Well we had a good 2 weeks in Cyprus a great holiday really, although I don't think I'd go again, too many loud British Bars, I'm used to the Greek Islands where everything is Greek and the time stands still.

For the first 4 days in Paphos the only birds I saw were Hooded Crows, House Sparrows, Collared Doves & Swallows. 

Hooded Crow  Paphos Cyprus

Collared Dove, Nicosia, Cyprus

We then hired a car for 3 days we started at the Tomb of the kings in Paphos, we saw a male Golden Oriole in front of the car on the car park, a Fabulous sighting, things had started to look up. It wasn't long and we were seeing a pair of Collared Flycatchers another great sighting, also seen here were Crested Larks Goldfinches & Greenfinches we called here again at the end of the holiday and added Beeeater, Nightingale and Linnet to the list, We also saw this Sardinian Warbler there on our first visit. 

Sardinian Warbler, Tombs of the Kings, Paphos, Cyprus

Crested Lark, Tombs of the Kings, Paphos Cyprus.

We then went on to the Akanas Penisular, The baths of Aphrodite where there are nature walks I found Cyprus Wheatear here Great! my first life tick of the holiday. I tried to find the Cyprus Warbler but without success if fact I didn't find one all holiday.

The second day with the car we went up the Troudos Mountains in was beautiful although the driving was a bit hair raising, I don't know what I'd have done if I had met a car coming in the opposite direction in some of the mountain villages. Up the top of Troudos at the visiter centre, I met another Birder he said there were Masked Shrikes around and to my delight one landed in the tree right in front of us Great! another Lifer. I saw 3 in total.

Other birds I saw during the Holiday were , Zitting Cisticola ( Fan Tailed Warbler) I think the name Zitting suits it down to the ground as thats just what it does "Zit", "Zit", "Zit", etc I have seen them before on Crete.

I saw 9 cattle Egrets along the shore one day in Paphos and 2 Northern Wheatears.

We had a trip to Egypt to see the Pyramids on the second Tuesday, ( What a day that was), I will put this in as another entry.

We also visited Nicosia on our last full day and crossed the border into Northern Cyprus.

We heard a scream from outside the apartment next door in our Hotel one morning, I went out to investigate , the woman next door had been getting the bathing costumes in when she saw her husbands trunks she said what have you left in your pocket? when she put here hand in she found this Spider.

Banana Spider, Paphos Cyprus.

No wonder she screamed. It is harmless though apparantly they jump. we had a storm later on that night and we were told that it most probably had detected the storm coming and had gone looking for a place to hide, and thats how it got in the pocket of the trunks.

There were plenty of Lizards around lots of small ones with red tails. There were also a few of these around I think they all called Agama Lizards sometimes known as the Rhodes Dragon.

Agama Lizard ( Rhodes Dragon) Paphos, Cyprus

There were quite a few butterflies around the best being Southern White Admiral and this Swallow tail

Swallowtail Butterfly, Tombs of the Kings, Paphos, Cyprus.

Well thats about it, as I said earlier we had a great Holiday, we saw a lot of Cyprus it really is a beautiful Island, It could have been better for birds. I met other birders who'd seen 22 Collared Pratincoles a Baillons Crake, Bonnelis eagle, Red Footed Falcon and Caspian Plover all of which are mythical birds to me, no wonder I'm a dude.