More on Birdwatching
I have decided to make use of the time I have spent birdwatching by publishing a book of the many photographs I have taken. The current working title is 'Cyprus: Burds Wot I Soor'. I envisage a deluxe edition of 350 pages (I am sure that should be enough to include even those species yet to be officially classified), each page a glossy 6" x 8" photograph. These will be a miscellany of blurred images or small black dots receding into the distance or the occasional in focus picture of a tree or some foliage. I will of course include some careful posed images of the sparrows eating bread crumbs on the patio and the pigeons on next doors roof unless I can persuade Andreas to rid me of them first. You may remember Andreas as the shotgun owner who celebrates Easter in such a noisy fashion.
I did manage to see one bird which I was pleased with. I was told by one of the ex-pats that there were several European Rollers in a small valley nearby. According to
Wikipedia this is a 'Near Threatened' bird.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_RollerIt is a highly colourful bird about the size of a crow and I was very happy when after several hours I managed to track some down and get another set of blurred images for my collection.
When I told my bird watching colleague he shot me down faster than the European Roller that was flat in the road near their nesting location. Apparently they are common as vermin and can be seen all over Europe.
Some More Wildlife
One of the side effects of birdwatching is that you invariably come into contact with some of the islands snake population. The dense undergrowth by the side of the rivers is loved by the snakes just as much as the birds. In fact on several occasions I have nearly stepped on one only for them to disappear rapidly into the long grass. Each time they have moved so fast they have been impossible to identify.
However on one occasion I was driving out to one of the small mountain villages in pursuit of that perfect bird picture for the book when I noticed what looked like a crack in the road surface and so slowed down and eventually stopped. It was a large snake that I recognized from its mug shots at the local police station as a 'Blunt Nosed Viper'.As I was stopped in the road and starting to take photographs several other 4x4s came up and stopped to see what I was doing. The locals were also quite amazed by such a large snake and so they started to take photographs on their mobile (cell) phones too. Eventually there was quite a little traffic jam on the hillside. A line of 4x4s, trucks and tractors all behind my little blue Nissan.
The Blunt Nosed Viper
The first man who approached me told me 'This is the number one killer in my country (Cyprus)'. Leaving aside the fact that the last person killed by a Blunt Nosed Viper was in 1996 who was walking barefoot in the grass, I think he was also forgetting the dozens of people killed by in road accidents by the homicidal maniacs behind the wheel over here and the rising number of domestic murders committed by Cypriot husbands on their foreign born wives and girlfriends.
One of the late comers to the snake gathering conferred with his countrymen and then asked if I wanted to pick up the snake. I am not sure if he was just checking how stupid the ex-pats are or if he mistook me for Moe. ("Homer, I was born a
snakehandler and I will die a
snakehandler").
Eventually the group of Cypriots
decided that as I had been first on the scene it was my snake
and I was offered the honour of killing the snake by running over it in the car. It caused some confusion when I refused as the snake and I had a mutual agreement to live and let live and at last the snake slipped away under my car and off into the long grass at the side of the road. I trust that had I attempted to pick up our slippery friend he would have stopped me but you never know. There is not much in the way of entertainment in these remote villages and the story of how a crazy Englishman was hopping around after being bitten by a snake is something you could tell in the coffee shops for a long time.
Tackling a Blue Pool Snake
A particularly vicious specimen
When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can
But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail.
Cultural differences
I came upon the following sign in a small village nearby. I think it sums up one of the differences between Cyprus and England. Bear in mind that the graffiti on the walls in some of these villages refers to the return from exile of Archbishop Makarios. That was in 1956.
I can imagine the reaction from one of my daughters if I suggested that her clothes should be repaired rather than discarded after a few weeks and replaced with this months latest fashion.
I can't see this on my High Street
Maybe 40 years ago but not in 2007.
