They don't go away

I went birding with Andy and Helen Parkin today. They are birders and fellow work colleagues who are based in Tripoli but are visiting me in Benghazi.


We bagged 40 species in and around Benghazi. No lifers for me but red-throated pipit was one for Andy and Helen.


However where ever we went we saw barn swallow. The unusual thing about this is that the bird is a long distant migrant in Europe yet in Cyrenaica many barn swallow don't migrate at all.


Last Autumn I was based in Tripoli and I recorded that the barn swallow left the tourist hotspot of Leptis Magna on October 22nd. This is a typical leaving date for birds in north west Libya. This is late by European standards but at least they go.  Not so in Cyrenaica. Below is a photograph of just a few we saw today.

barn swallow, October 29th, Deryanah

Here are Helen (at Al Marj) and Andy on the way home. I'm pretty sure they enjoyed themselves. I certainly did.

It was great to have companion bird watchers on Friday once again. I'll blog more about our findings in the coming days.