VRONDOUS MOUNTAINS - LAILIAS SKI CENTRE - THE DAM AT LITHOTOPOS - EAST EMBANKMENT
WEATHER: bright and sunny for most of the day, light breeze. Cloudy later with some rain and thunder.
Usually on this day,nn and in order to see the ROCK PARTRIDGE, we get up very early and leave the hotel at 5am for the drive up into the Vrondous Mountains. But this year, because we have already seen 3 or 4 Partridges, we were spared the early alarm call.
in the Vrondous Mountains
It was nearly 9 am when we arrived at our designated spot, the morning was crisp and clear with excellent visibility. The scenery and the views were breathtaking it was joy to be there. As for the birding! not as good as it would have been earlier in the day, so lesson learnt, its an early start next time.
a Northern Wheatear
From two stops in the juniper scrub we saw a good variety of species, not necessarily the species that we were after but some nice birds such as: Red-backed and Woodchat Shrikes, Northern Wheatears, Linnets and Stonechats. The second stop provided us with more variety, we added Woodlark, Black Redstart, Serin, Greenfinch and we heard a Rock Partridge calling. The sky was full of Common Swifts, House Martins, Red-rumped and Barn Swallows, we saw Marsh Harrier, Raven and a very high Short-toed Eagle.
views of the rock face where we saw the Common Rock Thrush
We then drove towards the Lailias Ski Resort, before stopping next to a track that led to a large escarpment with a huge cliff face, we saw Song Thrush along the way.
Dancho proved his worth on this track, pulling out several species that most of us never even heard! He found a Lesser Whitethroat singing from the top of a dead tree! How unusual was that? Then a Firecrest was located, this bird showed very well and was shortly followed by a Crested Tit. We also saw Coal Tits and Great Ttits in the pines.
Firecrest taken by Charles Cowen
We reached the view point where we would could scan the distant rock face, we had a panoramic view of the woodland below us. Dancho found a Rock Bunting singing from a dead tree and then he pointed out a Tree Pipit performing its display flight, we watched this bird for a while.
Crested Tit taken by Dancho
Scanning the distant rocks we could see Crag Martins and Red-rumped Swallows visiting their nests and a very distant Common Rock Thrush was located and boy was it distant.
Our final stop in the mountains was at the Lailias Ski Centre, we saw Song Thrush along the way and a walk around the area provided views of Mistle Thrush, Subalpine Warbler, Coal Tit, Black Redstart and several common species. A short walk provided us with views of our first Great Spotted Woodpecker, hooray!
We drove back down to Serres and stopped at a roadside café for lunch, which was very good and very reasonably priced.
It was after 3pm and very hot when we set off for the afternoon birding around the lake. We stopped by the dam in Lithotopos where we hoped to see a White-tailed Eagle. We spent an hour watching a mid-distant ridge, but the weather was against us. It had clouded over and rain threatened. We did see, Black Kite, Booted Eagle, Eurasian and Levant Sparrowhawks and Common Buzzard but no large eagles.
Black Kite at the dam area taken by Dancho
The water around the dam provided some birding entertainment, we watched a Grey Heron devour a large Dice Snake, Pelicans and Cormorants, Grebes and Night Herons were all in close proximity.
Grey Heron eating a Dice Snake being watched by a Little Egret
the snake and the Heron by Charles Cowen
White Pelicans very close in the water by the dam.
At 4:30pm we gave up on the ‘eagle’ and drove to the picnic area on the East Embankment, we searched the trees for Scops Owl and drew a blank. However, we did see a good variety of other species including our first Common Sandpiper, found by Terry.
Night Heron taken at the dam
We made it back to the hotel just after 6pm and dinner was taken at the usual time of 7:30pm.