Was really pleased to find a male Desert Wheatear at Petounta yesterday afternoon. Others had been seen at Paphos Headland and Akrotiri Gravel Pits over the last few days. There was also a single Greater Short-toed Lark there as well as two Isabelline Wheatear, four Little Ringed Plover, two Water Pipit, a Hoopoe and a male Black-headed Wagtail.  Earlier, near the Desalination Plant at Larnaca there were four Hoopoe feeding together and on Spiros Pool there were two Greater Sand Plover and more than twenty Ruff. Three Sandwich Tern were fishing offshore and a Calandra Lark was in display flight.

Today I was at Cape Greco for my first raptor survey of the spring. No migrating raptors to count but the local Common Kestrel pair were very active and the House Sparrows around the shelter on the top of the view point were happily mating and ignoring me. If it hadn’t been for some migrating Black-headed Gulls and Great Cormorant I could have thought it was a waste of a morning.

Luckily I decided to drive around the area when I finished and was then really pleased to see a male Ruppell’s Warbler and locate a calling Cretzschmar’s Bunting that looked as if it had just come in off the sea. There was a dark-throated female Finsch’s Wheatear nearby and three Greater Short-toed Lark. Plenty of Isabelline Wheatear as well and a single male Northern Wheatear.  Another warbler disappearing into a bush could have been a Subalpine Warbler but I didn’t get a good enough view to be certain. I later heard that one had been seen at Mandria today.

On Oroklini Beach on the way home there were two Mediterreanean Gull, three Sandwich Tern and an adult Armenian Gull in with the Black-headed Gull. No Little Gull on the Marsh but there was a Black-tailed Godwit, a Common Redshank, some Spur-winged Lapwing and three Black-winged Stilt.