buteo rufinus

just the end of another short trip with hubby. this time around we went to saros bay (which, according to google maps, doesn't exist-but believe me, it does). on our way there, we were on top of the clouds actually! it was pretty scary, considering how cold and wet it could be if all that fog would find us in komur limani, our camp area. but we went there anyway. and it actually did rain at night, but thanks to some kind scuba divers there, we had a nice plastic shelter on our tent to keep us dry. the sea was awesome and i dipped in:) yup, in the middle of the winter. so refreshing!

on our way back home, we saw a long-legged buzzard, the highlight of our trip again. she hovered in the sky for a loong time, leaving us much time to examine her. beautiful!! once again, my lovely binoculars were ready for the mission.

can you believe that we went on a trip, came back and it is still holiday!?

ruins

voila! my last entry on our trip. i'm not sure if i should create a separate blog for travel. are these entries damaging the design/animation focus of this blog? i don't know. keeping two separate blogs seems too much for me, though.

another nice lake called gökgöl. we saw black or common terns (edit: checked, and they are black terns, because the bills were black, not red) and observe their hunting and singing behaviors. we even saw orange-colored cattle egrets there.

usak was a little... fundamental for us.

if you happen to go to tavsanli, don't forget to stop by aizonai. it is a fantastic little historic site. such a surprise...

our last stop was delmece plateau (near tesvikiye village). it was foggy and cold and looked like a dutch landscape painting.

does birdwatching count as voyeurism?

our next target was olimpos. we took secondary roads again, passing through wonderful lakes and mountains.
we did see ferocious predators (i'm not sure if they were eagles) on the mountain road. we were lucky enough to see them with binoculars, but not fast and silent enough to take pictures.

a stork chorus was practising a canonical song:)

the lake avlan was bursting with bird species. even the burning heat couldn't stop us from enjoying this fairy tale spot.

this was by far the best moment of the whole trip (it was not the best artistic moment though, as you see). seeing a night heron just in front of our eyes. he just came flying, landed on that stick, and stood there for 15 minutes, leaving us time to enjoy his beauty.

here we are, in olimpos. can you guess which plant this is?

asphalt eaters

alright, here are some photos from our beloved trip (some of them courtesy of hubby). i downsized them quite a bit, if it is too much, i'll try a bigger size next time. i will try to keep the entries simple, 3 photos maximum for each place, so you don't get bored to death!

so i have broken my own rule already. this photo has nothing to do with our last trip. so why did i put it here? no idea! it is from a trip on 23-25 april to assos. but my, what a surreal view!

ok, now for the real deal: this is simav, a lovely camping area near a lovely (and bird-laden) lake. we were there quite early, around 14:00. the pictures do there no justice, actually.

i told you i was going to birdwatch, and you didn't quite believe me, did you?. well, we did, and we saw soo many different fantastic birds. i could easily say that this was an amazing nature kind of trip. the little gal here was quite timid and we had a hard time photographing her.

after a comfy nights' sleep and lots of amazement, we continued our way to pamukkale. this photo was from a secondary road not so far from simav. most of the time our jaws dropped at how beautiful it was around (and yes, that is the windshield of a motorcycle:)

i will try to continue with one post each for every place we stayed over the next days. is this a travel blog? well, i don't know yet. stay tuned!

there is more than meets the eye

a few days ago i bought some binoculars. some really fancy, small ones. ok, i hate to do free commercials, but they are these ones:
how cool they are!! i tried some other binoculars, but the view they provided were rubbish. these guys at 8x21, really show you everything:) and by everything, i mean birds, of course.

have you tried any binoculars? pretty fun, aren't they?