Wildlife

James Lowen

Every spring, every month, every week of migration on Lesvos is different. This year, Black Storks were particularly prominent. We encountered birds in several locations, including a broad group of a dozen at Alykes Wetlands.

Perhaps the sneaky highlights of the trip was Persian Squirrel. I saw one on my first trip to the island, and – much to group member Mark Hows’ chagrin – none at all on our second trip. This year, however, the bushy-tailed, bright-eyed ones were seemingly everywhere! Our stop at one site even resulted on us being invited into the local primary school for Laurie to give an impromptu talk about wildlife and conservation to pupils, and for them all to enjoy looking through our optics. In the long run, might that half-hour have achieved even more for the future of conservation on Lesvos than our 2026 tourist euros did…?

Sombre Tits put on a good show this year, with this bird at Petri particularly inquisitive. The same is true of Short-toed Snake Eagles, with a showy bird at the same site.

Early-season odonates were good, as ever, with enormous numbers of Dark Spreadwing at Skala Kallonis marsh a highlight. My favourite, though, was a Small Pincertail along the Tsiknias River. We failed on Odalisque again, sadly.

One of my favourite moments was chancing upon a singing Red-rumped Swallow. This species is common enough, but I cannot recall ever having heard one sing. It allowed delightfully close approach.

Eastern Black-eared Wheatear is one of my favourite birds on Lesvos, perhaps all the more so because I have yet to see either black-eared wheatear species in the UK (despite attempts dating back 34 years). As is typical here, we had some lovely encounters.

Moths were disappointing - particularly after two excellent spring weeks previously. Our first hotel had bright lights in the garden, which I think did for my actinic. Switching to the battery trap and going remote didn’t do much better, however. At our second hotel, in Molivos, the weather was cold and windy, so my sole attempt brought very little. Nevertheless, here are a couple of critters to enjoy, e.g. Euchromius superbellus, Tamarisk Peacock and Nola harouni.

The wetlands were wet this year, a result of heavy winter rains, and absolutely heaving with waterbirds and shorebirds. My favourite image of the latter, though, was of two Wood Sandpipers on the adjacent channel.

Among herps, we had a couple of nice moments with Spur-thighed Tortoise, which became known as ‘Stir-fried Tortoise’ (not that we ate it, of course…). Caspian Terrapins were crowd-pleasers as ever, but one group had an adventive Yellow-eared Slider among them.

On other inverts, I began to wonder whether Lesvos Bush Cricket might be Europe’s sexiest orthopteran, while European Striped Shieldbugs were certainly considering one another to be sexy.

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10 May 20262 Lesvos III

For a week in late April and early May, I was on Lesvos with a group from Wildlife Travel. This was my third recent spring on the Greek island. I provided detailed blogs for those trips – here and here – so won’t provide an exhaustive account in this blog. Instead, I’ll focus on a few particular experiences. Top of the pops was the privilege of watching two pairs of Krüper’s Nuthatch at their respective nests, one of which was found by guide Laurie Jackson. The views of one pair, in particular, were outstanding – including birds feeding above our heads and coming to drink at a river.

We enjoyed the usual nice array of plants - and the flowery road verges certainly took the breath away.