Our tour to Georgia yesterday was certainly nice enough, and we definitely enjoyed the sights, but it was pretty much a bust for wildlife. I didn’t take a single picture of the flora or fauna, of which I have no doubt there is plenty, and we got back to our hotel last evening just before midnight, so I didn’t have anything to write about, let alone time to write about it. Oh well. Next time, right?
The good news is that the call to prayer this morning from the huge mosque across the street woke me up at 5 am on the dot, and the skies were crystal clear at sunrise, after a day of rain, so it was a golden opportunity to give the Trabzon waterfront another look.
The first big treat came soon after I reached the sea wall and noticed something other than a gull flying towards shore. Even better, it perched only a few dozen yards away and right below the railing so that I could sneak this picture before an early-morning walker spooked it away. Give a warm welcome to the very first Eurasian nightjar (Caprimulgus europaeus) I have ever seen.
You may wonder, as did I, how a nightjar is different from the nighthawk we saw in Estabrook just this past spring, and the interwebs have an answer. “A nightjar is a member of a large, widespread family of primarily nocturnal birds, while a nighthawk is a specific type of nightjar found only in the New World (North and South America).” So there.
I’ve been seeing hooded crows at almost every stop of this trip, but they are about as shy as the American crows in Estabrook Park, so it wasn’t till this morning that one was willing to pose for this portrait.
There were several red-backed shrikes about, and this one really showed of some off the traits of the hunter that it is: some fierce-looking talons and a hook at the end of its beak.
As I was getting pictures of the shrikes, this other little bird caught my eye, and thank goodness it did, because it’s our very first stonechat, a Siberian stonechat (Saxicola maurus), my sources claim. Check out the size of those feet it’s sporting.
Finally, Anne wanted to come out to see the waterfront after breakfast, and we were barely out there for 15 minutes before she turned our birding walk into a wildlife walk by spotting the only lizard we’ve seen so far this trip. My sources claim that this is a Brauner’s Rock Lizard (Darevskia brauneri), and it appeared to be far more interested in some potential breakfast than it was in us.
And that’s a wrap on Turkey, at least for this trip, and we’re now at the airport awaiting a flight to our next destination. Tune in tomorrow, or the day, after if things don’t go exactly my way, to find out what amazing wildlife we get to see next.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 