This time of the year is special in so many ways, but way up near the top of the list is the arrival of the European Bee-Eaters back from their overwintering in Africa. They used to arrive in our part of Rhodes in the first week of May, and in summertime they’re distributed all across Southern Europe. As we’re further south from Rhodes here on Crete, they turn up a week or two earlier. I once read a piece about birds that migrate from Africa to Europe and it fascinated me how I learned that most migrating species follow the same basic route. Once they reach the northern shores of the African continent, they head either for Malta and Italy, or, if further East, they fly across to Crete, before then following the route from Kassos, over Karpathos and Rhodes, and then into Asia Minor in Western Turkey. From there they fly up the east coast of the Aegean and, once they reach the Bosphorus, they spread out in order to return to wherever is their ancestral summer hang-out. Some remain on the Greek islands, whereas others fuel up on insects, maybe rest a while in trees here, before carrying on northwards. Amazing isn’t an adequate enough word.

While we’ve been here in Sitia we’ve begun hearing the Bee-Eaters arriving as we sit on our balcony. Their particularly unique ‘whirring’ call is very distinctive, if you know what you’re listening for. Out for a walk the other day, I took the following photos, and unwittingly, while photographing a very lovely yellow-flowering plant that I haven’t as yet identified, I was amazed to see that I’d unwittingly captured a Bee-Eater in the background. See if you can spot it. I have to say, it is a bit far away, but they have a very distinctive silhouette too, and anyone who knows their shape will spot it instantly (I’m sure you’re aware that you can click on any individual photo to get a larger view. Once there you can even right-click to get it larger still, I think!) …

In the third shot above, which looks fairly uninteresting I’ll admit, there’s a turtle in the rushes, just a few inches out of the water. Sorry it’s a bit vague, but it’s the limitations of the digital zoom on my phone I’m afraid. We spotted loads of young turtles in this little backwater just a few meters over a sandbar from the beach. Did you see the Bee-Eater, silhouetted against the sea in that last shot? Doesn’t take much to make me happy, does it?

Finally, here are a few photos taken at around 3.30am, while I pounded the streets because I was (as per usual) not sleeping the other night. I know they don’t all look like it, but rest assured that they were all taken between 3.25 and 3.33 am. I rather liked theses scenes…

That’ll do for now. Lots more to come in the next post. The top photo in this post reminds me of what I’m going to talk about then. See, that ought to keep you on tenterhooks, eh? Talk about building suspense…

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