Lesvos

What do you do when your wife goes to Lesvos for a week, to attend a course for PhD-students? You grab your binoculars and join her, of course. Lesvos in august is HOT, but during a week-long stay, I still managed to spend quite a few hours in the open. Sketching in 35 degrees is not easy - I found that there were usually no shadow available where most of the birds were, and sketching with watercolours was hopeless, since the paint dried out almost before I could put it on paper. I had a wonderful time, though, and got to study a lot of species that I'm not too familiar with. One of the highlights for me was the abundance of shrikes, with four species present. I also enjoyed good views of for instance Orphean Warbler and Middle Spotted Woodpecker - species I had never before seen. I'll draw them some other time.
The sketches in this post are of Little Ringed Plover and Woodchat Shrikes. The 1K Woodchat Shrikes varied a lot in coloration and plumage, from deeply red-brown to almost grey individuals.