Monday, April 09, 2007

Rhodes 31 March - 7 April

It's difficult birdwatching on a family holiday at the best of times, but its absolutely impossible if you forget to pack your binoculars.

Mrs Dipper and myself first went to Rhodes in 1988 on a day trip from Kos. So we knew about the old crusader town and the ancient Greek ruins at Lindos and elsewhere. We came back nineteen years on with the family. On this visit we discovered the extensive 1930's Italian architecture both in Rhodes, Kalithea, and in the interior at Profitas Illias, and some spectacular scenery in the interfior (its not the Alps but it still impressed me). I've put some photos on Flickr (search for Dorset Dipper).

Despite the lack of optical hardware I still saw some birds, and there were a few flowers and butterflies. I'll put a post up later when I've sorted the photos and made an attempt to identify them. Meanwhile here's a few scenery ones.


Finally there's a bird on one of these photos. It's hard to see but is there. There's £100 to the wildlife charity of your choice to anyone who can identify the picture and the bird. Closing date next Saturday. It's difficult, but if you know your mediterranean birds and think hard I think its possible.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Re. the photo. I'm probably way way off the mark on this one! Though if I use my imagination, I might just be able to see a Kestrel sp (Lesser?) on the left-hand side of the second pic.... Cheers! Stephen P.

DorsetDipper said...

I was worried that I'd missed a bird lurking on a photo somewhere, but no that's not it. I won't give any clues until Saturday for obvious reasons.

Some cracking photos on your site recently Stephen ...

Anonymous said...

I reckon in picture three the castle thing, its a crag martin...


Boulmer Birder
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Anonymous said...

Oops I mean picture two...

DorsetDipper said...

sorry bb its not a crag Martin.

Anonymous said...

Hi John - ok another wild stab in the dark, how about a Bee-eater??? Colour looks wrong granted but with a healthy bit of imagination it does kind of look Bee-eater shaped...?!?!

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