Hello all been out to Turkey twice now since the above. Once in August, once in October. I've been trying to get a general impression of the birds in the area around the house and have identified a couple of migrant hotspots within 5 minutes walk.
August was mostly wheatears (I struggled to work these out), shrikes and warblers (as wheatears). October, thrushes, larks, robins, finches, chiffchaffs and black reds. The bird population changed significantly on each visits as migrants came and went so black headed buntings only seen in may, corn buntings not seen in august but common May and oct,no wheatears, few warblers in Oct. There were two "falls" once in Aug (c80 shrikes inc 4 lesser greys, 150 assorted wheatears, 1000's hirundines, c200 warblers, 100 yellow wags, 20 Hoopoes, etc.) Oct 100s/1000s of thrushes and larks, 100s of finches, 20 black redstarts, assorted other odds and ends. Both occured following winds with a significant easterly element, the Oct one also with low cloud.
Amongst the birds I managed to (at times tentatively) identify in August the commonest wheatear was black- eared, also a few northen with single Isabelline and a ? female finsch's. Warblers sardinian, lesser whitethroat, Ruppels, orphean, olivaceous and a single willow, syrian woodpecker was seen most days, red rumped swallow in good numbers and regular woodchat, red backed shrikes and Hoopoe. Others seen as migrants or more rarely inc Short toed eagle, woodlark, common tern, greenshank, wood and common sand, sombre tit, spotted flycatcer.
In october as mentioned above the species present had changed significantly with only a few exceptions now i.e. numbers of sardinian warbler, crested lark being different from a day at portland. The weather however was significantly different although given the fall the morning with cloud I wouldn't have minded more cloud, perhaps even a bit of rain. The less common birds this time, a couple of red backed shrikes,a single olivaceous warbler, lapwing, grey heron, kestrel, sandwich tern, blackcap. Black redstarts although not present in big nos were seen every day around houses and gardens and the morning of the fall the best sighting was of a party of four birds dropping onto a ruin as they coasted East.
Also as a bonus on the way out of Town 11 kms away is the outskirts of a national park. The Delta of the River I mentioned in June. The briefest of scans over the Lagoons and shallows visible from the road on the way back revealed Flamingoes, Great white and little egrets. So far so good, looking forward to going back in May.
I've looked a number of times now but I can't find any good current info on birds / birders/ organisations in Turkey on the net.If any body could help me I'd be grateful. John
