Roller Coaster: April 2015 – The beginning of the end

What will probably be my last field season in Cyprus kicked off with a madcap dash around the study area to check on the state of the 40 nest boxes which were deployed last year. Unfortunately 10 of them had met a sticky end; whoever pinched them, I hope they proved useful in their new incarnations. At least one had met a fate similar to that met by a large number of avian victims here each year. Some people really are idiots.

An ex-nest box

Happily, 30 of the nest boxes are still in place, although the honeybees and rats have refused to relinquish their hold on a couple of them. One thing that really struck me this year is just how green it is here currently! Cyprus had a lot of snow over the winter, with snowcaps still obvious to the naked eye on the high Troodos. It’ll be interesting to see what effect this has on roller breeding success this year, following the disastrous 2014 season.

Looking west across Evretou Reservoir

Akoursos

Given the unseasonal greenness and damp soils, I did think to check under a few large rocks for any herpetological niceties that might be present whilst doing my rounds of the nest boxes. This culminated in finding a couple of lovely Kotschy’s geckos and, best of all, several worm snakes. These subterranean living reptiles are weird looking little things; like scaly worms with healed-over eyes. When you handle them they try and prick you with a small spiky scale at the end of their tail. Weird little things. The generally cool temperatures have meant that snakes are only just coming out of hibernation, so we’re seeing plenty of bully-boy blunt-nosed vipers too.

Not a worm!

The rollers themselves are late back from Africa this year, with the first bird appearing back at Androlikou several days after I arrived. We did have some excellent news in the form of a returnee roller still bearing its GPS logger backpack! We managed to catch the bird (a female) at the nest and remove the logger, but unfortunately it’d received some minor damage and we’ve had to send it back to the UK to try and download its data. I’m now waiting with baited breath to see how much migration data it holds!

Logger ahoy!

I was joined mid-month by my birding friend and field assistant for the season; Harry. Since his arrival we’ve mainly been trying to confirm roller pairs back at last year’s nest sites (especially logger birds) and also to identify additional nest sites that we can monitor. We currently have birds back at most of last year’s nests, and have also managed to identify several spatially independent localities which is great news.

A new nest site and its owner

As always at this time of year in Cyprus, migration is in full swing and we’ve managed to do a bit of birding around the edges of our fieldwork requirements. I’ve provided a few photos of some nice bits and bobs below. Highlights for me included an absolutely cracking Caspian plover (at Mandria) and much-wanted hooded wheatear (on Paphos Headland), as well as finding a record flock of less-than-annual bar-tailed godwit at Akrotiri.