As advertised, yesterday was a long day of travel, and we didn’t reach our hotel in Trabzon, Turkey until 10pm last evening. The good news, however, is that we are just across the road from a huge waterfront park around the Hanife Hatun Camii, a big, beautiful, new mosque. Even better, sunrise is just after 6am out here, so I had plenty of time to go look for critters this morning before the day’s sightseeing commenced.
This first bird is a European turtle-dove (Streptopelia turtur), which I have glimpsed before but have not captured on film until today. I think the contrast between the yellow steel beam and the blueish sky looks kind of arty, but Anne thinks I should have zoomed in to show you the bird better. When I protested that it’s just a dove, she replied that I’m “the captain of [my] blog, so I can do what I want.” Thus, here you go, and if you want to zoom in to see more detail, you know what to do.
This next little bird turns out to be a common redstart, whom we last saw in Prague, but this one seemed not to know what to make of me, and hardly made me work for this picture at all. “Thanks, Darlin’!”
This little cutie turns out to be not quite as harmless as it looks because it’s a young or female red-backed shrike. The last time we saw one of these was in Lilongwe, Malawi, where it appears they go for the winter.
Finally, it turns out that I have, in fact, not already seen every bird already, thank goodness, and here’s my very first northern wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe). There were several foraging in the weeds near the water, and the way they bobbed their tails reminded me of sandpipers and wagtails.
The forecast calls for thunderstorms tomorrow morning, which isn’t great, but Anne points out that I really lucked out this morning, when the downpour held off until we were sitting at breakfast, so who knows what we’ll get. I’ll keep you posted.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 
