A couple of days ago, I submitted the full manuscript of my book: “Birds of the California Delta” to the editor I have been working with at Heyday Books.
My manuscript includes the profiles of 25 species of bird that are found within and really exemplify some aspect of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. It also has an introduction to the Delta, an introduction to birding, and assorted other sections on what the book is, resources for birds and birding, etc.
Incomplete illustration of a Yellow-billed Magpie (Pica nuttalli) by Martha Espinoza.
Each of the species profiles will be accompanied by an illustration. Since I am not that much of an artist, myself, I am working with a woman named Martha Espinoza who is in the process of creating some stunning works to go along with my writing. If you are curious to see the kind of work Martha does, check out her website, Espinoza Illustrator. Also, the images in this post are a few of the incomplete works she is creating, and even those are beautiful. Just wait until you see the final works!!!
Incomplete illustration of a male Blue Grosbeak (Passerina caerulea) by Martha Espinoza.
Now I wait for my Heyday editor to look over the manuscript and get back to me with comments. That should happen in the next month or two. I will admit to being fairly nervous about this step. Creating the manuscript up until this point was work, but it was under my control. I could set my own pace, decide which parts of the book I was going to work on in any given week or month, and continue tweaking the text until I was happy with it.
But, now is when it goes beyond me. Will the editor like what I have written? Will my work be close to what Heyday is looking for, or am I going to have to really change my writing voice to create the book they are looking for? Will the editing process be relatively short and painless, or will it be long and grueling? I don’t know yet, and I am finding that to be a bit nerve wracking.
Incomplete illustration of a couple of White-faced Ibis (Plegadis chihi) by Martha Espinoza.
But, my hopes are high, and I am sure that no matter how painless or grueling, I will figure out what needs to be done to bring this book into reality. The editing/publishing process is scheduled to take about 12 to 18 months, so the book should come out in 2025.
One of the next big steps (after all the editing) is to start planning the launch of the book. Do you have any ideas on this? Would you be more likely to attend a bird walk or a book signing? Would you want to go to a nature area outside or meet somewhere indoors? Do you like book readings by authors? Do know of any ways of getting the word out about books (birding groups, book stores, news publications, radio programs, etc.)?
I would definitely appreciate any input you care to share.
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I posted my first blog post on this blog twelve years ago, today! In those years, I have written a total of 353 posts, and those posts have been collectively viewed a total of 104,218 times by 82,145 visitors who came from 183 countries all around the world, 103 of which decided to become followers of the blog! I am so grateful that each of you decided to spend some of your time with me here on this blog, and I hope you continue to find the information here to be valuable.
This past year saw me continued to explore and learn about bird photography, and I hope you enjoy some of those images making their way into blog posts. I have continued to create content for my social media platforms that include YouTube (613 subscribers), Instagram (2,018 followers), and I also added Threads (1,057 followers). I am really enjoying the communities I am finding and that are developing around me on those platforms.
As part of those efforts, and on the suggestion of my wife, I have set up a monthly nature challenge! Each month of 2024, I am setting myself a nature-based goal. I have designed these challenges so that they can be done from just about anywhere and by just about anyone and should not be overwhelmingly time-consuming, so I hope you are inspired to join in and complete these challenges. And don’t worry about jumping in now (in April)! you can go back and retroactively fulfill challenges, or just start this month! Since this month includes Earth Day (on the 22nd) I thought a stewardship-themed challenge would be good so for April, my challenge is to go out to a park or other open space and pick up the trash I find there.
The list of monthly nature challenges for 2024 that I will be aiming to fulfill and that I invite you to, as well.
The other really big development this year is that I am writing a book! I signed a book deal with a publishing company called Heyday Books to write a book tentatively called “The Birds of the California Delta.” I am incredibly excited about this project! Heyday has published three other books on birds of very specific areas, namely Berkeley, Lake Merritt, and Point Reyes. My book will be the fourth in this burgeoning series. While I am writing the text of the book, I am working with an incredibly talented artist to create the illustrations. Martha Espinoza is a scientific illustrator from Costa Rica, and I am thrilled that she is creating this book with me. Check out her website and tell her I say hi. The full draft of the book is due to the Heyday in about a month, and then there is the whole editing and printing process. If all goes according to plan, the book should be on shelves in late 2025.
The other three books published by Heyday that mine will be joining.
And this next year of A Birding Naturalist is going to be an exciting one. I will take you on trips to learn about birds and nature in many interesting places across California, and I will be going on my first trip to the Northeastern US with a visit to Maine! I have plans to form new partnerships and lead more birding walks, and I will bring you along on all of it. And my commitment to sharing the knowledge of the natural world is as strong as ever! I hope you continue to join me on this journey.
Stay tuned! And enjoy the natural world!
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A few months ago, I was thrilled to be given a set of “The Birds of California” by William Leon Dawson (1923)(aka the Dawson guides) by Allen Fish (the director of the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory and a good friend). I have been really enjoying leafing through the beautiful writing and illustrations of this four volume set. In so doing, I stumbled upon an intriguing comment. In the entry for the Western Kingbird (Tyrannus verticalis), there is a mention that when these birds feed on bees, they only eat the drones (male bees).
The Birds of California (aka The Dawson Guides) are a four volume set of books wonderfully written by William Leon Dawson and illustrated by Major Allan Brooks, Donald R. Dickey, Wright M. Pierce, William L. Finley, and the Author. Upper left image shows the spines of the four volumes, lower left image shows the endpaper of one of the volumes, and the image on the right shows the title page. Photos: Aaron N.K. Haiman
This claim struck me a rather quaint. It seemed like the kind of note that was often made in the late 1800s and early 1900s about some aspect of bird biology and that would later be found to be nothing more than idle fancy or something based off of a very small number of observations (often just one). But, it did pique my curiosity.
I did some poking around reading papers and book extracts and found, much to my surprise, that Dawson was right! Western Kingbirds select drone honeybees! And not only that, but other birds that at least sometimes feed on bees such as Cliff Swallows, Black Phoebes, Northern Mockingbirds, and even House Sparrows do the same!
Adult Western Kingbird perched on a barbed wire fence. Photo: All About Birds.
In 1926, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released a their Farmer’s Bulletin #630 which included notes on birds eating drones that stated: “Six hundred and sixty-five stomachs of the Eastern Kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus) were examined and 22 contained 61 honey bees of which 51 were drones and 8 workers; 62 stomachs of the Western Kingbird contained 30 honey bees of which 29 were drones and one a worker.”
In 1945, Chapman Grant published a paper in the Condor (linked here) with the title “Drone Bees Selected by Birds” in which he describes that Cliff Swallows and Western Kingbirds were suspected of favoring drones. As a side note, Grant mentions that some people refer to Western Kingbirds as “bee martins” which I think is a pretty fun name even if martins are actually more closely related to swallows.
In 1990, a paper (linked here) was published in The American Bee Journal that discussed Western Kingbird and House Sparrow activity around bee hives, and noted that the birds seemed to be selecting drones, and that the period of day with the highest bird activity around hives (11am to 5pm) matched the times of highest drone activity.
Finally, I found a 2023 paper (linked here) titled “The Birds and the Bees: Western Kingbirds (Tyrannus vertcalis) prefer drone honeybees” that was published in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology in which the authors observed Western Kingbirds watching the entrances of beehives and sallying out to capture drones when they emerged from the hive, but not pursuing worker bees. The authors also looked at the Kingbird’s pellets and found that: “Analysis of regurgitated pellets collected under the perch site revealed head capsules of 149 drone bees and none of worker bees.”
Adult Western Kingbird alighting on a plant stalk. Photo: Sharif Uddin.
I have been absolutely delighted by this knowledge! I think that the ability of a Western Kingbird to identify honeybees to caste (drone vs. worker) is pretty impressive, and that evolution has favored the strategy of preying on stingless drones is awesome! I am also impressed by Dawson’s observations and that he was, in fact, on to something. This experience has also reminded me how much I enjoy learning about birds, nature, and science. Here I came across a tidbit of information that then led to a wonderful journey of discovery (at least my own personal discovery). Wonderful! So, thank you, Allen, for sending me down this rabbit-hole! It was a fun trip, and I learned a lot!
I hope you also get to go on your own journeys of discovery and that you enjoy them as much as I did.
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I am trying something new this year that I hope will be fun. Fun for me, and also fun for you as well!
I have listed below a nature/birding-based challenge for each month of 2024. These challenges are intended to keep me learning and exploring, and I hope they might do the same for you. I am quite looking forward to them! If these strike you as interesting, I hope you join along!
I am laying them out one per month because I don’t want these challenges to be overwhelming or too difficult. They are meant to grow our knowledge, not tax us. So, feel free to participate in all the challenges or just one or any number in between.
I hope you come along and join me in a year of monthly challenges to learn more about the natural world!
January – Create an eBird list. This can be a single list for a single time birding trip. It can also be more if you want it to be. eBird has several different categories of list (stationary, traveling, incidental, etc.) so pick the one that is right for you. Once you have created your list, post it to eBird, and share the link in the comments here or on YouTube, Instagram, or Threads!
February – Share Your Spark Bird. In honor of Valentine’s Day this month, share how your love of birds got started. A Spark Bird is the bird that first grabbed your attention or opened your eyes to birding or in some way got you started being interested in birds. What was your Spark Bird? What made you fall in love with these amazing creatures? Share your story in the comments here or on YouTube, Instagram, or Threads!
March – New Bird Call/Song. As spring approaches now is a great time to increase our ear-birding skills. Pick a bird with whose calls and/or songs you are not familiar with get familiar with them! Which species did you pick? What did you notice about its vocalizations? What helped you learn the call or song? Share your new knowledge in the comments here or on YouTube, Instagram, or Threads!
April – Trash Cleanup. In honor of Earth Day this month, go out and take care of the earth a bit! Picking up trash is something that we can all do and that helps keep pollution out of the environment. It also makes green spaces that much more pleasant to spend time in. So, this month grab a garbage bag, head out to any green space you like (a nature area, a city park, a bike path, etc.) and get some trash out of the environment. You can do this by joining a formal trash cleanup event, go out with a few friends, or just go it alone. Share a picture of your trash haul (and maybe a before and after photo) in the comments here or on YouTube, Instagram, or Threads!
May – Try a New Birding Spot. Spring is a great time to get out and explore, so this month go to a new birding/nature spot and see what you can see! Maybe there is a place you have been curious about for a while, now is a great time to try it out. Share your spot and what you found there in the comments here or on YouTube, Instagram, or Threads!
June – Create an iNaturalist List. iNaturalist is an amazing online, citizen science database filled with millions of nature observations. This month, try going out and spotting some non-avian critters. Once you have created your list, post your observations to iNaturalist, and share the link in the comments here or on YouTube, Instagram, or Threads!
July – Learn a New Native Plant. Plants are amazing and there are so many different species! This month, learn about a plant that is native to your area, but that you are unfamiliar with. Share the plant and some of what you learned about it in the comments here or on YouTube, Instagram, or Threads!
August – Where Does Your Water Come From? We all drink water, but it is not always obvious where that water comes from, and the answers can be quite surprising. Does it come from a river or a reservoir or an aquifer? This month try and figure out where your drinking water comes from. Share what you discover in the comments here or on YouTube, Instagram, or Threads!
September – Top 5 Species. With fall migration in full swing, what were five of your favorite species you saw this month? They can be favorites for any reason you like. Maybe they were the rarest or the prettiest or the hardest to find or something else entirely. However you decide, list your top five favorite species in the comments here or on YouTube, Instagram, or Threads!
October – Add a Recording to Xeno-Canto. Xeno-Canto is an online, citizen science database that collects the sounds of nature. These include bird vocalizations, but also noises of mammals, frogs, insects, and just about anything else. This month make a recording of a nature sound. This can be done with your cellphone or some other microphone if you have one. Once you have created your recording, post it Xeno-Canto, and share the link in the comments here or on YouTube, Instagram, or Threads!
November – Share a Birding Story. With the holidays approaching, now is a great time to share stories with friends and family, and why not make those stories about birds and nature! This month, share a favorite birding or nature story with someone. They can be a friend, a family member, a complete stranger. What story did you share? What was the conversation like? Share your experience in the comments here or on YouTube, Instagram, or Threads!
December – Read a Book on Birds or Nature. As the year comes to an end, it is a great time to curl up with a book. This month, read a book (audiobooks absolutely count!) that focuses on birds, nature, science, the environment, or other related topic. What book did you chose and why? Was it a good read? Share your book in the comments here or on YouTube, Instagram, or Threads!
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I recently spent a night camping at Van Damme State Park. This was part of a work trip where I was visiting a couple of projects in Mendocino County to check on their progress. I got to the campground, found my site, and then spent some time wandering around and exploring the park.
Van Damme State Park entrance sign. Photo: Aaron N.K. Haiman
Van Damme State Park covers 1,831 acres surrounding the area where the Little River flows into the Pacific Ocean. Within these acres are canyons and ridges, forests and meadows, and a lot of wildlife that lives within those habitats.
I got my first wonderful woodpecker surprise on my initial drive in as I drove through the campground, made a turn, and saw a Pileated Woodpecker sitting on the side of the road! I got a photo of the bird through my windshield (so it is a bit blurry) before it then flew up to a Douglas Fir just a few yards away. As it perched on the side of that tree, I was able to get a couple more shots with my car window rolled down.
The Pileated Woodpecker as it perched on the side of the road just in front of my car! Photo: Aaron N.K. Haiman.
The adult Pileated Woodpecker as it worked its way up the side of a tree after flying up from the roadside. Photo: Aaron N.K. Haiman.
And the woodpeckers just kept coming! As I explored, there were a couple of family groups of Acorn Woodpeckers all around the meadow where I was camping. Down near the Little River itself, a Downy Woodpecker was foraging in a stand of alders. Back towards by campsite, I saw a beautiful Red-breasted Sapsucker (sapsuckers are members of the woodpecker family), and I also had a Hairy Woodpecker land on a tree close to me and peck into its bark.
Hairy Woodpecker searching for insects under the park of this tree. Photo: Aaron N.K. Haiman.
It was really fun to see the different variations on the woodpecker theme that have evolved, and to see them all overlapping in range indicates that these species species are each occupying a niche that does not overlap too much with the other species and so means that all of them can persist. This concentration of woodpeckers in such a relatively small area of forest was really terrific to come across! It was a woodpecker woods biodiversity extravaganza!
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As the date (September 30th) for the 2023 Drake’s Beach Sanderlings bird-a-thon approaches, the team members are getting organized.
The Northern Saw-Whet Owl is the mascot for the 2023 Rich Stallcup Bird-a-thon. (Photo: Point Blue Conservation Science)
A lot of factors come into play when planning a big-day-style event like this. Making sure everyone knows what to expect for the day from start and end times to the possible weather conditions to the fast-paced travel that we will be undertaking. Making sure that gear is clean, charged, and ready so that we can get the best viewing experiences possible. Scanning rare bird reports is useful because it gives us all an idea of what birds are where as we get closer and closer to the bird-a-thon date. Planning the route is one of the most important steps because mapping out the route and timing out the stops is how to figure what habitats are available, where they are located, and how many we can visit. Where do we need to be at particular times of day to make seeing the specific species as likely as possible?
And then there is the hoping. Will owls be around the areas we are planning to go owling? Will the weather conditions the night of September 29th be such that migrants tend to stop and hold over so that we might find them on the 30th? Will birds that were reported in the days leading up to the 30th still be there on the day, or will they have moved on? Will there be tremendous winds that drive species into cover or will a dense fog bank make offshore seabird spotting difficult? Will low water levels dry up habitat patches and force birds to move to locations that are harder for us to find? So many variables, and we control so few of them.
Members of the 2022 Drake’s Beach Sanderlings team at the end of an amazing day! (Photo: Aaron N.K. Haiman)
This event is always one of the highpoints in my birding year, and the preparations add to the anticipation of the day and the excitement and energy due the day! Here is hoping we see lots of birds, but whatever happens, it will be an amazing adventure!
If you think this team is worth supporting, you can do so by pledging at the Sanderlings donation page.
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This year, 2023, the Drake’s Beach Sanderlings are continuing their unprecedented run as the longest running youth bird-a-thon team! We will be participating in the Rich Stallcup Bird-a-thon organized by Point Blue Conservation Science!
This year, the team will be trying our luck on September 30th! We will crisscross Marin County in a breakneck day rocketing from site to site and habitat to habitat in search of as many species as we can possibly find!
Adult Sanderling (Calidris alba) in non-breeding plumage. Photo: All About Birds.
This event, and the Drake’s Beach Sanderling’s wild day, is a fundraiser for Point Blue Conservation Science. As such, I am writing to ask you to please donate and support this amazing team of passionate, dedicated, young birders as an amazing team and Point Blue Conservation Science as an amazing organization. Your donation will support climate change research, habitat conservation, the effects of urbanizations on birds, and so much more. You can donate by following this link (also added at the end of this letter) and clicking the ‘Donate Now’ button just to the right of the team photos.
My heart-felt thanks goes out to each person who contributes to support this amazing cause and team.
The American Ornithologists Union (AOU) is an organization that tracks the taxonomy of the birds of North America. It does so by publishing an official checklist that is the be-all and end-all of what species is what. Each time a new edition or supplement is released, birders wait to see if and how the latest understanding of birds has changed and been updated. Far and away the most common types of changes are splits and lumps. These are when either, in light of new scientific research, a known species is determined to actually be two or more separate species (a split) or when two or more known species are determined to actually belong to the same species (a lump).
Well, on July 6th, 2023 the AOU released the 64th supplement to the 7th edition of the Birds of North America Checklist. It had several splits and lumps that are interesting, and I encourage you to check them all out, here. But I think one, in particular, is really interesting and that is the split of the Northern Goshawk.
Adult American Goshawk. Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The Northern Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) was a species of forest hawk that lives across much of the boreal forests of the northern hemisphere. But research has been piling up that the birds in North America and the birds in Eurasia may not really be as close as it was thought.
The birds have somewhat different colorations, but that is subtle. The larger differences have been found in the DNA of these two groups and the vocalizations as well. The vocal differences are especially exciting to me because they were really noticed by researchers who used online community science databases!
These databases, such as eBird and xeno-canto, are collections of data that has been contributed by individuals from around the world. Anyone who makes an observation that fits with the databases format (for example, eBird is all about bird sightings, and xeno-canto is focused on the sounds of the natural world) can add those observations to the database. Then when anyone has a question and needs some data, those databases are waiting for them. I think contributions of citizen scientists to these types of databases is incredibly valuable, and I am thrilled that these sources of data contributed to the Goshawk decision.
Speaking of which, the AOU looked at all this accumulated data and decided to split the Northern Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) into two separate species. The birds is Eurasia will keep the same scientific name, but now go by the common name of Eurasian Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis), and the birds in North America will now be known as the American Goshawk (Accipiter atricapillus)!
Adult Eurasian Goshawk. Photo: Wikipedia
I am predicting that this splitting of species that span North America and Eurasia into two or more species will become more and more common and more species are examined in light of new data such as DNA and observations from community science databases accumulate.
Personally, I can’t wait to get out and use the name American Goshawk for the first time!
Have you seen one or both these new species?
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This is exciting! Also a little overwhelming and terrifying! But mostly really exciting!!!
I have just signed a contract with a publishing company to write a book!
Starting last year, I began reaching out to various publishing companies with an idea for a book. I was thinking about bringing many of the essays I had written for the community magazines in the east bay into book form. I put book proposals together and submitted them one by one. And one by one, I got polite “no thank you” responses from about a half-dozen publishers. But then, one response I got was a bit different. It was a “no thank you, but…” response.
The contract is real! Photo: Aaron N.K. Haiman
This response was from Heyday Books an independent book publishing company based in Berkeley, CA. Heyday had published a book called the “Birds of Berkeley” by Oliver James in 2018 (with the paperback edition just released this year). This was followed by “Birds of Lake Merritt” by Alex Harris in 2021. The third book in this burgeoning series is called “Birds of Point Reyes” by Keith Hansen, and has just been released this month (June of 2023). Upon reading my book proposal, and looking into my blog (this one you are reading), Heyday was interested in exploring the idea of me writing a fourth “Birds of…” book.
After talking about various areas of interest, we settled on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, as I have worked and lived and birded in the Delta for over a decade now, and have a fair bit if familiarity with the area and its birds.
However, writing a book is one thing. Creating illustrations is another thing entirely. I sketch at a very amateur level, and so would not be creating my own illustrations. But, I have worked with a very talented artist from Costa Rica named Martha Espinoza before who I met through Instagram. I asked if she would be interested in working with me on this book project. She said yes, and so we are going to be the author/illustrator team for this book.
The working title is “Birds of the California Delta.” Along the same lines as the other books in this series, “Birds of the California Delta” is not intended to be a complete guide to all the species of bird found in the Delta, but rather a book that highlights and brings to life 25 species of bird that typify the Delta. Birds that are common to the Delta and/or are only found there and/or that embody the Delta birding experience in some way. For each of these species, I will write a species profile that will highlight a few aspects of the birds’ natural history, personality, or other traits. And for each species, Martha will create a full color illustration. The hope is that by reading the book, a person will have a better sense of the Delta as a place, and of the birds and birding experience that can be found there.
Heyday and I worked out a contract, and it has been signed by everyone! And Martha and Heyday worked out a contract, and it has been signed by everyone.
So, I am writing a book!
Martha and I have about a year to write the manuscript and create the illustrations. Heyday’s editing and publishing timeline is then about a year and a half after that, so in something like late 2025 is when the book will likely come out.
I plan on bringing you along on this new adventure. Pease feel free to ask any questions you may have about the publishing process, and I will be happy to answer anything I can. I am sure there will be moments in this long process that will be new and exciting and daunting and frustrating and rewarding. I am really happy to begin!
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The Temple of Hephaestus at the Ancient Greek Agora in Athens, Greece. Photo: Aaron N.K. Haiman
My family and I just recently visited Greece for the first time. We spent the first half of May 2023 traveling to several locations across southern Greece including Athens, the Island of Crete, and The Peloponnese. It was a really interesting trip with a lot of history, great food, delicious wine, beautiful landscapes, and some amazing birds! During our travels, several things struck me about birding in Greece and I wanted to put those down in writing. I also wanted to share the species that I saw, some species that I missed, and some of the picture I took. I hope you enjoy.
We landed in Athens and spent the first two days of the trip exploring the city and overcoming the jetlag that resulted form crossing 10 times zones. Right off the bat, the new birds started with Common Swifts circling over the city seen from the window of our Air BnB. We spent those first couple of days exploring the Ancient Greek Agora, the Ancient Roman Agora, and the surrounding city. The agoras both include green spaces. The Ancient Greek Agora, in particular, has a nice sized area of grounds surrounding the reconstructed Agora, the Temple of Hephaestus (which is spectacular!), and other temples and ruins. These green spaces attracts quite a few birds including Eurasian Magpie, Alpine Swift, House Martin, Common Blackbird, Hooded Crow, Eurasian Jay, Great Tit, Collared Flycatcher, Common Gull, Rose-ringed Parakeet (which are non-native to Greece), and most excitingly for me, Eurasian Hoopoe!
Eurasian Hoopoe at the National Botanical Gardens in Athens, Greece. Photo: Aaron N.K. Haiman
Indian Peafowl at the Palace of Knossos on Crete, Greece. Photo: Aaron N.K. Haiman
After we got our travel legs under us, we took the overnight ferry from Athens to the island of Crete where we spent several days. Crete is amazing! Wonderful history, incredible food, some of the nicest people, good wine, and nature that is wild and beautiful and right at your doorstep. The biggest birding treat of Crete (and my favorite bird of the whole trip) were the flocks of European Bee-eaters that flew past on a daily basis. I never saw these birds land, but I would hear their odd vibrating blip-blip calls from quite a distance. The calls would get louder and louder and soon a flow of birds would stream into sight, fly overhead, and then disappear to parts unknown. Sometimes they would be very high, but other times they would be low enough for me to get great looks at these stunningly beautiful birds!
Great Tit in Epidavros, Greece. Photo: Aaron N.K. Haiman
On Crete, I added Sardinian Warbler, Blackcap, Wood Pigeon, Common Buzzard, Chaffinch, Blue Tit, Red-rumped Swallow, Golden Oriole, Western Jackdaw, Griffon Vulture, Common Kestrel, Eurasian Hobby, Common Redstart, Scops Owl, and more to the species list. On Crete, we also visited museums and aquariums, first played in the Mediterranean Sea, hiked down into a steep gorge where we found figures of beautiful women carved into the rock walls, and we wandered through local street markets. Unfortunately, one species that I did not get to add to the list was a Lammergeier. The Lammergeier, or Bearded Vulture, is a fairly rare species in Europe, but that has a breeding population on Crete. It has been one of my top bucket list species for a very long time, and I was hoping to see one during our visit. However, these birds generally stick to the high and rugged mountains of Crete, and we did not cross paths with one.
Heraklion Harbor on Crete at sunset as the ferry left to return us to Athens. Photo: Aaron N.K. Haiman
Hooded Crow at the fountain in Corinth, Greece. Photo: Aaron N.K. Haiman
We once again crossed the Sea of Crete to return to Athens by overnight ferry, but did not stay in the city. Instead, we rented a car and drove through Corinth to The Peloponnese which is the southwestern peninsula of Greece. We spent most of our time in the small town of Epidavros, but also drove on day trips to other parts of the peninsula. The Air BnB we rented was right on the water in a small and sheltered cove surrounded by orange groves. We swam in the Mediterranean every day seeing all sorts of sealife, visited the breathtaking theater of Asclepius, enjoyed shopping at a local market, collecting shells along the beaches. One of the day trips took us to a terrific wetland at a place called Nea Kios on the outskirts of the town of Napflion.
Kentish Plover at the Nea Kios Wetlands at Napflion, Greece. Photo: Aaron N.K. Haiman
We spent about an hour exploring this coastal wetland and the beach at its edge, and that hour provided the highest rate of lifers per hour than I have experienced in a long time! Kentish Plovers and Little Stints greeted us right away, and these were quickly followed by Little Egret, White-winged Tern, Common Ringed Plover, Black-winged Stilt, a Greater Flamingo, and many more! After we left the wetland, we found our way to an amazing Mycenean bridge that is one of the oldest and best preserved structures in Greece! This was a really special spot with a very narrow, magical little road that led through the hills and green meadows surrounded by singing Sardinian Warblers and colorful wildflowers. At the bas of the bridge, my wife found the most amazing Preying Mantis that I have ever seen. We looked it up later and found it to a species called Empusa faciata. This amazing mantis had really long antenna which marked it to be a male which use those antennae to detect and trace the pheromones released by the females. In The Peloponnese, I also added European Serin, Cirl Bunting, Great Spotted Woodpecker, European Shag, and other species to the list.
Preying Mantis (Empusa faciata) found nest to the Mycenean Bridge near Napflion, Greece. Photo: Aaron N.K. Haiman
When our stay in Epidavros was over, we drove back across The Peloponnese, stopped at the very commanding and dramatic Mycenean Citadel at Midea, and returned to Athens for the last few days of our trip. Unfortunately, on our first evening back in Athens, a thief stole my wife’s purse in which was her cell phone, driver’s license, bank card, and all of our passports. That put a damper on the next few days as we got documents organized and then waited until Monday for the US Embassy in Athens to open. We did visit the Acropolis which was pretty amazing and definitely worth making the time for , and the National Botanical Gardens where I added what ended up being the last new bird species of the trip, Monk Parakeets (also not native to Greece).
Eurasian Jay at the National Botanical Gardens in Athens, Greece. Aaron N.K. Haiman
When Monday morning rolled around, we got to he US Embassy bright and early. We were worried because Monday was scheduled to be our final day in Greece, and our flight out of Athens International Airport was at 3:50am on Tuesday, so that did not leave a lot of time to get new passports organized so that we could go home. But, every member of the State Department we interacted with at the Embassy was fantastic! Not only were they really well organized and impressively multilingual, they were also very reassuring and confident that we would have our new passports in plenty of time to get to our scheduled flight. They were correct, and after submitting documents to them and then waiting for a few hours in a very nice café with excellent pastries, we returned to the Embassy and picked up our new emergency passports! We had a final dinner in Athens which was delicious, headed to the airport, and flew back to the USA with no problems.
All in all, though the trip included some bumps and complications and stressors, it really was an amazing trip filled with extraordinary experiences. We saw things and touched things and tasted things and heard things that will stay with us for a lifetime.
Common Blackbird in Epidavros, Greece. Photo: Aaron N.K. Haiman
One thing that surprised me about birding in Greece was how little attention the birding seemed to get. In preparation for this trip, I looked into the bird books and was surprised as how few there were. The best guide for birding in Greece was a bird book that covers all of Europe! There is a slim book on the Birds of Greece, but it is brief and only focuses on the most common species found in the country. And there seemed to be no bird books exclusively focusing on specific areas of Greece such as Crete, The Peloponnese, any of the other islands, etc. In North America, one can find numerous books discussing in detail the birds of the whole continent, the USA, each of the states on the USA, specific cities or counties, specific parks or nature areas, etc., etc. There was definitely nothing close to this level of detail that I was able to find relating to the birds of Greece. Social media is similarly bereft. Look through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. for things like “#BirdsOfNorthAmeria” or “#BirdsOfCalifornia” and the like, and you will find results numbing in the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions! A search for “BirdsOfGreece” or “GreekBirding” and the like will yield results in the hundreds or maybe thousands. And birding guides tell the same story. I searched for birding guides in Greece, and only found a few websites, and several of the organizations I did find were no longer active. This all leads me to suspect that Greece is a generally under-birded area which makes it exciting to visit as it feels like more of an unexplored frontier. However, I wonder what explains this lack of birding attention. Maybe it is just that the birders of Greece are not plugged into social media very much, so they are active, just not where I was looking. And maybe the guides work more by word of mouth, and do not need websites. However, this seems unlikely to me. Greeks are plenty tech-savvy, and so Greek birders would be just as likely to be active online as other birding populations. Maybe it is more that Greek is known for its history and amazing Mediterranean beaches and coasts, so the tourist attractions are mostly focused on these types of activities and not genuinely not on the birds and other wildlife.
Chaffinch at the Palace of Knossos on Crete, Greece. Aaron N.K. Haiman
Overall, I saw a total of 48 bird species on this trip, 35 of which were lifers for me. These birds were beautiful and exciting. I loved finding each and every one, and the photos and memories that I returned with will stay with me and enrich me for a long time to come. If you ever get the chance to visit Greece (and Crete in particular), I highly recommend it!
I will be sharing more experiences, thoughts, photos, and information about Greece and the birds I saw there on my Instagram account and YouTube channel (links at the bottom of this post), so feel free to follow along if you are interested.
Theater at the Sanctuary of Asclepius, Epidavros, Greece. Photo: Aaron N.K. Haiman
Bird Species List (+ indicates lifer):
Rock Dove
Eurasian Collard-Dove
Common Swift +
House Sparrow
Eurasian Magpie +
Collard Flycatcgher +
Eurasian Jay +
House Martin
Eurasian Hoopoe +
Rose-ringed Parakeet +
Barn Swallow
Common Gull +
Alpine Swift +
Common Blackbird +
Great Tit
Yellow-legged Gull +
Hooded Crow +
Sardinian Warbler +
Blue Tit
Chaffinch
Indian Peafowl
Common Buzzard +
Wood Pigeon
Eurasian Hobby +
Common Kestrel +
Blackcap +
Western Jackdaw
Red-rumped Swallow +
Golden Oriole +
Griffon Vulture +
Common Redstart +
European Goldfinch
European Bee-eater +
Scope Owl +
European Shag +
Cirl Bunting +
Great Spotted Woodpecker +
Little Egret +
Grey Heron
Black-winged Stilt +
Common Ringed Plover +
Kentish Plover +
Little Stint +
Common Term
White-winged Tern +
Black-headed Gull +
Greater Flamingo +
European Serin +
Monk Parakeet +
Other Fun Species of Note:
Peloponnese Wall Lizard
Empusa faciata (a species of preying mantis)
Marbled White (a species of butterfly)
Marginated Tortoise
White Butterfly (yes, that is actually the accurate species name)
Violet Carpenter Bee
Mediterranean Damselfish
Rainbow Wrasse
Saddled Seabream
Atlantic Purple Urchin
Greek Poppy
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