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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Selsey Birder" data-source="post: 1488518" data-attributes="member: 42221">May 6thWell today was to be a little different, it was agreed we would not spend the majority of the day birding in one group, it also started differently for me as somebody forgot to tell me that the start date was 30 minutes later today. Okay i have to take some responsibility here, if we were only going to be local in the early morning was it likely that we would still be starting at 5.30am? Fortunately, as i was looking about at 5.25am wondering why i was the first person awake, Paul had heard walk past his room and he came out to break the bad news to me, i could have had 30 more minutes sleep!Well Kavaki and Petra reservoir were very quiet that morning maybe i should have stayed in bed, apart from a lovely flock of 45 Bee-eaters roosting in the lower part of the valley. Since this was intended to be the only group birding of the day we walked all the way to the top of the valley. Just 100yds from the brow Ads and Paul, who were leading the race to the top, found a male Sardinian Warbler flitting in a bush, amazingly the first and indeed only sighting of the holiday, despite loitering behind the gang for some time it would not show again for me. I caught everybody else up at the top of the valley and had started down the other side when Ads made his second discovery of the morning, we realised he was no longer there and turning round found him still at the top of the valley with “that look” on his face.Anybody who has known Adam for a while knows that look, he is quite simply the best birder i have met and this meant he was onto something. We tried to wander back nonchalantly, okay we didn’t, we rushed back to where he was standing. We were greeted with “well that doesn’t sound like a Nightingale to me”, music to my ears and so was the sound coming from the dense undergrowth. Now dense was the problem word here, especially since the last time i had heard this song was almost a year previously in the quarry at Portland and that time it took us over 2.5 hours to see the songster! This time we were not going to have that luxury, so we stood and listened to the Thrush Nightingale singing for the next twenty minutes, but not even a feather of the bird was ever espied. We strolled back down the valley, with me sneaking another look at the bush which held the Sardinian Warbler, still no sign. However, the regular Sombre Tit showed well again and then Paul expertly found a Hoopoe calling in a distant tree. Kavaki held the usual birds mentioned earlier, plus a male Whinchat, the Ruppell’s Warblers really were proving elusive, with just a brief glimpse of a female this time as the birds were clearly feeding young.Sam, Paul and I had decided to spend the day with our wives and they decided that they would like to see the Ipsilou Monastery (so not all bad news there) and we set off mid-morning using two of the vehicles immediately finding a flock of 25 Jackdaws sat on telegraph wires in the nearby village of Anaxos. En route to the Monastery we again saw Long-legged Buzzard, Isabelline Wheatear and Masked Shrike. Arriving at Ipsilou we again parked at the bottom of the hill and climbed the southern slope, immediately finding a very close Cinereous Bunting singing on a bush. There was again plenty of activity among the trees with Spotted Flycatcher once more the predominant species, however mixed amongst these were 2 Eastern Bonelli’s Warblers a male Golden Oriole, a female Pied Flycatcher and plenty of Wood Warblers.This time we walked all the way to the top of the hill, since naturally the girls wanted to see the Monastery, that was the reason we came here was it not? They were already investigating since for some reason we were lagging behind. However, when we eventually reached the Monastery we realised that the ladies had climbed to the top of the building. As we went to climb the stairs a large white falcon flew over the visible gap, a cry of Lanner and we rushed outside to see the bird heading rapidly west towards Sigri, what a fortunate sighting that was. The second attempt to climb the stairs was successful and we had barely made the top when a much larger raptor appeared from the direction of Sigri and flew at almost eye level straight past us towards the east of the island. In the space of 5 minutes we had seen two raptors that we would not see again this holiday, on this occasion the bird in question was an Osprey, so familiar in the late summer at home, but quite a surprise to me here. As usual i was immediately corrected by the man with prior knowledge, Sam, who had seen them here on previous visits.The walk down the hill did not produce anything new until we had almost reached the cars, when to my surprise i realised that the wheatear i was looking at was something that i regularly saw at home – a Northern Wheatear, indeed we saw the bird again in exactly the same spot two days later. We now continued into Sigri for a well earned spot of lunch, seeing a further 9 Lesser Kestrels over the grass fields on the way down to the village.Lunch did not go to plan and we ended up buying crisps and drinks from a small shop. We sat for at least 15 minutes outside a cafe near the harbour, but nobody seemed to be interested in serving us. In fairness they were very busy and since all we wanted was a snack we decided to move on. The harbour was quiet and only contained a Common Tern and a Common Sandpiper. We planned to next visit the beach at Fanormeni and took the turning in that direction, however our plans to let our partners enjoy the beach whilst we did a little seawatching and explored the reeds were scuppered. Work was being done on the road and a large lorry was there delivering materials, the best laid plans and all that. We simply could not get past, so we decided to make our way back to Petra. However, a group of people beside the road just a mile away brought us to a sudden halt. In the same field we had seen the Pallid Harrier two days earlier was a set of electricity pylons climbing up the hill, scattered along the electricity lines and indeed on the rocks below were 13 Red-footed Falcons (for those that are interested in these things 8 males and 5 females); also sitting on a bush below the pylons a Lesser Grey Shrike.The journey back to Petra was without any stops although we did see a Long-legged Buzzard on the outskirts of Antissa and the front car (being everyone except me and my wife George) had a European Sparrowhawk fly in front of their car. Over the hotel that afternoon we also had 2 Short-toed Eagles and a Black Stork.We did not have time to visit the reservoir that night, since the six of us were going somewhere special for dinner. The road beyond the reservoir leads to the village of Vafios which is set in the hills. Here Sam knew of an excellent restaurant where if you sat outside in the evening you could watch the sun disappear into the sea. We pulled into the car park at about 7.15pm (a Middle Spotted Woodpecker had flown across the road on the way up to the restaurant), but disappointment was only moments away, it was not open! Disaster was averted when we realised there was another establishment just 50yds up the road.Now i cannot speak highly enough of this restaurant, we sat outside and had a marvellous meal (try the starters if you go, you can buy the different food parcels and share them – the small cheese pies were delicious as were the onion flavoured parcels) whilst watching the sun slowly descend into the sea. At one point we realised that a Little Owl was sat on the roof of the restaurant watching us! Realising it was becoming cooler the proprietor invited us to change tables and go inside to finish our meal with an excellent array of desserts. For those of you that have never been to Greece, they have a very sweet tooth and the traditional Baclava is also very filling, if not equally delicious. Now is the time to learn something else about Sam, he is a dessert afficianado (there is a tale to tell about an Apple Crumble order in North Norfolk where the people before us ordered the final portion, not a pretty sight and something the rest of us still laugh about to this day), however the amount he ate as he helped everyone finish their food that night was impressive even by his high standards. Suffice to say i think he struggled to even stand up after the meal, which was finished off excellently with free liqueurs.The girls were off to Turkey for a day trip on Thursday so we had the whole day to ourselves, we were to meet the man who is fast becoming Mr. Lesvos (I hope you are not blushing Mr. Dudley) and see possibly our most exciting (based on the number of expletives used) and surprising bird of the holiday, in addition to our meeting with the French birders whose understanding of the basic principles of birding were sadly lacking................stay tuned folksHoliday list now 133</blockquote>

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