Istanbul stopover

I was in Kurdistan visiting a friend for a few days this week.  I managed to get some birding in as well as sight seeing. I'll produce a series of blogs to report on this.

However because of poor airline connections, I had a stop over in Istanbul on July 23th.

I took the opportunity to bird around the Topkapi area (in Gulane park) which is within walking distance of my hotel. I have done this before but at different times of year. 

adult great tit bathing

The park is too well tended in a sense. There are very few bushes and low trees but lots of tall ones providing welcome shade for walkers. This configuration favours birds large birds including parakeets as against passerines. 

Nevertheless a few passerrines thrive. The most obvious is great tit which is helped by nest boxes being placed out part way up the tall trees. 

young great tit

There was plenty of evidence of young birds and so a succesful breeding season.

young great tit bathing

I struggled to find any warblers. However in one corner of the park there are smaller trees and sure enough I came across some noisy Eastern olivaceous warbler.

Eastern olivaeous warbler

It was difficult to get a straight and prolonged view.

Eastern olivaeous warbler in the sun

Other smaller birds were limtied to house sparrow, common starling and common myna.This was the first time I had seen this latter bird in Istanbul as this pest moves closer to the rest of Europe.

common starling

The park is mostly the playground of larger birds. I didn't see Alexandrine parakeet this time but rose ringed parakeet were easily seen.

house crow

Hooded crow is certainly the most common larger bird at least at this time of year.

Magpie

Numbers of magpie were much more limited.

Laughing dove

Like common myna, the range of laughing dove is still expanding. They reached Tbilisi, Baku and Istanbul over 25 years ago and its difficult to believe they wont colise southern Europe more genrally.

adult yellow legged gull

Gulane park is only 100 metres from the sea at its closest so its not surpising that yellow legged gull makle it into the park.

young yellow legged gull

The fledgling yellow legged gull above was incredibly tame.

cormorant

Over the road from the park on the coast, a single cormorant stood on a lamp post.

The visit to Gulane park was short and light relief. Ironically the first place I visited in Kurdistan was a park in central Sulaimani. That is the subject of the next blog.

Alarmed birds among the tranquilty

On Saturday, had the pleasure of birding the local patch of "Rhopodi birder" with the man himself. We saw 41 species although the object was not to collect numbers but to better understand this area and its birds. "Rhodopi birder" is a great teacher with special expertise with the tit family. I know very little about either the area or the family! but three days here in the Rhodopes and a day with RB I finally think I'm getting somewhere.

an alarmed starling

We saw plenty of woodland and meadow birds east and south of Smolyan but more about that later. I'm going to start at the end!  On the way back to Chepelare we stopped at a meadow where we had seen a small number of rosy starling on the way out. They weren't there when we came back but a birding drama was being played out. One starling was siting on a wire and was very alarmed. He was flapping his wings agitatedly and screaming. I haven't seen this behaviour before (see picture above) but  RB told me it was real distress.

Rhopodian meadow flowers

We stopped to look at the situation (and to observe other birds). There were very recently fledged starlings around. Our best guess is that the adult birds had seen something dangerous for the fledglings.

newly fledged starling

Actually it was not just starling fledglings in this neighbourhood. There were also white wagtail fledglings too.

newly fledged white wagtail

We had three suspects for the agitation. First there were hooded crow in the area.

hooded crow and nest

Second there were magpie about too. However we believe the most likely bird to cause alarm was a goshawk seen fleetingly.

crossbill camouflages well in pine trees!

This stop turned out to be a bit of a goldmine. On near-by trees were four crossbill feeding. Apologies for the photo but through a camera lens they were amazingly camoflaged against the rusty reds and green of the tree . 

greater spotted woodpecker

On a dead tree a few metres away was a greater spotted woodpecker. No camouflage problems here.

greenfinch

Same with a greenfinch which was also on a dead tree.

This last stop was a fine finale to a great day's birding. 

Previously we had visited two main areas east of Smolyan. One was near RB's home village. Here the prize sighting was probably the marsh tit. We decided to leave this birding area earlier than planned as there was very recent signs of wild boar!

great tit in garden in Chepelare

The Rhodopes are full of tit family members. We saw crested tit and great tit in the woods and sombre tit in RB's guesthouse garden! (along with black redstart and blackcap by the way) 

chiffchaff in forest

The forest we visited held green woodpecker, black woodpecker and grey headed woodpecker (to add the greater spotted woodpecker seen elsewhere)

dunnock on edge of forest

There was much more than just tits and woodpeckers especially in the second area we birded. On the edge of the forest were dunnock. In a near-by meadow were a pair of long legged buzzard. However, one of one of the best incidents was when we spotted a wryneck. We decided to follow it. This took us into some long grass. 

Just as we lost sight of the wryneck, we heard very loud calling from two separate spots (separated by 30 metres or so) in the grass. We spent 10 minutes slowly creeping towards the source of one of the sounds. When we got very close it stopped and so did the second one. When we walked away it started up again a couple of metres away from where it had been. The second bird joined in too. Corncrake are the ultimate escape artists aren't they?

It's a shame I am leaving Chepelare today. I could really get into this upland birding.

  

More winter birds in my village

It's back to Libyan matters tomorrow but today is the third and final blog about my village birds in Bulgaria.


On my walks within my village over three days at New Year, there were plenty more birds other than the woodpeckers and finches already blogged.

Two birds were present in quite large flocks in the fields. These were starling and fieldfare.  The latter (and possibly some of the former) is a wintering bird escaping the cold further north.  

starling

The flock sizes of starling were admitted much smaller than the huge flocks in northern Libya at the moment but the birds seemed more approachable. 

fieldfare, village north of Varna

The fieldfare on the other hand were not very approachable.  They were very flighty especially when on the ground.

There were two types of tit around in the woodland. I think great tit was the more common but there were also quite a few blue tit.

blue tit, village north of Varna

The blue tit seemed to be flocking while the great tit did not. I don't know whether that tells me anything about their residency. I'll have to wait for the summer to find that out.

great tit, village north of Varna

The crow family was represented by two loud birds - jay and magpie. There was also clear evidence of last year's magpie nests.

jay, village north of Varna

There was no sign of any hooded crow or rooks (which are very common elsewhere in Bulgaria in winter).

magpie, village north of Varna

I was surprised to see two birds of prey right close to a settlement. There were three or four common buzzard and a single hen harrier (not pictured) on the edge of the village. 

It's only the number of birds of prey (along with the Syrian woodpecker - blogged a couple of days ago) which separate my birding with that which can be found in Britain at the same time of year!  

common buzzard, village north of Varna

Three other birds were seen which weren't photographed - robin, wren and blackbird.

The final picture of my Bulgarian holiday was not taken in my village nor by me but was taken by my friend Joseph Stec when we were visiting Varna city centre. 

yellow-legged gull, Varna city centre by Joseph Stec

The yellow legged gull is very tame there and it was too good an opportunity to pass up.

Wadi Dana - starting with the redstarts

Straight after my trip to Jaghboub Oasis, Libya I went directly to Benghazi airport for a trip to Jordan. This was possible because I had eight days holiday for Eid. To be even handed, I spent the first four days in Libya and the second four in Jordan.


The next three blogs this week are about my time and observations at Wadi Dana, Jordan and there will be two more blogs next week on the same place. 


For those of us in Libya, I have included a few details at the end of the blog if you are interested in travelling to Jordan for a short break.

Dana village, Jordan

I flew from Benghazi airport with Royal Jordanian airlines to Amman where I stayed the night. The hotel arranged a taxi for me to get to Wadi Dana the next day. It is 220 kilometres (3 hours) south and I had been a little nervous about finding transport on the main day of Eid. I needn't have worried.

Wadi Dana is the biggest national park in Jordan and is well described on the following website http://www.jordanjubilee.com/outdoors/dana.htm  Take a look at it!

I stayed at the Dana hotel but there are two others in the village (Dana Tower hotel and Dana Moon hotel as well as Dana guesthouse). It was very peaceful and comfortable but enough about the logistics. I want to talk about birds!

This particular blog is mostly about redstarts. All around Dana village on any slope you could see wintering black redstart. We get very large numbers of them in Libya too at this time of the year but there are a few differences. There seemed to be proportionately more adult males in Jordan. Also, in Libya they are not confined to slopes but can be seen equally on flat low land.

black redstart, mid November, Wadi Dana

So far no surprises. However, when I walked to the forested areas two kilometres south of the village on my second day I was surprised.

Whereas Wadi Dana itself is initially a steep wadi descending into a narrow, shallow, scrubby gorge, this more southern wadi is a wide valley with lots of forest. Naturally the birds were different.

forest south of Wadi Dana

It was at the edge of this forested area that (over the course of a morning) I saw four common redstart.

The conventional wisdom is that common redstart all winter south of the Sahara. But is this right?  Certainly I haven't seen one in the last three weeks in Libya and assume they have all gone south.

common redstart in forest south of Wadi Dana on November 18

When I put the information about seeing common redstart in mid November on my local discussion group (EgyBirdGroup@yahoogroups.com - join it if you want to keep abreast of regional information!) it was suggested that these might be sick or slow birds. Alternatively one birder from Egypt (Mary Megalli) told us all that she sees wintering common redstart where she lives 82 kilometres south of Suez. This like Wadi Dana is, of course, north of the Sahara.

second picture of common redstart, forest south of Wadi Dana

Wadi Dana is clearly a very special place. It is so well-protected that fragile forests have survived a long way south. There  can be very little comparable habitat north of the Sahara but so far south. My guess, helped by Mary's information, is that these are genuine wintering birds at Wadi Dana and not sick birds. After all its getting close to the shortest day anyway!   

great tit in forest south of Wadi Dana

While I am discussing the forests south of Wadi Dana (and for want of a better blog to put them in), I can report that they are full of great tit. Unlike British birds which can even feed off your hand, these birds are shy. Getting a half decent photo took great patience which I don't have.

Tomorrow I will report on wheatears and blackstart including seeing three "lifers"  (lifers are what birders call a species they have'nt seen in the wild before).

PS: For those of us in Libya thinking of travelling to Jordan for a break, the good news is that Royal Jordanian Airlines fly to and from Tripoli 5 times a week (not Wednesday or Friday) and (great for me) they fly to and from Benghazi twice a week on Mondays and Fridays). Citizens from virtually all countries can obtain a visa on arrival for 10 Jordanian dinars. The cost of a return ticket from Libya is about 420 Libya Dinars.