Turkey by Birds, Part 4. Mediterranean and Aegean Coasts

OK – This is it. I promise. I’m trying to wrap up this little travelbirdalogue, ‘cause I’ve got a baby to write about...

On our way out of Cappadocia we were planning a stop at Sultansazligi (totally westernized spelling as I lack the Turkish characters to spell it properly), a wetland complex that is listed in our guidebook as “worth the hunting out” for its bird life. Alas, it was dried up. Dust. When I reflected on the gross mismanagement of water that I had observed on our drive thus far, it wasn’t surprising (this is where I’m climbing up onto my soapbox). Of course water issues are not unique to Turkey. Chances are you can look in your own backyard and see the same thing (when I wrote “your own backyard” I wasn’t thinking in the literal sense, but then I realized that maybe we should look in our own backyard and think about how WE are using water...as a start). To be fair, the Sultansazligi wetlands might usually be dried up at this time of year; however, if they were they probably wouldn’t be wetlands. The following is a quote from a website discussing the wetlands:

“Agricultural intensification and associated water management in the basin poses a serious threat - reduced water inputs and a lack of rainfall led to the wetland drying up in 1990 and 1991. The wetland can only be preserved if further expansion of the irrigation scheme is cancelled. Industrial, agricultural and untreated urban waste enters through drainage channels. Tourists cause disturbance, and uncontrolled reed-cutting takes place... Illegal hunting of falcons occurs on the surrounding steppe. The management plan covers developing ecotourism at the site.”

But let me state the obvious, it’s going to be difficult to develop ecotourism if there are no wetlands (we did watch a Shore Lark picking dead bugs off the roadway, but that experience would be difficult to market to anyone other than the most ardent of birders). We saw water being applied to fields in the middle of the (scorching hot) day, we saw rows of restaurants with these archaic “showers” of water being dumped out of pipes at their entrance (I assume to cool the air and to create a sense of serene that water features are known for – because I deal with water issues in my line of work, this particular water feature made me sick to my stomach), we saw broken irrigation pipes spewing water into the air, we saw all of the same kinds of mismanagement and waste of water that we often see in agricultural areas everywhere...and it made me sad...and the wetlands were dried up. Floyd asked, “where do the birds go when their wetlands are dried up?” Good question baby...good question.

So anyway...

We headed south to the Mediterranean. This is the part of the trip where we fly by the seat of our pants. No reservations, no plans. We’re winging it. We figure we’ll get to the Med, find a quaint little beach off the beaten track and sit there for a few days (ha). But, before we do that, we decided to spend some time at the “crown jewel of Turkey’s birding sites”, the Goksu Delta, a vast area of reed beds, emergent wetlands, open water (fresh and saline) and agriculture. We showed up in the early evening and climbed up one of the lookout towers to spy for flamingos and whatnot but we were pretty much skunked. Yes, it was lovely, and I can still hear the sound of the wind working its way through the massive reed beds, but no birds, so we stayed the night in town and tried it again in the (early) morning. A gentle and quiet morning of birding afforded us glimpses of the Purple Heron, a pair of Marsh Harriers, Little Ringed Plovers, Kentish Plovers, Short-toed Lark, Skylark, Red-rumped Swallows, Black Francolin (no glimpse, just the call), Yellow Wagtails, the Yellow-vented Bulbul (love that name), and the European Reed Warbler. Not the sort of a list that most folks come back with but nice. Nice morning...nice birds. Best part though? The young fox that I came face to face with as I was bending down to pick up a fox(?) skull. Cool.



The rest of the day was kind of a disappointment. Our eventual destination was Patara Beach, on the Turquoise Coast...a long ways away...so we had hoped that we would be able to duck into a quiet little cove along the Mediterranean for a night just to break up the trip. But no. The ENTIRE Mediterranean coastline has been turned into one giant concrete block of hotels and condos. Now, Floyd and I don’t need a pristine beach, but we do have some standards, and these standards prevented us from enjoying a coastline that had been shamelessly brutalized by rampant, ugly development. I’m sure there were remote exceptions, but they were few and probably threatened. Sad. So we drove and drove and drove (actually Floyd drove the whole way, being the calm cool cookie that he is and best suited to driving in Turkey. I drove in Italy...no problem. Turkey? Problem.). So we wound up driving all the way to Patara, found a *wonderful* pension and spend the next day on the beach (i.e., the rotisserie) frying our doughy skin. D’oh. No more days on the beach for us.

One evening, after spending the day stumbling around ruins (Tlos and Xantos), we decided to walk (sneak) down to the beach. The reason why Patara was our destination is because the beach is protected as nesting habitat for Loggerhead and Green sea turtles. The one day we did spent on the beach I took a little walk along the water and saw several spots where a turtle had dragged herself out of the ocean to dig her nest in the sand. Despite its protected status, there are still a lot of people on this beach, all stabbing beach umbrellas into the sand, so it seems the turtles' chances (or the success of their eggs) are limited. There’s a sign as you walk out onto the beach, telling you not to do things like stab beach umbrellas into the sand but there’s certainly nobody there telling you not to do it and EVERYBODY is doing it. I found one turtle nest that, apparently, had been scavenged and I spent time picking up the bits of turtle shell that lay scattered about. Thankfully, the beach is closed at night because this is when the turtles come out of the water to nest. But we snuck down there anyway (yes, we are evil) and we walked along the beach under the twinkling, moonless sky. Soon we came upon a fresh turtle track and we decided to quietly follow it (I know I know...but, remember, we’re evil). About 10 meters away we found a loggerhead turtle digging her nest. I have dreamed my whole life of seeing such a thing. Wow. Despite the evidence to the contrary, we did not want to disturb her so we walked several meters away and sat down in silence. We just wanted to be in her presence. This was right about the time that a dog came sniffing around and alerted the authorities to our presence. Ah well...we didn’t deserve to be there anyway. I hope the old girl dug deep and that her eggs are doing well (the same goes for the rest of us old girls). So here’s a picture of the old girl doing her thing (zoomed wayyy in) and a picture of me saving a turtle (totally different kind of turtle) from sure death on the road (to prove that I’m not pure evil).


The morning we left Patara we hiked down to the wetlands and scrambled around the ruins. Saw some great Little Grebes floating about and watched the Great White Egrets, Coots (oh yes) and Black-winged Stilts doing their thing along the shoreline. I forgot to mention the European Scops Owl that we heard off in the woods the night that we did our nighttime walk (cool) and the Black-eared Wheatear, Masked Shrike and Common Sandpiper that we hung out with during our day-trips amongst the ancient ruins and rivers.

The rest of the trip is ruins, ruins and more ruins. I apologize to those of you that expect some ruminating on the cool old stuff, but like I said before, I’m not your man for that. Aphrodisias was probably my favorite. Possibly because we had the place to ourselves. Ephesus was a madhouse, but we did get to meet a Dutch fellow that was cataloging the interesting designs that had been carved into the marble at “shop fronts”, upper seats of amphitheaters, and other various places. They’re still not sure what all of these designs mean, but many of them served as game boards, like ancient Roman versions of tic-tac-toe, checkers, backgammon, etc. Some of the games they’ve figured out...others they haven’t. Fascinating. I love it when we can’t figure stuff out. Here’s a picture of this gentleman showing me how they think one of the games was played...on an ancient board (in my usual lady-like way...could you sit that way in a toga?).

So there you have it. Our trip to Turkey. This trip marks a few things for us. Our last (big) trip while living in Europe, our last trip before we head to China and bring Thor home, we both turn 40 in about a month and we’ve got a wedding anniversary thrown in there as well. One could say we killed a lotta birds with this trip (hehe). Here’s some more pics... thanks for hanging in there.