A Few Familiar Birds.

We had a cloudy start to the day but thankfully it stayed dry and fairly warm right up until I was cycling home from the zoo in the lightest of mizzle which has now become steady rain.

It took me nearly fours hours to weed and remove all the fallen leaves from the gravel by the wolf-dogs but I got it done. Most of my earlier plantings have survived and I added more ground cover sedums (green and red). Some of the pheasant grass that I put in are not looking too good so I may replace them with the ones I left to grow in my vegetable plots.

The large play area (photo from 2021) has now been roped off after an unfortunate incident. Despite the signs saying the equipment is for children under 10 years old an exceedingly overweight adult refused to come off and and went on to jump up and down on the bridge. The next day one of the wooden slats was reported as broken. And now it cannot be used by anyone.

Back to sunny Crete -

You would imagine that travelling nearly 2,000 miles that there would be some exotic birds to be seen. But this was not the case. 

Every evening a large flock of sparrows would come to roost in a pine tree next to our building.

Along with the sparrows' chattering we would hear the collared doves. We also saw blackbirds and heard wood pigeons.

On one of my walks through the olive groves I spotted a wheatear (or something very similar). I now know that wheatears are migratory and spend their winters in Africa.

Then while out early one morning to catch the sunrise I came across a kingfisher fishing in the sea. 

Even the gulls were the same herring gulls though Plaka only seemed to have one gull. Maybe the fishing boats took their catches into Elounda and the rest of the gulls were there.