16 December 2025 Paphos: Extending Our Coastal Walkway Exploration

 

The coastal walkway is a brilliant project that provides a pathway all along the coast, free of vehicles, and open to walkers, runners and bike riders.  So far we have walked a total of 10 km or so in four or five different trips.  The pathway continues and so we will also keep pushing to the west.  This section had fewer large hotels and more single family homes.  

A little chapel, perfect for a seaside wedding

A bell end everything

Walking on the rocks

A new construction of massive scale

No walking on the edge here, unstable ground

Another shipwreck in the distance

Vrexi Beach is sexy

Love these large reeds

Using these water jugs as mini greenhouses

A spalsh

Turns into

A geyser of water

Very irregular timing on the splashing

The gate into the garden

Another big hotel complex

A vast pool area

Folks were laying out on the hotel's tiny beach

The lighthouse is barely visible

An octopus of rope

Stacked rocks

Getting into the single family home area

The walkway continuues

A nicely planted area

Large coral rock sculptures

A stream has created this area

Our furthest extent

Accompanied by a kestrel

This shipwreck looks to be mostly intact

A mini Stonehenge 

Towering blooming structures

The elusive wooden White Swans

Development stretches all the way up the hills

Home for the sunset

A ship off in the distance

 

It has been 3 years and 194 days since we began our Migration

14 December 2025 Paphos: Golden Plovers all Over

 

Birding enthusiasts are collectively knows as twitchers or birders.  Twitchers, as a term, came about in the 1960's in the UK.  It describes a birdwatcher who focuses on the maximum number of bird species, often traveling long distances to see rare birds.  They may even twitch with excitement at the prospect of seeing a new bird.  The birder, on the other hand is more interested in seeing a bird in its natural habitat and possibly getting a photograph to document the sighting.  While I have certainly traveled long distances to far flung locations, the birding at these locations was secondary to the exploratory nature of our travel.  The exception to that is the side trip to Papua New Guinea.  There are a few WhatsApp groups here in Cyprus that  report what birds have been sighted and where the sighting occurred.  European Golden Plovers have repeatedly been sighted at the Paphos headlands so we headed out there to try our luck.  We had already tried to see these beautiful birds at this location without any success.  This time we saw a couple, sporting the tell tale binoculars, and we asked them about the plovers.  They gave us good advice about the location and the behavior.  These birds are almost always seen at the water's edge and they prefer to be facing into the sun.  These are behaviors that Leslie and I also emulate.  After a half hour of searching we hit the jackpot!  A group of golden plovers along with a greater sand plover were spotted and photographed.  Leslie's superior eyesight proved invaluable as she spotted even more plovers up in the grassy area, slightly inland.  Huzzah!  There was excitement, but no perceptible twitching, so perhaps I am just a birder after all.

The terrain is quite rugged

Perfect habitat for a hearty lizard

A black redstart to start the day

Elegant sculptures dot this section of the coastal walkway

The European stonechat is everywhere

These five birds blend into the landscape 

A ruddy turnstone

One of the plovers in not facing the sun.....shame!

The greater sand plover is also quite cute 

Hark, I see a skylark

A crested lark

In the grass there are more golden plovers

So easily missed off in the distance

Facing the sum makes a beautiful bird sleepy

Speaking of  the sun

Another great sunset

With precipitation at the horizon the change for the green flash greatly increases 

So I watched from the roof top as it dipped below the horizon

https://youtube.com/shorts/2y4sQsQxRgs

No flash tonight

It has been 3 years and 192 days since we began our Migration