As you’ve probably gathered by now, I’ve not been particularly hot on updating the blog of late… However, as I’m now in Cyprus carrying out my first season of field work (and with lots of pretty things to photograph) I’ll do my best to keep you updated over the next few months.
Suffice to say that the lead up to my departure from the UK on the 5th April was a little bit hectic, with most of my time spent running around like a headless chicken trying to organise kit and logistics for both me and my fantastic MSc student Alli (who’s now out in Portugal collecting data from our other study population). Unfortunately a lot of our equipment wasn’t quite ready in time, or hadn’t arrived in the post, prior to my departure but you can see from the photo below that I wasn’t short of a doo-hicky or two.
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| A serious case of excess luggage |
Having arrived in Cyprus, I thought it only fair to spend a couple of days acclimatising and exploring the island. This did ultimately also lead to me doing a fair bit of birding… A few of the more interesting feathered bits and bobs are pictured below.
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Blue-cheeked bee-eater. They don't come much
better than this (apart from rollers, of course) |
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| Montagu's harrier |
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| Masked shrike |
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| Spur-winged plover |
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| Greater sandplover and broad-billed sandpiper |
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| Great spotted cuckoos |
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| Sardinian warbler |
The landscape and wildlife out here in general are wonderful. There’re wildflowers all over the hillsides, including Cyprus’s famously diverse bee orchid species and more tongue orchids than you can shake a stick at.
