Dunlin | Cyprus Birding Tours

Greater Flamingo Larnaca Salt Lake 16th January 2016 (c) Cyprus Birding Tours

Spent quite a long time today counting Greater Flamingos. 12,000 plus in the Larnaca area. Hundreds of Northern Shoveler, Eurasian Teal and Common Shelduck; twenty five Black-necked Grebe, three Gadwall, a Ferruginous Duck, eight Eurasian Wigeon and seven Greater White-fronted Geese at Larnaca Sewage Works. A small flock of less than thirty Eurasian Golden Plover at Spiros Pool with two Sandwich Tern offshore. Among the many Common Black-headed Gull it was good to find a Little Gull on Meneou Pool.

A lot of disturbance around the Salt Lake including some idiots walking in the water to get nearer to the Greater Flamingos there. Away from them in a quieter area there was a Temminck’s Stint, a few Little Ringed and Common Ringed Plover, seven Common Snipe and larger numbers of Kentish Plover, Dunlin, Little Stint and Common Redshank.

The White-headed Duck were still at Oroklini when I popped in there before heading home.

Went to Akrotiri for the morning hoping for some raptors – two Marsh Harrier, one juvenile Montagu’s Harrier, another ring-tailed too far away to ID and two Honey Buzzard was not the total I was hoping for – very disappointing.

There were good numbers of Turtle Dove around with some European Bee-eater passing over and several Lesser Grey Shrike and Whinchat. Both Bishop’s Pool and Zakaki Marsh had some interesting waders including Temminck’s and Little Stint, Common Greenshank, Dunlin, Spotted Redshank, Curlew Sandpiper, Common Ringed Plover and Collared Pratincole. At Zakaki there was a White-winged Tern and a Whiskered Tern was in the Gravel Pits area. Still several Little Egret, Glossy Ibis, Black-winged Stilt and Spur-winged Lapwing at Zakaki, where there were also two Common Kingfisher and a couple of Ferruginous Duck. A Great Reed Warbler and Hoopoe were at Phassouri Reed Beds.