As promised, here’s a second, early-morning look at some critters at the northeast corner of the Dead Sea.

I heard this first beauty and its traveling companions before I saw them, and they helpfully perched together in the top of a tall bare tree. I had only taken a couple of pictures, however, before they all moved on and my heart sank. Thankfully, my disappointment was premature, and they soon settled in a much lower tree so I could get the nicest pictures my gear could muster in the early morning light. It was only then that I could identify them as my very first Indian silverbills (Euodice malabarica).

This next bird actually did manage to take off before I could capture an image, but it too, didn’t go very far, and I could get a picture just good enough to identify it as our first great grey shrike (Lanius excubitor).

Anne and I had chased a couple of birds in vain yesterday morning, as they flitted around inside densely-leaved trees while teasing us with their calls, and this was one of them. Today, for reasons I will never know, this one relented, and now we know what an eastern olivaceous warbler (Iduna pallida) looks like.

When I saw this bird, I thought that maybe our great grey shrike had returned, but my sources claim that the light speckling on this little cutie marks it as a juvenile masked shrike (Lanius nubicus), instead.

Finally, we saw this magnificent bird yesterday, and Anne spotted it first, as I was focused on the sunbird above and behind it, but I was nervous about the identification. If my sources are correct, this is not only our first European honey-buzzard (Pernis apivorus), but also the first honey-buzzard reported at that location, though not in the region.

Anyway, in case you are wondering how they got that name, as I was, it is because they primarily eat the larvae and pupae of bees and wasps. Heck, they aren’t even true buzzards or hawks, but have their own genus of just honey-buzzards.

Lastly, here is the smallest butterfly I may have ever seen, a dark grass blue (Zizeeria karsandra).

After breakfast, we spent the rest of the today driving south to Aqaba, and tomorrow morning we hope to visit the Aqaba Bird Observatory, which bills itself as “an environmental masterpiece that utilizes treated water to create vital habitats for birds to rest during their journey along the second most important bird migration route in the world.” How exciting is that?

The stars must have aligned like nobody’s business over the last twenty hours because both of our flights and all our taxi rides went off without hitches, and we arrived on the shores of the Dead Sea in Jordan right on schedule early this morning. Anne did the sensible thing and immediately hit the sack to catch up on some quality sleep, but I had a date with some critters who just wouldn’t wait.

The first of several pleasant surprises was finally finding that Eurasian hoopoe I teased you with just over a week ago. WordPress isn’t doing too bad a job with this image, but I’m especially pleased with how it came out, so give it a click if you’d like a closer look at this gorgeous creature.

The next surprise was discovering that in addition to common redstarts and black redstarts, there are also just plain blackstarts (Oenanthe melanura), and this little cutie is the first one I’ve ever seen of the latter.

Similarly, it turns out that in addition to common bulbuls and Malagasy bulbuls, there are also white-spectacled bulbuls (Pycnonotus xanthopygos). Who knows how they got that name, right?

Not everything comes in neat threes, and I’ve had the good luck to see a few different sunbirds, including a scarlet-chested and a few variable, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised to see one more, but that doesn’t make it any less of a treat when I get to see such a magnificent pair as these Palestine sunbirds (Cinnyris osea). Here’s the sensibly-dressed female, …

and here’s the iridescent male, looking quite similar to the Malagasy sunbird males we saw on Comoros back in 2024.

Finally, birds were not the only class putting on a show today, and here’s a spectacular crimson-speckled flunkey moth (Utetheisa pulchella) representin’ for the insects.

By then the sun was getting pretty hot, Anne and I had to determine just how buoyant the Dead Sea was, which turns out to be quite a bit, I needed a little sleep booster shot myself, and I had some writing to do, so those are the critters for today. The good news is that I’ll get to rinse and repeat tomorrow morning, and I can’t wait to see who I’ll find next.

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.

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.

After a wonderfully calm morning yesterday, the wind picked up, and it was still blowing like crazy this morning. I did go out looking for critters again today, but nobody wanted to work with me. Instead, here are a few pictures I captured yesterday afternoon while seeing the sights.

Here’s a scarce swallowtail (Iphiclides podalirius) just outside the Parthenon atop the Acropolis of Athens. I read that “despite the name ‘scarce swallowtail’, this species is quite common. The scarcity of United Kingdom migrants is responsible for the English vernacular name.”

A nomad (Sympetrum fonscolombii) just outside the Temple of Poseidon in Sounion.

Finally, we’ve been seeing Eurasian magpies everywhere we go, and this one happens to be also at the Acropolis of Athens.

Tomorrow we catch a flight to the next leg of this tour, and I’ll post something if I can, but I’d better not make any promises.

As promised, I got up and out at sunrise this morning to see who else might be up to greet the day, and here’s the first common kingfisher I’ve seen in a while. It was perched on a rock just offshore from our hotel, and that red background is the water of the Petalioi Gulf reflecting light from the low sun.

Then I turned my sights inland, and here’s one of a pair of Eurasian collared doves on a wire over the street right in front of the hotel.

There was a nice quiet street leading up the hill to the main road along the coast, and here’s a Eurasian jay pausing just long enough to get a better grip on that nut it had found before it bolted out of sight.

Finally, the treat of the morning was this darling spotted flycatcher, whom we last saw in Malawi. It reminded me today of the wood-pewees in Estabrook Park in how it appeared loath to give up a good hunting perch just because I was standing only 15 feet away and taking its picture.

I’ll have time again tomorrow morning to see who else lives around here, and I can’t wait to see who I find.

PS. Anne has been sitting next to me as I write this, and she suggested the title.

We’ve arrived in Marathon, Greece, safe and sound, but after dark, and our daytime was split between riding in airplanes and sitting in the airport at Istanbul where we connected, so I didn’t get any pictures today. I did see a couple of house sparrows in the terminal and a pair of wagtails out on the tarmac, but I wasn’t ready to take their pictures, so I got nothin’.

Instead, let me leave you with my favorite airport bird of all time, at least so far, which is this superb starling (Lamprotornis superbus), and yes, that’s its real name. We saw a couple of them on the tarmac at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport outside of Nairobi, Kenya, back in March of 2024 on our way home from the Comoros islands, and I could hardly believe my eyes.

I still can’t believe I was able to get a picture through the dirty terminal window to come out even this good, so it is my best reminder to “always be birding.”

Tomorrow I will get to go out to the waterfront at sunrise to see who’s around, so wish me luck!

As I mentioned yesterday, Anne and I are off to see another corner of the world that is new to us, and I get to bring my camera, so I hope to have some good pictures to show you soon. Today, however, will be full of bus rides and airport lounges, so here are some sights I might get to enjoy once we land.

I see that the Eurasian hoopoe has been spotted at our first destination, and here’s a pair I saw in Malawi back in 2023.

Wagtails are always a pleasure to work with because they tend to be pretty comfortable with the camera, in my experience, and here’s a grey wagtail from Budva this past January.

I’ve only ever seen a European stonechat once before, and that was during my time in South Holland, so it would be great to have another chance.

Finally, we’re going to be by the water, so I should see some shorebirds, such as the Eurasian curlew, which we first saw also in South Holland.

Wish me luck, and I’ll keep you posted.