A Lesvos mega.
01st May 2023
The ‘Holy Grail’ of Lesvos birding is unequivocally the almost mythical White Throated Robin. Everybody wants to see one but only a very lucky few ever get the privilege. There are only a handful of verified sightings since Greek birding records began and these sightings are all from the island of Lesvos. This is due to Lesvos’s close proximity to Turkey (about five miles) where there is sporadic breeding. To see these elusive birds with any certainty you have to visit Armenia in particular where there is established breeding.
There are certain dates etched into my memory and now April 24th 2023 is one of them. It was a warm and sunny Lesvos morning and Susan and I had been up and on the road before first light. We were travelling to the legendary Meladia valley, this valley is bisected by a very old and rough track which was in times gone by the only means of connecting the towns of Eresos and Sigri on the west of the island. Many epic bird sightings have been encountered in this valley and indeed last year Susan and I saw over a hundred Red Backed Shrikes and over five hundred Spotted Flycatchers on a morning there. Some people won’t travel the track for fear of getting stuck in the middle of nowhere and this is justifiable because over the years the track has been frequently closed because of rock falls and subsidence.
We navigated the roughest part of the track and had seen some nice birds, Little Owl, Rock Nuthatch, Red backed Shrike, etc. while Bee- eaters flew overhead – their fluty trills echoing around the valley. We stopped at the Meladia river ford – another iconic place for birders, where we encountered Common Sandpipers, Ruddy Shelduck, Lesser Whitethroat and Collared Flycatcher.
We locked the car and walked along an old rough track that runs between olive and fig groves - our targets were warblers. In particular, Orphean, Icterine, Olivaceous and hopefully Barred. After about two hundred yards an old farmer came along driving about a hundred sheep and he asked us to wait until he got the animals into a grazing meadow. We exchanged pleasantries and we were surprised by how much he knew about Wales. He thanked us for waiting and we said our goodbyes. On we walked while admiring the myriad of wild flowers that lined the track, we had seen a few birds, nothing special but that didn’t matter because it was a glorious morning and it was just nice to be out early. The habitat had now changed to low growing and quite aromatic bushes and shrubs interspersed with small rocks. Suddenly I saw something move at the bottom of a bush about ten yards away and I caught a flash of white and then some orange, my first thoughts were male Common Redstart which would have been nice, however, nothing could have prepared me for what was about to happen – a full summer plumaged adult male White Throated Robin perched on a small rock in front of me.
I was unashamedly shaking – I remember my whispered words now, there were only three “White Throated Robin”. Susan who had been walking five yards behind me ran up alongside and said “Oh please where is it”? – She knew full well the significance of what I had seen. Frustratingly it had dropped back down out of sight and I said “I can’t see it now” “Please don’t’ let me miss this bird” she pleaded. Suddenly there it was again out in full view in front of us. What a bird – what a find!!
I was carrying my Canon RF100-500 f7.1 lens attached to my Canon R5 and it’s fortunate that I was because there was no time to set anything up. If I had been lugging my Canon Ef600 f4 and tripod around there is no doubt I would have missed the shot. – Portability is everything in these situations. Then as the shutter fired I knew I had him – what a feeling to realise what I had achieved. This is a bird that we have fantasized about before all our trips to Lesvos, wondering what the feeling would be like to find and even better to photograph one – well now we knew! And it felt so good. We were genuinely elated, we watched it for about thirty seconds before it flew up and over a few bushes and it was gone – just unbelievable!
There is no mobile phone signal in that valley so we couldn’t tell anyone. Susan walked back down to the car to try and get a signal and when she arrived there was a Dutch birder there, a twitcher who I had been talking to a few days earlier. He came running up but he was too late, it had disappeared. I showed him the photos I had taken and he was amazed by our find. Many more people came later on but the bird disappointingly was never seen again.
Another birder we knew told us he had been talking to that same Dutch birder a few days after and he could tell by his conversation how missing a mega like that was really eating away at him, it’s just such bad luck.
However, that is not the end of this account. Another week had passed and we were again in the same area, not in any hope of seeing the Robin again, we knew that bird had flown, but to see other birds. As we stood there along the same track a Jeep approached and pulled up alongside us and a Greek man said “I am looking for the White Throated Robin”. I told him that was a week ago but he said he didn’t care and that he had to find it. I said that we were the people who had found it and he began shaking my hand warmly and congratulating me. His next request was unusual, he asked me to show him the bush where the bird was found. I found it a bit strange but he appeared genuine so I obliged as it was only fifty yards away. On arrival he stared at the bush like he was on some sort of pilgrimage to a holy site. I offered to show him an image and he said” You have images too” I showed him a close up and after looking at it he buried his face in his hands and just groaned.
He told us it was his dream bird and he had been walking these isolated tracks for years trying to find one. I now realised I was looking into the face of a genuinely desperate man.
He walked a few yards further down the track and one of the two other younger men who were in the vehicle with him, after also seeing the images, told us he was the top bird lister in Greece and he had flown in from central Greece to try and find the bird. Out of the 403 birds on the Greek list he had seen 387 - that is serious twitching in your own country. As we left I wished him good luck and I told him I truly hoped he would find his dream bird one day.
After we left I felt strangely guilty – to offer an analogy I imagined how a metal detectorist of many years standing who had never had a really good find would feel when a complete novice who has a metal detector as a Xmas present goes out on his first trip and finds a bag of Saxon gold coins.
The fickle nature of our find also dawned on us because when thinking back to the day, if we hadn’t had to stop for that old sheep farmer we may well have gone past and seen nothing – C’est la vie!!
We now have to submit our find to the relevant Hellenic bird authorities.
There are certain dates etched into my memory and now April 24th 2023 is one of them. It was a warm and sunny Lesvos morning and Susan and I had been up and on the road before first light. We were travelling to the legendary Meladia valley, this valley is bisected by a very old and rough track which was in times gone by the only means of connecting the towns of Eresos and Sigri on the west of the island. Many epic bird sightings have been encountered in this valley and indeed last year Susan and I saw over a hundred Red Backed Shrikes and over five hundred Spotted Flycatchers on a morning there. Some people won’t travel the track for fear of getting stuck in the middle of nowhere and this is justifiable because over the years the track has been frequently closed because of rock falls and subsidence.
We navigated the roughest part of the track and had seen some nice birds, Little Owl, Rock Nuthatch, Red backed Shrike, etc. while Bee- eaters flew overhead – their fluty trills echoing around the valley. We stopped at the Meladia river ford – another iconic place for birders, where we encountered Common Sandpipers, Ruddy Shelduck, Lesser Whitethroat and Collared Flycatcher.
We locked the car and walked along an old rough track that runs between olive and fig groves - our targets were warblers. In particular, Orphean, Icterine, Olivaceous and hopefully Barred. After about two hundred yards an old farmer came along driving about a hundred sheep and he asked us to wait until he got the animals into a grazing meadow. We exchanged pleasantries and we were surprised by how much he knew about Wales. He thanked us for waiting and we said our goodbyes. On we walked while admiring the myriad of wild flowers that lined the track, we had seen a few birds, nothing special but that didn’t matter because it was a glorious morning and it was just nice to be out early. The habitat had now changed to low growing and quite aromatic bushes and shrubs interspersed with small rocks. Suddenly I saw something move at the bottom of a bush about ten yards away and I caught a flash of white and then some orange, my first thoughts were male Common Redstart which would have been nice, however, nothing could have prepared me for what was about to happen – a full summer plumaged adult male White Throated Robin perched on a small rock in front of me.
I was unashamedly shaking – I remember my whispered words now, there were only three “White Throated Robin”. Susan who had been walking five yards behind me ran up alongside and said “Oh please where is it”? – She knew full well the significance of what I had seen. Frustratingly it had dropped back down out of sight and I said “I can’t see it now” “Please don’t’ let me miss this bird” she pleaded. Suddenly there it was again out in full view in front of us. What a bird – what a find!!
I was carrying my Canon RF100-500 f7.1 lens attached to my Canon R5 and it’s fortunate that I was because there was no time to set anything up. If I had been lugging my Canon Ef600 f4 and tripod around there is no doubt I would have missed the shot. – Portability is everything in these situations. Then as the shutter fired I knew I had him – what a feeling to realise what I had achieved. This is a bird that we have fantasized about before all our trips to Lesvos, wondering what the feeling would be like to find and even better to photograph one – well now we knew! And it felt so good. We were genuinely elated, we watched it for about thirty seconds before it flew up and over a few bushes and it was gone – just unbelievable!
There is no mobile phone signal in that valley so we couldn’t tell anyone. Susan walked back down to the car to try and get a signal and when she arrived there was a Dutch birder there, a twitcher who I had been talking to a few days earlier. He came running up but he was too late, it had disappeared. I showed him the photos I had taken and he was amazed by our find. Many more people came later on but the bird disappointingly was never seen again.
Another birder we knew told us he had been talking to that same Dutch birder a few days after and he could tell by his conversation how missing a mega like that was really eating away at him, it’s just such bad luck.
However, that is not the end of this account. Another week had passed and we were again in the same area, not in any hope of seeing the Robin again, we knew that bird had flown, but to see other birds. As we stood there along the same track a Jeep approached and pulled up alongside us and a Greek man said “I am looking for the White Throated Robin”. I told him that was a week ago but he said he didn’t care and that he had to find it. I said that we were the people who had found it and he began shaking my hand warmly and congratulating me. His next request was unusual, he asked me to show him the bush where the bird was found. I found it a bit strange but he appeared genuine so I obliged as it was only fifty yards away. On arrival he stared at the bush like he was on some sort of pilgrimage to a holy site. I offered to show him an image and he said” You have images too” I showed him a close up and after looking at it he buried his face in his hands and just groaned.
He told us it was his dream bird and he had been walking these isolated tracks for years trying to find one. I now realised I was looking into the face of a genuinely desperate man.
He walked a few yards further down the track and one of the two other younger men who were in the vehicle with him, after also seeing the images, told us he was the top bird lister in Greece and he had flown in from central Greece to try and find the bird. Out of the 403 birds on the Greek list he had seen 387 - that is serious twitching in your own country. As we left I wished him good luck and I told him I truly hoped he would find his dream bird one day.
After we left I felt strangely guilty – to offer an analogy I imagined how a metal detectorist of many years standing who had never had a really good find would feel when a complete novice who has a metal detector as a Xmas present goes out on his first trip and finds a bag of Saxon gold coins.
The fickle nature of our find also dawned on us because when thinking back to the day, if we hadn’t had to stop for that old sheep farmer we may well have gone past and seen nothing – C’est la vie!!
We now have to submit our find to the relevant Hellenic bird authorities.