Do we need to fear the Greeks as Virgil suggested in the Aeneid? Do we need to dread the gifts they bring? The answer is the same as usual, naturally. We don’t care! Because we are here for birding.

Birders visiting Corfu start their report with “I was on Corfu for holidays but decided to do some birding“, followed by a detailed day-by-day account of how the family was left behind. Nothing out of the ordinary and my case should not have been much different. We were on the island for a friend’s wedding anniversary which coincided with his wife’s, so two reasons to go. I am telling you this because the reasons for our trip made us stay in the southern half of the island which is less attractive for birds (and very attractive for cats). My wife’s Greek from her dad’s side and the family emigrated from the Ionian islands more than a century ago (and you thought Odysseus took his time getting home…) so the trip and report would have been biased towards the people aspects, not the avian, even if birds had shown up.

The island is lush and green. We witnessed some intense rainstorms (apparently not uncommon in September). The holidaying crowd consisted of Gen X-ers reliving their youth when they would rent a scooter and ride around without a helmet (a clever scheme by the Greeks to generate donor organs). I kept my shirt on and rented a car. I also do not sport tattoos depicting faux-wise statements as “eat love prey” or items from a Chinese restaurant menu or worse.

We explored the island thoroughly. We saw Beech Marten and a lot of good habitats, but the bird count stayed low. The southern tip has salt pans, which in Portugal would have been brimming with birds, but despite the beautifully restored visitor centre: nothing but Great White Egret and Great Cormorant. My total count of Yellow-legged Gull sightings in a week did not even reach double digits.

Reading the trip reports, my suggestion to any visiting birder would be to stay in the north and bird the higher areas. I didn’t and dipped on the Western Rock Nuthatch. Fortunately, the 10000birds archive had a nice picture.

Highlights for me were the very pretty Eurasian Jay (Corfu version), the plentiful Spotted Flycatcher and Greek-sounding Sardinian Warbler. Greek-sounding, because they sang a different song than the Portuguese warblers I am used to. Sirtaki Warblers, perhaps?