Video of lesser crested terns in Libya

I have been looking through my archives on Libya birds and have remembered that I got permission to upload a youtube video of lesser crested terns in Libya. However blogspot casn only show videos which are on youtube servers. Unfortunately youtube was banned in Libya so I could not upload the video while I was there.


Of course I am outside Libya so I have been able to load the video. Libya is the country where 95% of the Mediterranean population of lesser crested tern breed.There are much larger populations breeding along the Red Sea

Below is a slightly amended extract from youtube on the birds.

"These Lesser Crested terns (Sterna bengalensis emigrata) were filmed on Sat. 15 Aug 2009 at one of Libya's best birding sites Farwa lagoon (180km W Tripoli) on the border with Tunisa. Three birds show metal rings put on them in Garah island (the species main breeding site in Mediterranean) in Libya during 2006 season. Garah Island is long way further east in the south east corner of the Gulf of Sirt. is The group contains some juveniles just fledged in Libya and migrating for the first time along North African coast of Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, to arrive at wintering grounds in West African such as Senegal, Guinea Bissau, and Sera Leone. It was filmed by Abdulmoula Hamsa using a sony camera with Swaroviski spotting scope".




In my last blog I promised I would report back on my birding exploits in Botswana and Namibia. Sadly I was mugged in Windhoek and my camera was stolen. Nevertheless I have good notes and will give a written report on the species seen over the next few days. What a shame the mugging was - apart from being bad news for the Namibian tourist industry,  I had some superb photos of the 64 "lifers" and other birds I saw.