Birdingtrip Turkey

11 Days | 29.4 - 9.5       2015

Joseph D, Raoul M and I went to Turkey for 11 days (May 2015). We are all ornithologists and I have already learned a lot from them the past 4 years. We decided it was time to go on a birding holiday with these crazy guys! Turkey was our choice because (like the most ornithologists) they have a list of birds they've in the Western Palartic and they had some missing in the eastern part.

 

We started our trip in Antalya and drove until the Lake Van. For the new and dangerous parts (Göksu Delta, Camardi, Osmanyie, Birecik, Syrian border + desert, Nemrut Dagi) we had the Faroese man Silas O. as guide with us. He knew a lot about the areas, birds and culture. We enjoyed the time with him and learned a lot about the culture and country!

 

Most of the time we drove the car to find new birds and to get new photos. We started at sunrise and went back to the hotel as sun set (everyday a different hotel in another city).

 

In summary it was a great birding trip with 237 birds (see the whole list) and beautiful landscapes!


Blog post

Turkey summary

It was a great trip with a great team! I really enjoyed it!

BIG THANKS to Raoul & Joseph.

 

I learned a lot more about how to identify birds in the field and I am really impressed about the phenomenon of bird migration! To see hundreds of raptors passing over or wetland birds in the desert is just amazing.

 

The roadtrip was great! It was amazing to see so much of this beautiful country and to visit so many different biotopes: desert, wetlands, mountains, canyons, forests, lakes!

The route was: Antalya - Lake Van

 

Also a big THANKS to our faroese guide Silas who showed us many beautiful places, interesting birds and explained a lot about the local people, their culture and history!

Survey


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Turkey - Day 11 / Last day
Yesterday Tomorrow 

The last day in Turkey!


We started to visit the wetlands around Van. 

Special birds: different Gulls, Paddyfield Warbler, Merlin, Bearded Reedling but we didn't find any Citrine Wagtail. 


Later we drove back to the same place like yesterday but we looked to find another canyon to check for the Mogolian Finch. I decided where we should stop and Raoul already spotted the birds when he left the car. We decided to climb up a bit to have a closer view.

It's incredible to find this special bird in less than 10 minutes and 3 hours before our flight!


So we were very fast finish an decided to check again the areas where we stayed yesterday and to check if I can find my ipod.... nope!