Bald Ibis
After some good days of birding today was time to go home. But Mustafa and I had a few hours of birding. First we went to the Birecik wadi. Mustafa wanted to try some camoufage-photographing of the See-see Partridges – and he succeeded.
I only managed another flight shot of the See-see Partridge
Meanwhile I went birding. It is still quite early for many species, so the wadi was rather empty. But I managed to find 4 See-see Partridges, some Rock Sparrows, a Menetries’s Warbler, Black-eared Wheatears and Hoopoe.
Little Owl
After birding in the wadi we went to get something to eat. We chose the Gülhane Tea-garden and we soon relocated both the Pallid Scops Owls. And today they gave even better views than yesterday even though they were sitting in different trees.
After eating we went to Halfeti north of Birecik. It is an area with cliffs and orchards. It is known for it birds like Cinerous Bunting, Kurdish Wheatear, Eastern Rock Nuthatch and Bonelli’s Eagle. But it is still to early for most of these species – and we only managed to get some distant views of a single Eastern Rock Nuthatch, a few Rock Nuthatches and Black-eared Wheatears.
At one point we took a wrong turn and ended up in a mans driveway. He was very friendly and invited us to drink tea – and “that’s an offer you can’t refuse” in Turkey. So we ended our tour with a lovely conversation with to men in a nice garden that provided shadow for the sun while the Goldfinches and Great Tits were singing in the tree tops. After an hour on tea drinking we went to the airport in Urfa and then back home to Ankara.
A total of 171 bird species were seen during out trip, new lifers added to our lists and a few GB of pictures were taken.
Silas Olofson
Birding Turkey 