N. Cyprus – Round-up

So to summarise, we had a ten day break and tallied 83 species (2 lifers). That was birding for about half our time there and to be honest not at the most productive time of the year, that would be in the Spring. With the exception of the Karpas, every site we visited was less than an hour and half drive away from our hotel on the outskirts of Kyrenia.

As you may know, you can not fly directly into Northern Cyprus, which leaves two options, fly via Turkey or fly direct to the south (Larnaca) and get a road transfer. We opted for the first; Pegasus Airline from Stansted to Istanbul then on to Ercan, (both you and your bags stay on the plane at Istanbul). We then hired a car from the airport and self drove ourselves everywhere, (we used Gunray). Accommodation wise we stayed at the Ship Inn (http://www.theshipinn.com), just outside Kyrenia, highly recommended. We self booked everything and had no issues apart from the car not the most reliable or comfortable!

You’ll find driving easy (they drive on the left) and we had no access problems, though the tarmac does run out rather frequently! The folk are very friendly and leave you alone in what is a very beautiful and stress free destination.

We found Steve Cale’s (http://www.steve-cale-artist.co.uk/) book “Where to watch birds in Northern Cyprus“of great value for site locations and thank him kindly for the chat and the supplementary info on a couple of the sites. For a country map we used Insight Travel Map - Cyprus.

Happy to answer questions with more details if you need them.

Life bird count: 398 Year bird count: 245 Month bird count: 92

Photo: Agama Lizard (Agama agama); Violet Dropwing Dragonfly (Trithemis annulata); Common Sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos)