Out at sunrise to do the water bird count around Larnaca this morning. Managed to avoid the worst of the heat and although the Lake itself is dry still had some interesting birds. At Meneou Pool there were twenty four roosting Stone Curlew. Around 100 Yellow-legged Gull were in the area – on the dried up Airport Pools South, on Spiro’s Pool, in the fields along the coast and on the Sewage Pools. Observing and counting from the hide at the Sewage Works was not much fun as it is full of cobwebs and mosquitos. Anyhow as well as the resident Mallard, Coot and Little Grebe I found a few Teal, five Ferruginous Duck and two Red-crested Pochard. There were over fifty Black-winged Stilt and 21 Spur-winged Lapwing as well as a Pied Avocet, two Common Ringed Plover, four Ruff, a Sanderling, three Dunlin, six Common Redshank, a Greenshank, nearly thirty Little Stint, eleven Kentish Plover, eleven Common Sandpiper, eighteen Wood Sandpiper and five Green Sandpiper. Two White-winged Tern were flying over the pools and a Yellow Wagtail could be heard flying around.

In the fields near the hide there were at least six Pallid Swift flying over and three more were along the airport coast. As I was watching those a larger bird came into view – a Collared Pratincole heading west along the coast.

The Salt Lake is now completely dry and the only ‘water-birds’ I found were a Little Egret and two Spur-winged Lapwing. In the Tekke Mosque area there was a Lesser Grey Shrike, a juvenile Red-backed Shrike and three juvenile Masked Shrike as well as a lone Roller on a wild fennel plant.