Volunteering at Antikythira

The wind finally dropped and changed to a mild northwesterly, but only at the end of our day of monitoring. The count from today: 3 Black Kites (Milvus migrans); 3 Marsh Harrier (Circus aeruginosus)11 Honey Buzzards (Pernis apivorus) At least one juvenile Hobby (Falco subbuteo) is stopping over on the island and also a juvenile […]

Another day with strong wind and poor numbers, but with a new volunteer: Eli from Spain, who is experienced and a veteran in HOS. So, here are todays numbers of migrating raptors: 4 Black Kites (Milvus migrans), 2 of which juveniles; one Marsh Harrier (Circus aeruginosus); one unidentified large falcon (Falco sp.), that passed over […]

Another day with strong northeasterly winds, up to 6 on Beaufort scale. Almost no raptors: even the resident Eleonora’s falcons and Kestrels were not flying much around. Only one Honey Buzzard was spotted in my wind-shaked binoculars, but the direction was opposite to that of migration. Perhaps it is just hanging around the island waiting […]

Not as great as yesterday, with no rarities. Today we had 89 Honey Buzzards, 13 Black Kites and 1 Peregrine. The Egyptian Vulture in Northern Greece left their breeding areas and we should see them soon.

A new day of passage, with a new species for the season: Saker Falcon! The Honey Buzzards were mostly concentrated in one hour in the early afternoon, during which 228 passed, while other seen during the day. Total Honey Buzzards: 240. But not only Honey Buzzards flew today:   3 Black Kites (juveniles), 1 Marsh […]

After the great numbers of yesterday, a poor count today, due to the strong northeasterly wind. Raptors, in fact, prefer to pass over the island of Antikythira with westerly and northwesterly weak winds. One Black Kite (Milvus milvus, Τσίφτης) passed very fast in front of us, while an unidentified Harrier (Circus sp.) has been spotted […]

A good number of Honey Buzzards passed today, exceeding three hundreds and bringing some excitement at the watchpoint. Also, a new entry in the Autumn 2014 list: the Osprey (Pandion haliaetus, Ψαραετός). Scanning the sky towards the sea, also we spotted a group of 23 Night Herons (Nycticorax nycticorax, Νυχτοκόρακας), to be added to the […]

158 Honey Buzzards were recorded today, 60 of them in one big flock. Other than that, only one Black Kite has been seen migrating, while a Marsh Harrier was hunting on the island, as well as the two Buzzards that we are seing since a few days. We are all waiting to see some Egyptian Vulture (Neophron […]

The Eleonora’s Falcon (Falco eleonorae, Μαυροπετρίτης) is for sure the most abundant breeding species of the island.  In the framework of the «Conservation measures to assist the adaptation of Falco eleonorae to climate change» The Hellenic Ornithological Society (HOS) are to conduct a census of the island breeding population. Thus Angleos, Panos and Costas (the […]

71 raptors and a new volunteer counted today: Silvia is from Moldavia and she will stay with us for two weeks. Talking about raptors, we had a Hobby (Falco subbuteo, Δεντρογέρακο); 7 Black Kites (Milvus migrans, Τσίφτης); 4 Buzzards (Buteo buteo, Γερακίνα), two of which were juveniles of the subspecies vulpinus (Steppe Buzzard); and, eventually, […]