Bird Watching

Northern Cyprus is home to around 347 different species of birds, 7 of which are unique to the country. The twice-yearly arrival of migrating birds adds to the unique pleasure of bird watching, with visiting birds heading north from March to May, and south between August and October. Visitors include Swallows, Swifts, Hoopoe, Masked Shrike and Little Ringed Plovers. There are birds that migrate specifically for breeding purposes, and the island is used as a convenient stopping off post for many species in transit to other lands.
Some great places to go bird watching in North Cyprus include:
Wetlands around Famagusta
Tip of the Karpaz Peninsula
Kaplica beach coastal area
Various Reservoirs
Kyrenia Mountain Range
Kaylar and surrounding area
Mia Milia Sewage Treatment Plant area
Inonu and surrounding area
Mountain Bird Watching
One of the best places to watch birds is in the Kyrenia Mountains, where the pines and cypress trees teem with birds. Kantara Castle offers a picturesque spot to observe both resident and migrant birds, including the Blue Rock Thrush, Spectacled Warbler, the resident Cyprus Warbler and Wheatear, and Black-Headed Bunting. Alpine Swifts can be seen darting around their nests, perched on the cliffs around the castle. The Griffon Vulture still soars above Kantara and St Hilarion in the Kyrenia Mountains, riding the winds on its 2m wingspan. Birds of prey numbers have been affected by hunting but it’s still possible to see buzzards and falcons, and nesting pairs of red kite can be spotted around the Lapta area. Other hunters include scops owl and little owls. The reservoirs at Köprülü and Gonyeli attract overwintering duck, herons and grebes, which in turn attract birds of prey to feast on them.
Karpaz Peninsula
This peninsula juts out eastwards from the north coast, pointing towards the Turkish mainland. It’s a major stopping point for many migratory birds where you can spot Golden Orioles and Bee-eaters. The Rollers always provide a great display, as they bounce across the countryside in their trademark jerky flight pattern. The remote, relatively un-spoilt and picturesque Peninsula, with its rolling hills, juniper-dominated shrubland and low-intensity farmland is one of the outstanding IBAs in Cyprus, important for its characteristic Mediterranean bird community. The site is also an Endemic Bird Area, and significant for no fewer than 4 species of global conservation concern, like the Roller and the Audouin’s Gull. At the far end of the Karpaz peninsula, the Kleides Islands provide refuge for sea birds such as Audouin’s Gulls, Cormorants and Shags. The rocky Kleides islands and the islet of Lefkoniso are the only breeding sites in Cyprus for this gull species.During March and April, the islands are also home to breeding Peregrine Falcons, audaciously fast hunters who snatch birds from the sky as food for their offspring. The peninsula is also home to two game birds, the Francolin and Chikor, both types of partridge.
Pentadaktylos Mountains
This site encompasses most of the Pentadaktylos range, which stretches along the north coast of the island. The steep slopes of the range are sparsely vegetated on the southern face but covered in scrub and mixed forest of pine and cypress on the wetter north-facing slopes. The site is of importance for many breeding forest birds including the Black-headed Bunting and the Bonelli’s Eagle and for its characteristic Mediterranean bird community. It's an Endemic Bird Area site, with significant populations of the endemic Cyprus Wheatear and Cyprus Warbler.
Kormakitis Peninsula
On the north-west of the island, Kormakitis Peninsula with its rocky coastline, extensive areas of low scrub, patches of lowland pine forest and low-intensity cereal-growing land, is of importance for passing waterbirds along its coastline and for breeding birds, like the Nightjar and the two endemics.
Mia Milia Sewage Treatment Plant
A man-made set of sewage treatment pools and surrounding agricultural land on the outskirts of Nicosia. The site attracts breeding waders and has regularly attracted small but significant numbers of the globally threatened White-headed Duck in winter.
Mesaoria Plain
This extensive site captures an important part of the central Mesaoria plain and is almost entirely dominated by cereal fields. Though more intensively managed and man-dominated than most other IBAs, it is the top breeding site on the island for three species typical of open, flat and dry landscapes: Stone Curlew, Crested Lark and Calandra Lark.
Famagusta Lakes
An extensive though fragmented complex of fresh and brackish marshes and pools on the outskirts of Famagusta town, the site attracts a wide range of waterbirds, notably breeding Black-winged Stilt and Spur-winged Lapwing. The lakes are also the only known breeding site for Glossy Ibis in Cyprus.
Other bird watching sites in North Cyprus
Cape Andrea’s (Zafer)
Avtepe / Kuruova area
The north cost around Kaplica
Tuzluca Marsh
Silver Beach
Akova Reservoir
Demirhan pools
Akdeniz Reservoir
Cape Koruçam
Geçitköy Reservoir
Acapulco and Arapköy Reservoir
Haspolat
The Five Fingers Mountain and Herbarium
Bird Society (Kuşkor)
The North Cyprus Society for the Protection of Birds (Kuşkor) has been active since 1988 and works for the welfare of all birds and holds regular education programmes for adults and children alike. Kuşkor work hard to protect and conserve the breeding and migrant bird populations of Northern Cyprus at a time when natural habitat is dwindling through human development and the numbers of birds are depleting due to hunting, poisoning, changes in land use and climate change.
The Kuşkor ringing scheme. Mark and recapture or resight is one of the fundamental methodologies in the field of biological sciences and is applied to bird populations throughout the world as a tool for identifying species structures, taxonomy, demography and movements. In 2001 the Kuşkor Ringing Scheme was founded by Kuşkor officials and qualified British ringers. In 2015 Kuşkor became a member of the European Union for Bird Ringing (EURING). Adopting British Trust for Ornithology conventions and regulations and British-sourced metal rings headed ‘Kuşkor North Cyprus’, the Kuşkor scheme has welcomed qualified ringers who have been trapping birds at sites across Northern Cyprus, assisted by resident ecologists. Cyprus is at the heart of the vast Eastern Mediterranean flyway and has resident, passage migrant, migrant breeding and wintering populations of birds about which relatively little is known, which makes them perfect subjects for ringing studies. As well as adding significantly to our general understanding of birds at the study sites, ringing-based articles from Kuşkor ringers have been published on the breeding Eurasian Reed Warbler, Nightingale and Cyprus Warbler and the presence of the scheme has continued to give focus to avian conservation issues in Northern Cyprus.
Audoin's Gull
Classified as ‘near threatened’ due to its small population, limited range and vulnerability, regions where Audoin's Gull have more than 20 nests are declared as Important Bird Areas. Although foraging grounds of Audouin’s Gull include the northwest coastlines of Africa during winter, its breeding grounds are almost entirely in the Mediterranean. Ebro Delta of Spain contains the largest colony, harbouring 67% of the breeding population worldwide. Detailed information exists about the distribution, numbers and ecology of birds breeding in the Western Mediterranean Region, but little is known about their state in the Eastern Mediterranean, including Cyprus, which hosts the eastern most breeding population known to date.
The only consistent breeding region in the island is the Kleides Islands off Cape Andreas, and this population has been monitored annually since 2007.The Kleides Islands are not only a significant breeding region for the Audouin’s Gull, but also for the endangered subspecies of Shag (Phalacrocorax aristotelis desmarestii) which is an endemic species to the Mediterranean.
The Islands are also used by the Yellow-legged Gull (Larus michahellis) for breeding purposes. As a result, the Kleides Islands has been declared as an Important Bird Area since 2004. Each year during the breeding season, a small team visits the Kleides islets by boat, to count the number of adults and nests of Audouin’s Gulls, Yellow-legged Gull, and Mediterranean Shag, a subspecies of Shag found only in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, all of which breed there. This programme contributes data to an international Action Plan for Audouin’s Gull. Results so far suggest that the Cyprus population is decreasing, with 8-28 breeding pairs counted each year, although in different years the birds do nest in different areas on different islets (mainly on Zinaritou, Kasteletta and Kleidi rock). In 2012, for the first time ever, the gulls were also found nesting at Lefkoniso islet, on the north coast of the Karpasia peninsula, about 17km away from the Kleides archipelago. The programme will continue, to acquire a longer run of data and detect any problems with the population.
Since 2008, KUŞKOR has organised an annual census of birds breeding on the islands, and has observed the changes that the colonies of Audouin’s Gull have been experiencing in particular. Historically, >40 pairs bred at the site, but this has steadily fallen and in 2015 recorded the lowest numbers at a mere 8 pairs - a clear warning that the future of the species on our island is in grave danger. The loss of this colony would represent a significant range contraction. The most apparent reason for this decline is likely human disturbance by rod-fishermen using the islands. As the islands are small, even stepping on them can flush the birds and cause them to desert their nests. In the light of this, in 2014 KUŞKOR campaigned with the Turkish Cypriot authorities, and landing on the islands without a permit has now been banned by law, and there are warning signs at the most intensively used places in the region and at boat landing sites, to provide information about the ban. Further threats could also be influencing a decline in this colony including resource competition, kleptoparasitism, and predators like the Yellow Legged Gulls which share the islands. The islands are also likely ratted, which could be contributing to reduced breeding success. Overfishing may also be a factor. The impact of these threats is unknown and, along with threats from climate change, which can affect sea temperature and fish populations, and native and introduced predators, such as Peregrine Falcons, results in a need to keep the tiny population under constant surveillance. Further studies will quantify these threats and help draw up a management plan for the islands aimed at preventing the extinction of the species as a breeding bird of Cyprus.