were clearly a lot of Chiffchaffs around, possibly leaving their roost. Over the course of the morning we caught 66! The weights varied between 5.5g and 12g.

Chiffchaff aged 3

 There were also two re-trapped Sardinian Warblers as well as our first Song Thrush of the visit.

Song Thrush aged 3. These birds are a much hunted species

on Cyprus and birds are very nervous and rarely break cover.

At first glance this site looked less than promising.

We haven't seen this small blue plant before. 

It was growing in clumps amongst the dried grasses.

Total: 97 (2)

Robin – 3
Stonechat - 4
Song Thrush – 1
Cetti’s Warbler – 2
Fan-tailed Warbler - 1
Sardinian Warbler – 10 (2)
Blackcap – 7
Willow Warbler - 3
Chiffchaff - 66