Lesvos Spotted Crake

Just been post-processing a few more Lesvos holiday snaps, and tackling the rather large Porzana folder. The similarly large dent in my hard drive is almost entirely the fault of one particularly showy bird at Faneromeni ford... but some of the photos make it worthwhile. At one point I was actually sat on a dry bit of concrete right in the middle of the ford with the bird bathing and preening no more than 15 feet away - who said crakes are timid and skulking?!

Lesvos Landscapes

Got a few copies of Dad's photos from Lesvos - here's a few favourites...

Beach at Skala Polichnitos

Looking across to Molivos

Ruin near 'Derbyshire' area, on the road to Achladeri

Ipsilou Monastery

Lesvos - photo highlights

As previously mentioned, Dad and I had a superb week on Lesvos from 23-30 April. We rented a small but very reasonably priced apartment on the edge of Kalloni, owned by the wildlife photographer George McCarthy (see http://www.lesvostravel.co.uk/apartments.html), which was ideal. Why spend more on a hotel when you're out birding for pretty much every daylight hour?! Evening meals in the Dionysos and Ambrosia tavernas in Skala Kalloni were excellent value as well.

A big thankyou to Steve Dudley - his Lesvos Birding website is a great resource before you travel out to the island, and then once you're there, he's organised a sightings logbook in the reception of the Hotel Pasiphae in Skala Kalloni. We kept popping in each evening to see what others had found, and add some notes of our own, hopefully helping other birders.

Anyway, I shall write up a full trip report as soon as I can, but in the mean time, here are the best of my (wildlife) photos. There were a lot of massive lenses being toted around the island through the week, and I'm sure their owners will have some amazing photos.... but given that these were basically just snaps taken while we were birding, I'm pretty pleased with them. Dad's got plenty of great landscape shots as well, which will follow in a few days.

Click any of the images to view fullsize!