Alexjh1
Well-known member
Deciding to book a short holiday for my birthday and wanting to pick up some new species, we settled on Side in Turkey as a fsirly affordable destination with some nice historical sites and guided bird tours from Vigo Tours available.
General Info
Southern Turkey has a nice intersection of Middle Eastern and Eastern Mediterranean species, neither area of which I'd birded before.We flew to Antalya airport (approx £160 return each if I recall correctly) and accomodation in Side was pretty reasonably priced - we spent a little more for a sligtly fancier room with a sea view and breakfast included, totally about £440 for 2 people for 4 nights.
Turkish Lira and Euros were both commonly taken in more tourist areas. Places which only took lira seemed to assume they'd be getting negligible tourists and were usually dramatically cheaper.
DAY 0 - 28th March
We arrived at dusk and by the time we got to Side it was already dark however, a vague wander around the town picked us up 3 mammal species: Egyptian Fruitbat, Southern White-breasted Hedgehog amd an unidentified small bat sp.
DAY 1 - 28th March
An early morning walk produced what would turn out to be a general baseline for the trip - two lifers: White-spectacled Bulbul and Laughing Dove, were backed up by House Sparrow, Hooded Crow Barn Swallow and migrating Lesser Whitethroat and Blackcap. A single Hoopoe was flushed from the harbour wall. A single Eurasian Robin was my only one of the trip. A slow passage of Larus gull species was out at sea but I didn't scrutinise them
Three rough-tailed rock agama represented my sole (live) lizards of the trip, though I did also see an extremely dead and dessicated lacertid species.
DAY 2 - 29th March
I had booked a 2 person guided day trip with VigoTours, our Guide Mehmet picked us up outside the taxi only area of the Old Town at 7am for an early start and he began by taking us to a coastal area to the East of the town which proved excellent for birds.
The area was a mix of fields, scrub, pockets of wetland and, less glamorously, apparently a favoured local flytipping site.
We first stopped on a field corner near a small set of pools in the middle of some fields and species produced here included Spur-winged Lapwing, Common Buzzard, Hen Harrier, Common Snipe, Little Ringed Plover, Eastern black-eared wheatear, masked shrike and far overhead, a single migrating osprey heading into the mountains.
Unfortunately this was the point where the weather began to get intermittantly wild and the entire reat of the day was punctuated with heavy rain and thunderstorms.
We pulled over at the marshy corner of another field to find a good sized flock of the local black capled race of yellow wagtails, but even better for me, two lifers in the form of Citrine Wagtail and Red-throated Pipit.
A few meters up the track on the other side was a system of shallow ponds which we got to examine for a little while, producing one lifer for me: Marsh Sandpiper, as well as a bunch of Ruff. Unfortunately it started tipping down at this point so we retreated to the car, I sadly missed a bluethroat that Mehmet glimpsed. Deciding to come back later, we took a diversion and went to near a local dog(?)track which had down one side a long ditch which produced 3 foraging little crake - another lifer for me!
The actual area around the track was the most heavily flytipped area but none the less was teeming with birds including lifers tawny pipit and greater short toed lark, as well as spur-winged plover hoopoe, little owl, northern wheatear, water pipit, eastern black eared wheatear, stone curlew and more. We did try to pick out some other wheatear species but only found northern and black eared on this occassion.
After a pause for more storms we began to head back, stopping briefly for a glossy ibis travelling with some little egret.
We pulled over on a road between a series of ponds and picked up a delicate prinia which I failed to photograph, as well as plenty of reed and sedge warblers, a few great reed warblers, a purple heron over, marsh harrier and a distantly calling savi's warbler.
Returning to the pond system we had been at earlier we had a brief reprieve from the rain, and ran into another birder from the a Balkan country I'm forgetting right now whi we chatted to for a bit. The ponds this time also produced a grey wagtail, a little stint, a flock of black-winged stilt, another little crake, a bunch of wood sandpiper as well as the ruff, yellow wagtail and citrine wagtail from earlier.
We did attempt to make a final stop for tje morning along the beach but the weather refused to let us and we only saw a single unidentified tern before deciding to retrest to the car.
To be continued later!
General Info
Southern Turkey has a nice intersection of Middle Eastern and Eastern Mediterranean species, neither area of which I'd birded before.We flew to Antalya airport (approx £160 return each if I recall correctly) and accomodation in Side was pretty reasonably priced - we spent a little more for a sligtly fancier room with a sea view and breakfast included, totally about £440 for 2 people for 4 nights.
Turkish Lira and Euros were both commonly taken in more tourist areas. Places which only took lira seemed to assume they'd be getting negligible tourists and were usually dramatically cheaper.
DAY 0 - 28th March
We arrived at dusk and by the time we got to Side it was already dark however, a vague wander around the town picked us up 3 mammal species: Egyptian Fruitbat, Southern White-breasted Hedgehog amd an unidentified small bat sp.
DAY 1 - 28th March
An early morning walk produced what would turn out to be a general baseline for the trip - two lifers: White-spectacled Bulbul and Laughing Dove, were backed up by House Sparrow, Hooded Crow Barn Swallow and migrating Lesser Whitethroat and Blackcap. A single Hoopoe was flushed from the harbour wall. A single Eurasian Robin was my only one of the trip. A slow passage of Larus gull species was out at sea but I didn't scrutinise them
Three rough-tailed rock agama represented my sole (live) lizards of the trip, though I did also see an extremely dead and dessicated lacertid species.
DAY 2 - 29th March
I had booked a 2 person guided day trip with VigoTours, our Guide Mehmet picked us up outside the taxi only area of the Old Town at 7am for an early start and he began by taking us to a coastal area to the East of the town which proved excellent for birds.
The area was a mix of fields, scrub, pockets of wetland and, less glamorously, apparently a favoured local flytipping site.
We first stopped on a field corner near a small set of pools in the middle of some fields and species produced here included Spur-winged Lapwing, Common Buzzard, Hen Harrier, Common Snipe, Little Ringed Plover, Eastern black-eared wheatear, masked shrike and far overhead, a single migrating osprey heading into the mountains.
Unfortunately this was the point where the weather began to get intermittantly wild and the entire reat of the day was punctuated with heavy rain and thunderstorms.
We pulled over at the marshy corner of another field to find a good sized flock of the local black capled race of yellow wagtails, but even better for me, two lifers in the form of Citrine Wagtail and Red-throated Pipit.
A few meters up the track on the other side was a system of shallow ponds which we got to examine for a little while, producing one lifer for me: Marsh Sandpiper, as well as a bunch of Ruff. Unfortunately it started tipping down at this point so we retreated to the car, I sadly missed a bluethroat that Mehmet glimpsed. Deciding to come back later, we took a diversion and went to near a local dog(?)track which had down one side a long ditch which produced 3 foraging little crake - another lifer for me!
The actual area around the track was the most heavily flytipped area but none the less was teeming with birds including lifers tawny pipit and greater short toed lark, as well as spur-winged plover hoopoe, little owl, northern wheatear, water pipit, eastern black eared wheatear, stone curlew and more. We did try to pick out some other wheatear species but only found northern and black eared on this occassion.
After a pause for more storms we began to head back, stopping briefly for a glossy ibis travelling with some little egret.
We pulled over on a road between a series of ponds and picked up a delicate prinia which I failed to photograph, as well as plenty of reed and sedge warblers, a few great reed warblers, a purple heron over, marsh harrier and a distantly calling savi's warbler.
Returning to the pond system we had been at earlier we had a brief reprieve from the rain, and ran into another birder from the a Balkan country I'm forgetting right now whi we chatted to for a bit. The ponds this time also produced a grey wagtail, a little stint, a flock of black-winged stilt, another little crake, a bunch of wood sandpiper as well as the ruff, yellow wagtail and citrine wagtail from earlier.
We did attempt to make a final stop for tje morning along the beach but the weather refused to let us and we only saw a single unidentified tern before deciding to retrest to the car.
To be continued later!
