StuartReeves
Local rarity
I've only just seen this thread (thanks Edward!) and I have to say it's really mouth-watering stuff. It's great to see excellent photos of the landscapes as well as the birds.
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Eastern Turkey 23 May - 07 June 2010 (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter GDK
- Start date
Thanks Stuart, if you think what we saw was mouthwatering, here is a list of some of the harder species we missed/didnt try for: - Demoiselle Crane, Great Bustard, Saker, Lammergier, Eastern Imperial Eagle, Black Bellied Sandgrouse, Cream Coloured Courser, White Backed Woodpecker (couldnt find a Pontics site for this potential split), Blue Cheeked Bee-eater, Trumpeter Finch, Plain Leaf Warbler (must be out there somewhere?). Some of them we didnt personally target as seen on other trips, but the Demoiselle Crane would have been very nice. The state of wetlands in Turkey has, from reading literature, deteriorated markedly over the last 20+ years, sadly.
As Edward stated, this part of the WP is chocked full of great birds and top birding.
03 June: Birecik – Durnalik – Demirkazik
General
Early morning start to get to Durnalik (Gosney site) to the west of Gaziantep, before the heat of the day. We birded the usual path where there are pools of water that attract many species. We didn’t spend too long here or really do it justice and didn’t try for species such as Trumpeter Finch, which has been found in the local area in the past. After a couple of hours here with the heat of the day we headed west to Demikarzik, missed our turning off the new motorway and had to head past Nigde and then south again – quite a big detour! Although a relatively long journey, it is motorway most of the way so we made very good time. Arriving at Demirkazik mid afternoon we birded the slopes past the Mountain Centre until dusk. Staying at the Safak Pension.
Targets (Durnalik)
Desert Finch Three birds coming to drink along the pathway pools
Cretzschmar’s Bunting Bird singing from the roadside
Eastern Cinereous Bunting Singing from roadside
White Thoated Robin & Menetries’s Warbler farmland adjacent to trackway
Eastern Rock Nuthatch was calling from the valleys further on
Others
Black Headed Bunting was numerous, and Lesser Whitethroat came to drink at the pools
Photos
(1) Map from Bericik to Demirkazik via Durnalik
(2) The farmed landscape at Durnalik
(3) Black Headed Bunting - young bird coming into drink
(4) Syrian Woodpecker
(5) Laughing Dove
As Edward stated, this part of the WP is chocked full of great birds and top birding.
03 June: Birecik – Durnalik – Demirkazik
General
Early morning start to get to Durnalik (Gosney site) to the west of Gaziantep, before the heat of the day. We birded the usual path where there are pools of water that attract many species. We didn’t spend too long here or really do it justice and didn’t try for species such as Trumpeter Finch, which has been found in the local area in the past. After a couple of hours here with the heat of the day we headed west to Demikarzik, missed our turning off the new motorway and had to head past Nigde and then south again – quite a big detour! Although a relatively long journey, it is motorway most of the way so we made very good time. Arriving at Demirkazik mid afternoon we birded the slopes past the Mountain Centre until dusk. Staying at the Safak Pension.
Targets (Durnalik)
Desert Finch Three birds coming to drink along the pathway pools
Cretzschmar’s Bunting Bird singing from the roadside
Eastern Cinereous Bunting Singing from roadside
White Thoated Robin & Menetries’s Warbler farmland adjacent to trackway
Eastern Rock Nuthatch was calling from the valleys further on
Others
Black Headed Bunting was numerous, and Lesser Whitethroat came to drink at the pools
Photos
(1) Map from Bericik to Demirkazik via Durnalik
(2) The farmed landscape at Durnalik
(3) Black Headed Bunting - young bird coming into drink
(4) Syrian Woodpecker
(5) Laughing Dove
Attachments
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03/04 June: Demirkazik
General
Birded both the Chromium Mine track and the track heading past the mountain centre, just to its south (driving past the tented camp). Basically drive as far as you dare in your chosen vehicle. We had a flat tyre on the Chromium Mine track, and we didn’t take the turning uphill to the Snowcock area toward the mine itself, heading straight on further along the valley. After the morning in the mountains on the 04 June we headed back south, getting the tyre fixed in the town before the motorway (10Lira with free Chai thrown into the deal!) and then heading on the slow coast road to Tasucu closest to the Goksu delta.
Targets
Raddes Accentor Birds both along the Chromium Mine track in valley past the 'saddle' and after the right hand turn off for the steep uphill bit to the Chromium Mine; and on the mountainside high above the tented camp (by taking the track to the south of the Mountain Centre).
Crimson Winged Finch at the same locations as Raddes Accentor
Caspian Snowcock We could hear them calling at dawn the morning we drove the Chromium Mine track, but didnt do the climb for them.
Red Fronted Serin Along the Chromium Mine Track
Finsch’s Wheatear Male not far from Mountain Centre
Others
Golden Eagle, Red Backed Shrike, Scops Owl, Ortolan Bunting, Rock Thrush, Horned Lark, Snowfinch, Water Pipit, etc
Mammals Asia Minor Souslik, Wild Goat
Photos
(1) Map of Demirkazik Area
(2) Chromium Mine Track looking into valley after turn off to the mine. Stream area was good for Red Fronted Serin, Radde's Accentor and Crimson Winged Finch. Rather remarkably this was the only road where we had a flat tyre - not bad for 2 weeks - we did loose all our hub caps on the non-metaled and metaled but climate stressed roads in far eastern Turkey (put them in the boot at pick up is the advice here).
(3) Cracking views of Golden Eagle
(4) Male Crimson Winged Finch - from Chromium Mine Track
(5) Radde's with recently fledged young, Chromium Mine Track
General
Birded both the Chromium Mine track and the track heading past the mountain centre, just to its south (driving past the tented camp). Basically drive as far as you dare in your chosen vehicle. We had a flat tyre on the Chromium Mine track, and we didn’t take the turning uphill to the Snowcock area toward the mine itself, heading straight on further along the valley. After the morning in the mountains on the 04 June we headed back south, getting the tyre fixed in the town before the motorway (10Lira with free Chai thrown into the deal!) and then heading on the slow coast road to Tasucu closest to the Goksu delta.
Targets
Raddes Accentor Birds both along the Chromium Mine track in valley past the 'saddle' and after the right hand turn off for the steep uphill bit to the Chromium Mine; and on the mountainside high above the tented camp (by taking the track to the south of the Mountain Centre).
Crimson Winged Finch at the same locations as Raddes Accentor
Caspian Snowcock We could hear them calling at dawn the morning we drove the Chromium Mine track, but didnt do the climb for them.
Red Fronted Serin Along the Chromium Mine Track
Finsch’s Wheatear Male not far from Mountain Centre
Others
Golden Eagle, Red Backed Shrike, Scops Owl, Ortolan Bunting, Rock Thrush, Horned Lark, Snowfinch, Water Pipit, etc
Mammals Asia Minor Souslik, Wild Goat
Photos
(1) Map of Demirkazik Area
(2) Chromium Mine Track looking into valley after turn off to the mine. Stream area was good for Red Fronted Serin, Radde's Accentor and Crimson Winged Finch. Rather remarkably this was the only road where we had a flat tyre - not bad for 2 weeks - we did loose all our hub caps on the non-metaled and metaled but climate stressed roads in far eastern Turkey (put them in the boot at pick up is the advice here).
(3) Cracking views of Golden Eagle
(4) Male Crimson Winged Finch - from Chromium Mine Track
(5) Radde's with recently fledged young, Chromium Mine Track
Attachments
04/05/06 Goksu Delta
General
Having made very good time around our destinations thus far we made a mistake here that we thought we had plenty of time for our remaining plan to take an overnight car ferry as foot passengers to Northern Cyprus (http://ferries-turkey.com/turkey-cyprus/turkey-cyprus-main-en.aspx). Unfortunately we had forgotten that the weekend timetable starts on a Friday, so there was no overnight ferry, the only option being a high speed cat on the Saturday at noon. This meant that our practical birding time on Cyprus would be limited to Saturday late afternoon and evening (return cat was 09.30am). Given the costs of the ferry this was no longer really a viable option for us, so we had to settle for more time on the Med coast in Turkey. This was a bit of a shame as it would have been more preferable to spend that extra day in what to us was more exciting birding and landscape in far-east Turkey.
In the meantime however we spent the late afternoon of Friday on the eastern side of the Goksu delta adding a few waders to the trip list. The next day we birded the Goksu, driving the whole length of the coastal track, and also took some quarry roads above Tasucu into Pine forest to the north. The following morning was a final look at Goksu, bumping into only our second birding group of the trip – three guys fresh in from Malta, before the drive to Adana and the Tarsus delta. In the end a very chilled final couple of days.
Targets
Ruppell’s Warbler This was the only real target, and I was the only one of us who had never seen one before. So in some ways the missing of Cyprus was to my benefit as unlike the Dave & Mark I have seen Cyprus Warbler and Wheatear previously. We had a singing bird in the Pine forests to the north of Tasucu in the heat of the day, where quarry roads cut through the forest.
Eleonora’s Falcon Good views of upto three birds over the delta on a couple of occasions.
Audouin’s Gull A walk out along the beach to the mouth of the river where the regular flock resides one afternoon provided us with reasonable views of birds on the sea, mostly non breeders.
‘Scopoli’s’ & ‘Yelkouan’ Shearwater On the evening of the 04 June there was a strong onshore wind. From our hotel balcony in Tasucu we spent half an hour seawatching which produced a handful of distant Scopoli’s Shearwaters (not that we got the pale tongues on the under primaries!). We failed to pick out a Yelkouan but that may have been partially down to laziness and half arsed approach to the ‘seawatch’. No Monk Seals either.
Brown Fish Owl We didn’t try any night time excursions in the local area (apart from to the local bars and a restaurant) but bumped into our first fellow birders of the entire trip here on the Goksu, two intrepid Belgium birders who were trying to source their own European Fish Owl. I don’t think they succeeded in their quest.
Others
There were plenty of other decent birds including White Fronted Kingfisher, Spur Winged Plover, Greater Sand Plover, Masked Shrike, Black Francolin, and the usual Med species, Red Rumped Swallow, Kentish Plover, Purple Heron etc.
Photos
(1) Map of Med Locations
(2) Goksu Delta at Dawn from the south west viewing platform
(3) Ruppell's Warbler
(4) Spur Winged Plover
(5) Eleonora's Falcon
General
Having made very good time around our destinations thus far we made a mistake here that we thought we had plenty of time for our remaining plan to take an overnight car ferry as foot passengers to Northern Cyprus (http://ferries-turkey.com/turkey-cyprus/turkey-cyprus-main-en.aspx). Unfortunately we had forgotten that the weekend timetable starts on a Friday, so there was no overnight ferry, the only option being a high speed cat on the Saturday at noon. This meant that our practical birding time on Cyprus would be limited to Saturday late afternoon and evening (return cat was 09.30am). Given the costs of the ferry this was no longer really a viable option for us, so we had to settle for more time on the Med coast in Turkey. This was a bit of a shame as it would have been more preferable to spend that extra day in what to us was more exciting birding and landscape in far-east Turkey.
In the meantime however we spent the late afternoon of Friday on the eastern side of the Goksu delta adding a few waders to the trip list. The next day we birded the Goksu, driving the whole length of the coastal track, and also took some quarry roads above Tasucu into Pine forest to the north. The following morning was a final look at Goksu, bumping into only our second birding group of the trip – three guys fresh in from Malta, before the drive to Adana and the Tarsus delta. In the end a very chilled final couple of days.
Targets
Ruppell’s Warbler This was the only real target, and I was the only one of us who had never seen one before. So in some ways the missing of Cyprus was to my benefit as unlike the Dave & Mark I have seen Cyprus Warbler and Wheatear previously. We had a singing bird in the Pine forests to the north of Tasucu in the heat of the day, where quarry roads cut through the forest.
Eleonora’s Falcon Good views of upto three birds over the delta on a couple of occasions.
Audouin’s Gull A walk out along the beach to the mouth of the river where the regular flock resides one afternoon provided us with reasonable views of birds on the sea, mostly non breeders.
‘Scopoli’s’ & ‘Yelkouan’ Shearwater On the evening of the 04 June there was a strong onshore wind. From our hotel balcony in Tasucu we spent half an hour seawatching which produced a handful of distant Scopoli’s Shearwaters (not that we got the pale tongues on the under primaries!). We failed to pick out a Yelkouan but that may have been partially down to laziness and half arsed approach to the ‘seawatch’. No Monk Seals either.
Brown Fish Owl We didn’t try any night time excursions in the local area (apart from to the local bars and a restaurant) but bumped into our first fellow birders of the entire trip here on the Goksu, two intrepid Belgium birders who were trying to source their own European Fish Owl. I don’t think they succeeded in their quest.
Others
There were plenty of other decent birds including White Fronted Kingfisher, Spur Winged Plover, Greater Sand Plover, Masked Shrike, Black Francolin, and the usual Med species, Red Rumped Swallow, Kentish Plover, Purple Heron etc.
Photos
(1) Map of Med Locations
(2) Goksu Delta at Dawn from the south west viewing platform
(3) Ruppell's Warbler
(4) Spur Winged Plover
(5) Eleonora's Falcon
Attachments
06 June: Tarsus Delta
We spent our final afternoon birding here driving along the river to the coastal lagoons picking up more White Fronted Kingfishers, and our first Penduline Tits and Collared Pratincole of the trip, then birding the causeway through the smaller lagoon, Tuzla Golu which had a nice flock of Greater Flamingo, as well as Slender Billed Gull, Little Stint, Short Toed Lark. Our attempt to get close to the larger Akyatan Golu was only mildly successful. Half way along the southern shoreline the track became very sandy and we decided not to risk going further. From the distance there were more Flamingos on here too. The evening was spent in Adana having a great final local meal before our morning flight to Istanbul.
07 June Adana – Istanbul – London Heathrow
Our early morning flight got us into Istanbul with about 3 usable hours around lunchtime to explore the city. With our hold bags ‘in transit’ we just had our hand luggage so carted that around the tram system that gets you from the airport to downtown (European) Istanbul in under 30mins. We just had time to grab a bit of lunch and have a look at the two main Mosques as well as the Spice Bazaar. Unfortunately this meant we didn’t have time to scan over the Bosporus for Yelkouan Shearwater, which are supposed to be regularly viewable here. Our birding ended with an unseen calling Parakeet sp. in the City Centre.
Photos
(1) White Fronted Kingfisher, Tarsus Delta
(2) Slender Billed Gull Tuzla Golu
(3) Greater Flamingo's coming into land at Tuzla Golu
(4) Inside the Blue Mosque, Istanbul
(5) The spice market at Istanbul
We spent our final afternoon birding here driving along the river to the coastal lagoons picking up more White Fronted Kingfishers, and our first Penduline Tits and Collared Pratincole of the trip, then birding the causeway through the smaller lagoon, Tuzla Golu which had a nice flock of Greater Flamingo, as well as Slender Billed Gull, Little Stint, Short Toed Lark. Our attempt to get close to the larger Akyatan Golu was only mildly successful. Half way along the southern shoreline the track became very sandy and we decided not to risk going further. From the distance there were more Flamingos on here too. The evening was spent in Adana having a great final local meal before our morning flight to Istanbul.
07 June Adana – Istanbul – London Heathrow
Our early morning flight got us into Istanbul with about 3 usable hours around lunchtime to explore the city. With our hold bags ‘in transit’ we just had our hand luggage so carted that around the tram system that gets you from the airport to downtown (European) Istanbul in under 30mins. We just had time to grab a bit of lunch and have a look at the two main Mosques as well as the Spice Bazaar. Unfortunately this meant we didn’t have time to scan over the Bosporus for Yelkouan Shearwater, which are supposed to be regularly viewable here. Our birding ended with an unseen calling Parakeet sp. in the City Centre.
Photos
(1) White Fronted Kingfisher, Tarsus Delta
(2) Slender Billed Gull Tuzla Golu
(3) Greater Flamingo's coming into land at Tuzla Golu
(4) Inside the Blue Mosque, Istanbul
(5) The spice market at Istanbul
Attachments
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Final thoughts...
We connected with virtually all our realistic targets, the biggest miss being Semi Collared Flycatcher. The lack of visiting Cyprus at the end of the trip meant we could have spent a further day either in the eastern Pontics and around the crater lakes on the Georgian and Armenian borders, or perhaps spent an extra day looking at the area north of Van Golu perhaps for Demoiselle Crane and other associated wetland and steppe type species.
A bit more info on birding sites in the Pontics or some more exploration could also possibly provide White Backed Woodpecker, and a few more raptors such as Levant's Sparrowhawk and ofcourse the flycatchers.
A trip list is attached and a pdf of the report minus photos is here:
http://www.travellingbirder.com/tripreports/reports/110218195616_birding_trip_report.pdf
We connected with virtually all our realistic targets, the biggest miss being Semi Collared Flycatcher. The lack of visiting Cyprus at the end of the trip meant we could have spent a further day either in the eastern Pontics and around the crater lakes on the Georgian and Armenian borders, or perhaps spent an extra day looking at the area north of Van Golu perhaps for Demoiselle Crane and other associated wetland and steppe type species.
A bit more info on birding sites in the Pontics or some more exploration could also possibly provide White Backed Woodpecker, and a few more raptors such as Levant's Sparrowhawk and ofcourse the flycatchers.
A trip list is attached and a pdf of the report minus photos is here:
http://www.travellingbirder.com/tripreports/reports/110218195616_birding_trip_report.pdf
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I've very much enjoyed this report Gareth - makes me want to go back to Turkey as soon as possible!
