Cyprus Birding Trip Report - Day 2 (Wednesday 4th April 2018)

With a beautifully sunny day dawning once more, we headed out and up the road to our first site of the day, the well-known Anarita Park which was conveniently situated just ten minutes away from our hotel. With a slightly misleading name (Anarita is not a ‘park’ at all, instead more of a collection of fields and hillsides surrounded by the odd goat farm and settlement) Anarita Park is a well-watched birding site near Paphos, famous for its overwintering Finsch's Wheatears and impressive counts of Lesser Kestrels and other raptors. While we were a touch too late for the Wheatears, I was especially keen to finally catch up with the Lesser Kestrels, having never seen any on previous visits to the Mediterranean. 

The rolling hills and magnificent views of Anarita Park

Turning off at the first of the small tracks winding across the hillside, we immediately struck it lucky when a cracking male Lesser Kestrel came in to view, perched on one of the telegraph poles at the side of the road and giving great views as it peered straight towards us. Distinctive with its bright dusky blue cap and unmarked back, sadly our Kestrel took flight before we could get our cameras on it, swooping over the car before hovering high above us over the hillside. With a second individual further along the track not 100% nailed on as a Lesser, this turned out to be the only confirmed bird of the trip, and I could finally put a long-standing nemesis to rest.

Presumed Lesser Kestrel - possible the same bird we had on the wires but we couldn't be 100% sure

The apparently unmarked back is a good indicator it was the Lesser Kestrel

Following the track round to a marshy dip resulted in a sudden wealth of bird activity, with a good number of Corn Buntings chinking in the long grass as both Yellow and White Wagtails foraged below.

Cracking male Red-backed Shrike - the first for the season

An early male Red-backed Shrike perched in one of the shrubs remarkably transpired to be the first seen on Cyprus this spring, while the now familiar buzzing of Cyprus Pied Wheatears filled the air, one particularly confiding individual giving outstanding views as it perched on a dead stem right next to the car windows. 

Our best views of Cyprus Pied Wheatear

Despite being too late for Finsch’s (they overwinter at Anarita), we decided to head up to the plateaus they reside in anyway, which proved to be a good decision when our first and only Tawny Pipit of the trip hopped in to view. 

Tawny Pipit

The plateau the Finsch's Wheatears reside at during the winter months

Larger than other pipits with a paler back and chest, this was remarkably our first of this species in all our trips abroad, so it felt good to finally connect with yet another ‘bogey’ bird.

Sardinian Warbler

A drive further along the hillside yielded very little more of note from this point on, with just a smattering of Sardinian Warblers chattering in the gorse bushes by the goat farm and a solitary Little Owl peering out from in-between the stones of a wall at the side of the track.

Little Owl

Rather impressively, the small roadside herbs held an extensive colony of Paphos Blue butterflies, freshly emerged and with several engaged in large ‘mating balls’ as they all jostled for the attention of a female. 

Mating ball of Paphos Blues

Endemic to Cyprus and concentrated in the more south westerly portion of the island, it was great to see these dainty butterflies in good numbers, and we spent a good while trying to get some form of record shot as they flitted around us. 

Despite the habitat looking suitable, heading down the hillside and approaching Anarita Mast resulted in no additional birds with the area eerily quiet, so we proceeded straight to our next location of Asprokremmos Dam (Aspro Dam for short). Listed as having a good range of migrant birds with a particularly good number of flycatchers recorded in the trees around the car park, it was extremely disappointing once more to find no sign of any migrant birds at all when we arrived, with the pines almost deserted. A handful of Goldfinches squabbled over seed heads in a far corner of the car park in the shade of a tree, while singles each of Blackcap, Chiffchaff and Lesser Whitethroat were not enough to keep us entertained. 

This female Wheatear by the dam walls stumped us for an ID originally, but it was eventually named as a Black-eared

The dam itself held just a single Yellow-legged Gull, so after a quick picnic under the pines we decided to check out Aspro Pools – noted in Gosney as being a good spot to look out for Crakes. Sadly things had changed since the book was published, and after a flood several years ago the habitat had been completely destroyed, the pools dried up entirely and the small track guarded by a severe looking large dog!

Despite this disappointment, looking up to the skies revealed a strong passage of swifts and hirundines, and after a few minutes our first and only Alpine Swift of the trip was picked out, powering strongly west. 

Alpine Swift

With the whole afternoon ahead of us we made our way slightly south down to the cultivated fields of Mandria, a site which has held juicy rarities such as Namaqua Dove, Bimaculated Lark and Caspian Plover over recent seasons. 

Sadly once more, on this occasion the fields were relatively quiet, just a single Chukar near the beach and a small handful of feldegg Yellow Wagtails feeding in one of the crop fields the only birds of note. 

Yellow Wagtail - ssp feldegg (Black-headed Wagtail)

The vast crop fields of Mandria

A Laughing Dove perched on the wires in the village on our way out was similarly a nice find, but with Mandria not delivering we headed on to our final stop of the day – Paphos Sewage Works – in an attempt to track down another specialist species of Cyprus – Spur-winged Plover. 

Laughing Dove

Thankfully upon arrival, we instantly connected with our target, as up to 15 Spur-winged Plovers were feeding in the freshly ploughed fields adjacent to the sewage works. 

Spur-winged Plover

Resident in Africa with a number of breeding populations dotted around the eastern Mediterranean, these sophisticated looking plovers are relatively common on Cyprus around their favoured haunts, with both Paphos and Larnaca Sewage Works (further east) key sites where they can be found in good numbers. 

Paphos Sewage Works

As well as the flocks in the fields, a handful of birds gave good views on the sewage works itself, and we were able to get a few shots from between the chain link fence before they flew out of sight.

The small trees lining the side of the road held just the usual Lesser Whitethroats, Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps (now seemingly the norm wherever we went) while a pair of Steppe Common Buzzards mewed overhead.

With great views of the plovers secured, we headed back to the hotel in time for tea, once more stopping off at the Kings Avenue Mall for a feast of TGI Fridays chicken and pasta, before getting an early night ready for our trip over to the eastern side of the island the next morning in an attempt to connect with our much sought after Ruppell’s Warblers.