A Change of Pace

Some things happen fast in the natural world, especially when observing bird migration at close quarters. In a few seemingly short weeks the scene in this hot, breezy corner of the Mediterranean has changed more than I might have imagined.

By my own experience, recent weeks have seen early April’s flurry of warblers depart and wheatears and flycatchers long gone on their journey’s north. The change is evident too in newly harvested fields and the ladders propped in orchards, in the creeping expanse of crystals on the edge of the salt lake. For many of the seasonal pools in the area it’s a case of here today, gone tomorrow as the days get hotter and longer.

Part of the joy of experiencing migration is learning the patterns it forms, of when birds arrive and depart. With these birds all but gone through, new species have appeared, heralding the start of May. In fact, for a spell last week, each day seemed to be marked by the presence of a different species around Akrotiri.

Despite strong winds, firstly it was a passage of red-footed falcons in the area, scything their way northwards, over Phassouri marsh and into the patchwork of citrus groves beyond. Last weekend it was cuckoos and golden orioles, a dozen or so of each, which suddenly appeared loitering on the margins of the village, the first attractive piece of habitat many spring migrants encounter. Perhaps best of all though was the passage of turtle doves early one morning. The sight was something I’ll never see in Britain now which made it all the more memorable, a fact underscored with the passing overhead of one bird in particular sporting shot-damaged primary feathers. Somehow this small event, this tattered feather, provided a vivid link in a vast chain often so difficult to comprehend. It provided a brief, passing history that made distant countries seem simultaneously close and very far away.

Cretzschmar's Bunting, an attractive and confiding breeding migrant frequently encountered in the hills

Lemesos Forest with the Troodos range in the background

The hills, valleys and plains are where much of the action is happening now as breeding birds firmly announce themselves. By Tuesday I noted black-headed buntings were back on breeding territories in the hills - bright yellow males rehearsing their sweet, fluid song amidst orderly vineyards now flickering with pale green leaves.

It’s the journeys into the hills to record resident and migrant breeding birds that I enjoy most of all. The slopes bristle with the machinegun scatter of sardinian warblers, the loud, repetitive loops of olivaceous warbler song and, in places, the dry, throaty rattles of cyprus warblers. Hiking along a trail in the week, in the midst of a dusty, scented forest of calabrian pine, endemic Cyprus coal tits added to this chorus. But most notable was the ever-present song of masked shrikes – an endearing an attempt at impersonating a warbler as a drunken uncle at a wedding disco.

Perhaps the most evocative sound of the season, one I look forward to so much at home, could be heard at dusk in the same valleys I crossed in the day. As the heat passed and the landscaped breathed again, dusk felt like squinting across a smoky room from whose midst the soft churring and odd yelps of nightjars could be heard – a song so intrinsically bound to early summer days.

Masked Shrike, Lemesos Forest, 28th April 2015