Lammergeier in Crete - info required
 

Has anyone travelled to Crete in the last two years and if so did you have any luck with Lammergeier?

We have booked a weeks holiday in early June and have visited Crete before - on that occasion we were lucky and had a reasonable view of one sub-adult bird.

I have a copy of Stephanie Coghlan's book - but wondered if anyone had any more recent information?

Hi Rob

We are going for two weeks in May -so have been on a similar search.

Recent trip reports I have found for Lammergeier are :-
2000-Lassithi (Kato Metahoi)
Samaria Gorge
2001 -Anoyia ( NE. Psiloritis range)
2004-Kourtaliotiko Gorge/ M. Preveli area

Have you seen this website ?
http://www.ornithologiki.gr/en/sppe/enpkr.htm

Good Luck

Colin

Birds are still there,4 pairs left on the island all breeding +- annually spaced in quite wide locations maybe you could get more info here:


http://www.ornithologiki.gr/en/enmain.htm

Ooh you beat me to it!;)

Colin/Dimitris,

Many thanks.

Rob

I was there in May 2003, and had one lammergeier at Kourtaliotiko Gorge (at first attempt) and one 11km south of Prasses in the Amari Valley. My trip report is on www.birdtours.uk if you're interested.

Sean

Rob
I was in North West Crete, 2 years ago and also saw Lammergeier near the Samaria Gorge.I was shown around the north west by a lovely couple, Paul and Sandra Smith who live in that area, I contacted them through, http://www.cretanvistas.co.uk/ Paul writes a birdwatching diary for this site, he also knows some excellent birding sites.
JOHN D

John,

Thanks - great diary on Paul's site too,

I'm just re-activating this post in case anyone has recently come back from Crete - any up to date info gratefully received - also any sites for Alpine Chough?

Went to Cete at Easter 2002 and for a week in October 2002. Scoured the b****y island for Lammergeiers and saw none at all! Humpf! Did get a nice flock of Alpine Chough at the top of the road for the Samaria gorge at Easter though.

Well done! We didn't get over to Samaria nor did we get any Lammergeier!

We had a possible at long range on the Lassithi Plateau, which, when it came closer was probably an immature Black Vulture - which is possibly rarer on Crete - but not what we'd hoped for!