Suffice to say I’ve been a busy bee since my last post. My continued quest to identify roller pairs and nest sites has paid dividends though, as I now know of approximately 40 pairs breeding within my study area! However, rollers are sneaky creatures, being very wary around the nest site, which has meant that I’ve still only managed to locate the exact nest location of maybe half of these. Luckily most of the birds have now got chicks to feed, with the majority of eggs hatching over the past ten days or so. Once the adult birds are feeding young it does make nest location a hell of a lot easier, although it also unfortunately means that for many pairs we won’t have data on laying dates or hatching success. Never mind, there’s always next year…
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| Not pair number 50 unfortunately |
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| Anyone for an omelette? |
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| Dinosaurs! |
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| Rollers are primarily insectivorous... |
We did have some drama at one of my nests though, located in the incredibly picturesque Theletra Gorge area. About two weeks ago I found a roller egg below the nest site which had obviously been predated. Nevertheless, mum and dad continued to valiantly tend their remaining clutch until the middle of last week when their behaviour changed suddenly. During one of my daily checks I noted both birds repeatedly swoop at the nest hole and alarm call, but refuse to enter the chamber. Unsurprisingly, on my visit next day the nest entrance was dripping with egg contents and blood and I found two eggs containing near-to-hatching chicks smashed on the ground below. All in all very distressing, but this is the nature of field biology.
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| The predated Theletra pair; the arrows highlight the blood trail |
Aside from the nest checks I’ve mainly been carrying out vegetation and invertebrate sampling, which has been interesting and painful in equal measure, but most especially tick-filled! A few of my sweep net and pitfall samples have also produced some interesting catches for a closet entomologist like myself with a camel spider, scorpion, and mantis all collected from various sites.
My daily rounds have also continued to produce sightings of a range of interesting wildlife, a few photos of which are provided below. The second week in May was particularly noteworthy as the island was overrun by a deluge of migrating bee-eaters. Double figure flocks were encountered calling overhead or feeding from wires at practically every site I visited, which made for a colourful few days. Sadly this episode pretty much marked the end of avian migration on the island, with the resident birds now getting down to the business of breeding.
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| One of the myriad of bee-eaters that graced the island recently |
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| One of the local pairs of Bonelli's eagles soaring over my study area |
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| The endemic breeding Cyprus pied wheatear nobbling a juvenile lizard |
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| One of Cyprus' trio of enigmatic range-restricted Odonata; the wonderfully characterful Odalisque |
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| Little owl and agama at Androlikou. Few of my roller sites are without this pair of species |
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| The endemic Paphos blue |
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| Displaying red-rumped swallows outside my door |
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| A black-headed bunting has a gander |
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| Finally, a live one! A long-eared hedgehog in my garden one evening. They're usually identified by their diagnostic flattened appearance |
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| Another road casualty: a lovely adult blunt-nosed viper |
Having not had a day off in over three weeks I decided to free up a few hours yesterday morning and go for a short hike in the Avgas Gorge, which is located within spitting distance of Kritou Terra. Walking through the gorge is an amazing experience, with sheer cliffs looming overhead and only a handspan apart in places. Their walls are covered with a range of interesting plants, including the incredibly rare and range-restricted Akamas knapweed. This species’ global distribution is located entirely within the Avgas Gorge system and it is subject to one of the smallest ‘micro-nature reserves’ that I’ve ever come across! However, my main reason for walking the gorge was to look for one of the island’s charismatic dragonfly species; the magnificent emperor. This is Europe’s largest species of dragonfly and its European distribution is restricted to Cyprus and a few Greek islands. I was lucky enough to see at least four of the huge, blue, pink and black-ringed males patrolling the gorge’s central river, with one of them guarding a yellow and black female as she laid her eggs at the base of a riverside boulder! All in all a good few hours off…
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| An awful photo of a fantastic insect |
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| And the plant itself, helpfully identified with a bit of signage |
But I was soon back to work, as tomorrow I’m joined from the UK by Chris Hewson from the British Trust for Ornithology. Together we’ll be attempting to catch the adult rollers and attach geolocators and colour rings to them in the hope of tracking their migrations between Cyprus and sub-Saharan Africa this autumn and next spring. Wish us luck!
