School holidays meant a chance to visit family in Turkey and revisit my local patches that I haven't set foot in for years. It's funny how quickly a "normal" list is found which bears little resemblance to my normal Fife day. There was, of course, a decent schedule of visiting family and friends but there was, thankfully, also a decent amount of time to go out and play. Every morning started with the ubiquitous Laughing Dove calls from the neighbour's roof.
Sun 3rd
Morning after arriving in Turkey and ... it's raining. What?! Dammit - I went out anyway. There were a good number of familiar species around the place
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| Collared Dove |
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| Hoodie |
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| Mimar Sinan bridge, patch #1 |
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| Wet, wet, wet |
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| Nice weather for Grebes |
Fortunately, as I made my way up the west side of Büyükçekmece (it means "big inlet") the weather cleared up a bit, and I walked for a good long time. The rain, and Ramadan, had suppressed the number of fishermen too. They're friendly, but a hundred friendly, curious fishermen dotted every 10m or so is not ideal for birds or birding. There were a decent number of Alpine Swift around, and a couple of flyby Pygmy Cormorant, but my pictures were all terrible. I spent a while watching a close Marsh Harrier, completely out of the habit of photography and forgetting I had a camera slung over my shoulder. A single Purple Heron came out nice, though. And finally I did manage to get a decent swift picture. By the end of the week they were zooming around normal breeding areas in the city with their sci-fi movie laser weapon calls (or is it Jean-Michelle Jarre?).
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| The channel north of the inlet |
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| Purple Heron |
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| Alpine Swift |
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| Some of several 100 Alpine Swift |
Mon 4th
A day out to the Asian side via ferry saw very commonly encountered Levant Shears on the Bosphorus and a Shag for the trip list, but no camera.
Tue 5th
Of course we're not going for a day trip so it's raining again... however, there were some birds to be seen and a nice bunch of 18 Garganey.
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| Common Sand |
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| Bad Pygmy cormorant record shot |
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| A few of the Garganey |
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| A better Pygmy shot |
Up to Hezarfen airport for my northernmost patch on Büyükçekmece, the rain was still going strong, but a nice patch of fallen reeds was full of Yellow Wagtails. I haven't made sense of the races involved yet, but I tried to photograph as many as I could for later perusal. Here's a feldegg, the "local" race, which can be seen throughout the year
And another Pygmy started fishing behind them for good measure. These are also easily findable throughout the year here, and many seemed to be concealed among the thicker reeds..
Wed 6th
On Wednesday, we headed for Sariyer, where a well-known migration watchpoint exists at Keskin Viraj. This literally means "sharp bend" and that's all there is to it. It's near Koc University. Last time I was here you had to park slightly off road and try to find the most open spot to look through. This time was a revelation - they built a watch tower and cafe! The family retired to the cafe to relax while I joined some locals and a group from Lund University in Sweden up top. The "new" bridge to the east follows the main passage route north of Poyraz village and was a constant stream of White Storks - around 4000 while we were there - along with good numbers of Steppe Buzzard and smaller numbers of Sparrowhawk, Booted Eagle, Black Kite, Short-toed Eagle, Black Stork. I didn't see anything new but it was nice to catch these familiar faces of Bosphorus migration. Unfortunately, disaster struck and my lens was covered internally with condensation. When did that happen? Luckily it did recover later in the day, but that wasn't a pleasant discovery.
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| Fener (lighthouse) Yolu (road) Kus (bird) obs (gozleme) kulesi (tower) !!! |
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| Spacious 3 storey tower with cafe & parking |
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| Happy clickers |
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| A river of Storks and one eagle |
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| Booted this time |
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| Some storks... |
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| Steppe Buzzard, heavily edited from unwanted "soft focus" |
This isn't actually my favourite watchpoint in Turkey, but it's the best one in Istanbul in Spring. Here's a nice report on it: Sariyer migration (my favourite is Kumkale opposite Gallipoli, but it was deemed too far a drive, sadly).
After returning home and relaxing, I wondered if it was overkill to venture out again , but there was an hour of light to play with and nothing else on the agenda. It was enough to head to my closest patch at Mimar Sinan bridge and pick up this confiding Kingfisher - a super common bird here, but definitely so in winter, when you can see them in double digits.
There is a dam here, in front of which used to be an awesome collection of trees and scrub. Sadly, they first cut down all of it (ALL of it), and then they fenced it off. Boooo! This was one of my favourite grounded migrant spots - flocks of Black-headed Bunting, Wryneck, Shrikes... Sighhhhh. The water is great though, and can host such surreal sights as a Smew swimming around the feet of a Flamingo. This time just a lot of Med Gulls and bits and bobs of other things, including returning Common Terns. There's an artificial island for the terns here.
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| The inlet and the dam (DSI is the water authority) |
A better shot of Mimar Sinan bridge, Beylikduzu in the background
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Thu 7th
A non-birding day, where we visited Edirne, a nice small city on the edge of Greece and Bulgaria. Highly recommended. Head south from there to Enez for jaw-dropping winter birding, with 10s of thousands of mixed waterfowl and much, much more.
Fri 8th
I had a basically free morning this morning, so tried to "bird-race" my way round all my local patches. Being sandwiched between abundant winter visitors (very few ducks remained) and pre-summer visitors, this wasn't going to be a mega-return, but I knew I'd find at least something new. I ended up with about 50 species. Best additions were Black-winged Stilt and Glossy Ibis. I haven't found out yet whether these are patch ticks but I suspect not. I'm not sure I've ever seen one Glossy Ibis on its own before.
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| The best Stilt picture ever |
The nesting Storks had also returned to nest in the village (Bahseyis) at the north of the inlet. These nests will also be chock full of Spanish Sparrows before too long.
Of course no sooner had I left the camera in the boot when I came across a nice Wheatear beside the road. This resulted in my parking, walking backwards under cover of the open door and trying to keep an eye on the bird at the same time. It worked out in the end, but it wasn't as fancy as the Desert Wheatear that I once had here.
Sat 9th
Saturday was the last day of our trip and we were scheduled to be with friends (from 9am until midnight, it turned out). Even incidentally there were some of the inevitable encounters with local birds - Alpine Swifts flying over the city, Laughing Doves ubiquitous, YL Gulls, of course, and nice flocks of Shearwaters when we opted for an impromptu boat cruise.
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| Ortakoy Laughing Dove. |
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| Chip-eating Gull |
And that was that - until next time. Back to single-digit temperatures! October's already looking good, though
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| The Golden Horn from the dinner table |
