In January 2023 I found a cheap flight to Athens and drove all of the way around the Gulf of Corinth, as described here and here. In mid-November 2024 I found another good one that also left on Friday after work, and this time decided to go a little bit further south to explore the Peleponnese. No targets, no particular aims other than exploration. I did have my new Sony camera lens by this point so this was an opportunity to try and find out how it worked.
As before I arrived in Athens at some crazy time, I think I picked up my rental car at 2am or thereabouts. I'd booked a hotel of sorts about half an hour away and so didn't get to bed until really late. For those that know me well this will strike you as most unlikely as I normally go to sleep before my children. Nonetheless I made it and so a few hours later I awoke to a pure blue sky and weak sunshine. Why anyone lives in the UK is beyond me.
I birded around the hotel whilst I got used to the light and being awake so soon after going to sleep. I was on the northern side of Athens near Acharnes, not far from Pan's cave and the Monastery of St Cyprian. My destination lay much further away though, and after a quick scout around - mostly Chaffinches - I set off west. I drove past Corinth and then down into the Peleponnese, with my first stop the Nestani Plateau at about half eleven. Nothing special here, just an opportunity to add a few birds to Arcadia - things like Hooded Crow, Stonechat and Linnet. I made a detour south of about 20 minutes to ensure I could colour in Lakonia, another area of Greece on the eBird map. Off the main road I climbed up into the hills for a few miles and stopped somewhere that felt promising. Again, nothing special, just Tits, Warblers and Finches, but that was all my silly plan required.
My real destination was the coast at Kalamata which I reached at about 2.30pm, much later than I had anticipated. This is entirely normal and always happens on every birding trip, you cannot avoid spending that little bit too long at each place you stop. It might only be a matter of minutes in each place, but then add in a few unplanned stops and it adds up to hours....
I headed west of Kalamata to the Koultouki river estuary and Bouka beach. I'd identified this spot earlier on as being promising and so it turned out. As well as birds it was notable for van nomads, almost the whole of the beach road being a camping spot for a series of enormous camper vans, converted buses, and full on overland expedition lorries. Many were from Germany and France, and some contained entire families with schooling presumably performed by the parents en-route. I am partially nomadic myself at times and I can see the attraction of swapping a dreary grey northern-european suburb for the warmth and clarity of the Aegean. The trucks with their huge ground clearance and enormous tyres were no doubt going further, perhaps contemplating as far as the Cape, the only things really standing in their way being paperwork and corruption rather than any physical obstacle. Some had dirt bikes on the back and satellite dishes on the roof, and you needed a ladder to even get into them. I briefly contemplated leaving Wanstead and following them but I have too many plants to fit into a lorry.
The birding was decent, better than I had experienced all day, with some classic european species like Zitting Cisticola and Moustached Warbler. I played with camera a bit, this was the first real opportunity to test it out in nice light. Naturally I flunked but I'd like to think that I learned a few things. Looking back on it now I recognise this as the beginning - that night in the hotel I read up about the things I'd struggled with and made some changes that now, several months later, are beginning to feel a bit closer to second nature. There is still some way to go. As ever the main issue was that the birds refused to pose at point blank range in front of me - extremely selfish of them.
After walking the edge of the reedbed and the tidal creek I walked out onto the beach. Here there were a few Kentish Plover, Sandwich Terns fishing in the bay, and a small flock of Linnet. Nothing earth-shattering but it was just very pleasant in the late afternoon sunshine. Some young Austrian vanistas were engaged in yoga, and a retired couple were setting out a table for dinner by the side of their camper with a view to die for. What a life! Looking inland vast numbers of Starlings were starting to gather pre-roost over the Messini Fields, Skylarks swirled over the short grass, and a burst of Cetti's Warbler carried over from the marsh. I retuned to Kalamata quite content and had an early dinner on the promenade.
The following morning I returned to the same spot. Morning yoga was underway - these are the kind of young people who I suspect may find the prospect of doing a day's work at some future point rather stressful but for now they need not worry about that and good luck to them. The retirees were not yet awake. It was a lot more birdy that in the late afternoon, and I dumped the car at the beach and wandered inland. Three Kentish Plover had been joined by two more but at the expense of a Sandwich Tern, groups of Little Egret and Cattle Egret flew overhead, and Marsh Harriers were quartering over the reeds whilst Buzzards did the same over the fields. Zitting Cisticola were more numerous, or certainly more vocal, and the Skylark flock had been augmented by two Crested Lark and a ton of Meadow Pipit. There were Stonechat everywhere, Sardinian Warbler was new, and Grey Wagtails were feeding on the edge of the water whist Serins jangled overhead. In the Messini fields - low level agriculture, hardly any machines involved - the Starlings had dispersed and were everywhere you looked, Black Redstarts sat up on small buildings, Meadow Pipits and Pied Wagtails scratched in the furrows and Blackcaps had decided that southern Greece was far enough and, like the Austrians, were enjoying life in this relaxed spot.
It was time to leave this haven, this escape from real life. Northern Europe was calling me back, specifically a flight leaving from Athens in about seven hours time that I unfortunately needed to be on much as bumming about in Messinia undoubtedly appealed. By early afternoon I was in Arkadia, perhaps a third of the way back, and stopped off at Lake Taka to try and boost the trip list a bit. This is a vast reservoir with steep sides and a driveable track all the way round. Here I found lots of Little, Great Crested and Black-necked Grebe and Coot, and in the flatlands surrounding the raised reservoir a couple of wintering Water Pipit gave themselves up around some shallow pools.
I just had time to swing in at Nea Kios saltflats at the top of the Gulf of Argolis, a bit of a detour but worth it for two more Water Pipit as well as nice views of Curlew, Grey Plover, Redshank, Greenshank and Greater Flamingo, and then it was a two hour drive in the fading light back up to Corinth and around to Athens. I'd perhaps not seen as many species as I had expected, and unlike my last visit I hadn't been able to take in any of the great sites of antiquity, though I did drive right past Mycenae and bought some biscuits.
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