Elounda birding
I'm sure that most of us have gone on a 'family' holiday and made the decision that, although there will be birding potential, it is best not to show any intent to act upon it. The binoculars, of course, still come along for the trip - just in case we might find ourselves near to a bit of decent habitat - but the scope will be left behind, as that would be a dead give-away of our true intentions! This is how I treated our recent holiday to Crete, although I'm sure that I fooled nobody. I'm not the most widely travelled world birder, but have seen a good cross-section of what Southern Europe has to offer, and there was just Lammergeier and Italian Sparrow present on the island that I had yet to see elsewhere. We were staying at the fairly small coastal resort of Elounda in the north-east, nestled underneath a range of imposing hills. I spent a good couple of hours each day mooching about the surrounding countryside, wandering no further away than 3km. I got...