24 May 2024 - Latchi-Paphos Cyprus
« Newer | Older »Bee-eaters, Spanish Sparrows, Laughing Dove, Two-tailed Pasha
Today was our last day, so I didn't get out in the morning due to tidying and packing. The sun was shining and it was quite breezy, and lots of Bee-eaters were around the villa, perching on wires and flying about. We left the villa at 10am, via the Little Owl which was perched up nicely on the fence. With some time to kill, we headed down to Latchi Harbour to sit in the shade. Where the remnants of the stream runs into the sea, a number of Spanish Sparrows and a couple of Laughing Doves were coming down to drink, so I tried some photography but the sparrows were very skittish and hard to pin down.
After an ice cream, we headed off towards Stroumpi then onwards via the Cedar Valley wine route to Pano Panagia and then to the Monashilakas picnic site for lunch. The journey was very picturesque, but with very few birds. The picnic site was large and rather impressive, with beautifully clean toilets, but we were the only people there. As wee ate our chuckie-egg butties and leftover salad and Doritos for lunch, a few Serins were flitting about but wouldn't settle for any photos. a Hoopoe flew across the road and disappeared, but the best thing we saw was a Two-tailed Pasha that was attracted first to the silver door handles of the car, and subsequently to the silver lining of the cool bag.
We drove back to Paphos and did a little exploring around the harbour, and finally found a restaurant near the car hire depot where we had a nice meal before returning the car and getting the shuttle bus back to the airport. The flight home was rather long-winded, with delays at both ends due to the shortage of buses, so we eventually arrived home at about 5.30am on the 25th.
Bee-eater , 1/2500 sec, f/7.1, 500 mm, ISO 500 (view full size image)
Bee-eater, 1/2500 sec, f/7.1, 500 mm, ISO 640 (view full size image)
Little Owl, 1/640 sec, f/7.1, 500 mm, ISO 320 (view full size image)
Spanish Sparrow , 1/640 sec, f/7.1, 500 mm, ISO 200 (view full size image)
Spanish Sparrow, 1/800 sec, f/7.1, 500 mm, ISO 100 (view full size image)
Laughing Dove, 1/800 sec, f/7.1, 500 mm, ISO 100 (view full size image)
Two-tailed Pasha , 1/640 sec, f/7.1, 500 mm, ISO 400 (view full size image)
Two-tailed Pasha, 1/640 sec, f/7.1, 500 mm, ISO 160 (view full size image)