May 3-17, 2026 with Megan Edwards Crewe & local guide Maria Panayotopoulou
Spring is a wonderful season to explore the timeless landscapes of rural Greece. With a combination of gorgeous scenery, patterned tapestries of wildflowers, and an ever-changing mix of birds, the countryside offers plenty to enjoy. Add in a handful of cultural attractions -- ancient temples, 1000-year-old mosaics, a world class museum or two -- and a congenial group of traveling companions, and you get a fine mix of memories. This year, we were additionally blessed with pleasant temperatures and lots of sunshine; our only rain came on the drive back to Athens on our last afternoon! The settled weather meant we had surprisingly few migrants, presumably because they just kept flying. But there were a plethora of highlights in spite of that.
Our adventure started in Athens, where we met up with the fabulous Eleni, who brought the ancient city to life with her vivid storytelling. Together, we explored our first World Heritage Site: the famous Acropolis, with its crowning Parthenon and Erechtheion, where she explained the site's construction, significance and history -- with lots of etymology, jokes and humor to boot. A flock of Alpine Swifts swirled overhead while we toured, Rose-ringed and Monk parakeets shot past as we walked to and from the site, and we saw the first of many, many Yellow-legged Gulls. Then it was off to the new(ish) Parthenon museum for a whirlwind tour of the "best bits", followed by a taverna lunch nearby. An evening flight brought us to Alexandropoulis, where we met Maria and Alexander, then headed north to the little village of Soufli and the Koukouli (Cocoon) hotel, our home for the next three nights.
We spent the whole of the next day on the Evros delta, the vast outflow of the river marking the border between Greece and Turkey. Much of the land has been "reclaimed" from the river and over the kilometers, we moved from agricultural fields to a myriad of pans and increasingly salty lagoons. A Spotted Flycatcher hunted along a hedge line and fired-up Cetti's Warblers and Common Nightingales (two often-skulking species) shouted from open branches -- long live breeding hormones! More than 100 Wood Sandpipers patrolled a marshy puddle, with a handful of Ruff (just edging into their spectacular breeding plumage) among them. Black-winged Stilts strode around on long, pink legs and dozens of Western Yellow Wagtails (the "Black-headed" subspecies feldegg) chased each other around or sang from the tops of the Salicornia scrub. Gray and Purple herons flew past or prowled the lagoons and colorful Common Shelducks dotted the ponds. Loose flocks of Collared Pratincoles flapped buoyantly past and Western Marsh Harriers coursed low over reed beds. Some great spotting by Maria netted us a pair of snoozing Ferruginous Ducks and we found multiple pairs of Spur-winged Lapwings, a largely African and Middle Eastern species which just edges into the southeastern corner of Greece. Snowy-white Mediterranean Gulls flapped overhead, calling their distinctive "yow!" calls and multiple pairs of Crested Larks trotted down the sandy tracks or across the dry pans. The biggest surprise was finding multiple parties of Bearded Reedlings that flitted through the reed beds; it's only the second time we've recorded this handsome species on the tour.
The next morning, we were up and out early, headed to the Dadia Raptor Center in the heart of the Dadia-Lefkimi-Soufli Forest National Park. Our chief targets here were a trio of vultures drawn to the center's supplemental feeding station, where a variety of livestock carcasses are put out once a week. Unfortunately, there had been an intentional mass poisoning incident (as yet unsolved) several weeks before our arrival which killed off a significant number of the local Cinereous Vultures -- roughly 10% of Greece’s remaining population -- as well as a multitude of other scavengers. However, some survived, and we got good scope views of a trio of the massive birds as they sat on rocks and low trees near the feeding site. Nearby, an Egyptian Vulture and a Common Raven nosed about, looking for leftover scraps. Just outside the viewing blind, a busy pair of Sardinian Warblers with five newly fledged chicks spilled through a pile of branches. A Woodchat Shrike sat atop a tree while a Red-backed Shrike sat atop another nearby. An Eastern Bonelli's Warbler trilled, showing us all sides as it flicked from pine to pine. From there, we walked the 3km back to the site's visitor's center, through a landscape still scarred from the massive wildfire that torched the area in 2023. In one of the remaining pockets of trees, a European Robin sang its sad, minor-key song as it swiveled on a branch. A Short-toed Snake-Eagle soared overhead, soon followed by a Booted Eagle and then a Eurasian Hobby. Later, our only Eurasian Griffon glided past with another Cinereous Vulture. Ortolan Buntings sang from charred tree stumps, a pair of Common Chaffinchs fluttered through a little stand of pines and a Wood Lark sang its lovely song from a pile of dead branches. After a picnic lunch, we headed north on winding back roads to the outskirts of Vrysika, for a walk along the river on a quiet afternoon. Our best sighting here was a pair of Masked Shrikes which foraged along the edge of the wood for a while before stopping for a lengthy bout of preening.
We packed up and headed for Fanari the next day, stopping on our way to look for Isabelline Wheatears around Doriskos. Though we found a small group of Red-footed Falcons and Eurasian Hobbies hunting dragonflies over a scruffy farm field and watched a Black-headed Bunting singing from a fence line, we had no luck with the wheatears. Instead, we attracted the attention of soldiers at the local military barracks, which sent a trio of cross-armed policemen to intercept us, sure that our cameras and telescopes meant we were up to something nefarious! After reviewing our pictures ("You saw all those birds here?!") they sent us on our way, but wouldn't let us have our planned picnic in a nearby olive grove. So instead, we went to the Antheia section of the Evros delta, close to the Alexandropoulis airport, a detour which proved nicely productive. A farmer winnowing his hay crop attracted dozens of White Storks which scurried around the field gobbling the disturbed insects. A Little Owl popped up in a narrow window in an electricity shed. Calandra Larks flung themselves skyward in impressive flight displays, with a Common Skylark raining its bubbling song down from even higher. A convenient mix of White-winged and Black terns fluttered over a watery lagoon and perched in some drowned trees on its fringes, with a handful of Whiskered Terns and a few immature Little Gulls sprinkled among them. A marshy wetland held a trio of Spotted Redshanks, already partway into their distinctive black breeding plumage, plus the tour's only Garganey (little more than a head with its bold white eyebrow poking up from a channel) and a mix of waders, including our first Squacco Heron. After a 90-minute drive, we arrived in Fanari in time to settle in a bit before heading to an outdoor seafront restaurant for dinner -- with half the mosquitoes in Greece also in attendance!
Fanari lies right along the coast, and we spent the next day and a half visiting a series of lagoons, salt pans and pine plantations, with a few quaint villages thrown in as well. Early morning walks around Fanari itself got us well-acquainted with Eastern Olivaceous Warbler and a very cooperative Syrian Woodpecker, and we got the chance to directly compare Red-rumped Swallows with Barn Swallows as they both swooped past overhead. A couple of Eurasian Blackcaps twitched through trees along the edge of a closed campground, and a couple of Greater Whitethroats chortled from a scruffy field. The Karatza Lagoon held a nice mix of shorebirds, including a couple of Kentish Plovers, some brick-red Curlew Sandpipers and a busy gang of Ruddy Turnstones. A trio of Slender-billed Gulls paddled just offshore and some 80 Pied Avocets snoozed or preened or fed along muddy islets. A single Sandwich Tern flew over on its way to the sea, and a double handful of Little Terns flapped back and forth over the lagoon. From there, we headed to Agioi Theodoroi, stopping en route for a roadside Little Owl. A farmer tilling his field had attracted a hovering host of Lesser Kestrels, and we piled out on the roadside to watch them. As the tractor made pass after pass, we spotted a Gray Partridge slipping furtively from furrow to furrow just ahead of the tiller -- a tour first! In a field a bit further along, Calandra Larks flung themselves skyward in noisy flight displays while a Common Skylark rained its bubbling song down from even higher. At Ptelea Lagoon, hundreds of Greater Flamingoes gathered in a pink cloud on the water, with further groups appearing in colorful wavering lines to join them. Offshore, a scattering of European Shags dotted a barren islet, and a Lesser Gray Shrike and Red-backed Shrikes shared a chainlink fence around a transmission tower. The Porto Lagos saltpans were quiet this year, though we did find a busy mob of Little Stints probing the mud in a puddle nearby.
Leaving the coast, we headed inland to the Iasmos Gorge, home to the picturesque Byzantine-era Polyanthos bridge. Scores of nesting Western House-Martins swirled under the highway bridge we arrived on, and a handful of Eurasian Crag-Martins coursed back and forth in front of a nearby cliff, with one eventually settling onto its mud cup nest there. A Black-eared Wheatear with a wide black mask perched on a rock beside the track and a male Blue Rock Thrush sat in a streamside tree with a mouthful of squirming invertebrates. A singing Eastern Orphean Warbler skulked through the bushes, showing briefly for some and not at all for others. After admiring the bridge -- and some Common Chaffinches and European Goldfinches -- we headed into town for a picnic in the town square. Then we started our long drive to Kerkini, detouring on the way to the Tower of Apollonia along the coast southwest of Kavala. From the cliff there, we watched for shearwaters, picking up at least eight Scopoli's Shearwaters as they glided past over the sea. Parties of Mediterranean Gulls headed westward, Alpine Swifts and Eurasian Jackdaws swirled over a stony outcrop and a Cirl Bunting showed splendidly in several little trees just down the hill.
The following day, we explored the countryside around the massive reservoir of Lake Kerkini. Its marshy fringes were dotted with scores of herons and egrets, hundreds of Pygmy and Great cormorants dried their wings on the drowned trees that studded its north end, and Great White and Dalmatian pelicans paddled majestically across the water or sailed on huge wings overhead. Great Crested Grebes floated on the tranquil surface, with a few of them carrying stripe-faced chicks on their backs. Along a raised track, we found a tiny Eurasian Penduline-Tit calling from a nearby popular, a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker drummed on a dead snag, and a trio of Common Hoopoes called and chased each other through the trees. The trees around a little church north of Vyroneia held a dark-eyed Levant Sparrowhawk, while an unexpected Eleonora's Falcon and a Booted Eagle circled overhead. As we drove along the causeway on the lake's eastern side, an absolute blizzard of European Bee-eaters surrounded us; some sat on the ground, some decorated the nearby trees and many flashed back and forth in front of the vans, chasing insect prey. A half-dozen lingering Graylag Geese rested on a grassy islet and a tight clump of dozens of Eurasian Spoonbills sieved the shallows. At the White-tailed Eagle watchpoint on the lake's eastern shores, we watched in vain for the eagle but a perched Black Kite (being harassed by persistent Hooded Crows), two showy Eurasian Golden-Orioles and a number of perched and singing Eurasian Turtle-Doves (a species we struggled to find this year) were nice consolation prizes.
On our way out of Lithotopos, we stopped first along some canals just east of the lake to try again for Little Bittern. We were partly successful -- some of the group happened to be looking in the right direction when a male leapt up out the reeds and flashed across to the other canal, dropping quickly out of sight. Unfortunately, it never showed again, so the rest missed it! A Common Kingfisher (perhaps two) was more cooperative, sounding its shrill call and making multiple flashing passes back and forth, presumably carrying food to a nest somewhere. A Common Cuckoo called from the top of a poplar tree and later flew by several times, looking remarkably like a falcon. And an open-sided nest box revealed a trio of nearly-ready-to-fledge Eurasian Kestrels keeping a close eye on the outside world. A pit stop back at our hotel netted us fine views of a pair of Lesser Spotted Eagles spiraling in the sky just overhead. Next, we moved on to a disused quarry near Chimarros, where a panting adult Eurasian Eagle-Owl sheltered a couple of panting half-grown youngsters on a sunny cliff face. And then we hit the highway for the two hour drive to Vergina, where we enjoyed a taverna lunch before heading to the nearby Museum of the Royal Tombs -- another World Heritage Site. The museum houses the extraordinary collection of grave goods from the burial chambers of Philip II (father of Alexander the Great) and Alexander IV (his teenaged son), which remained unlooted for all the long years between their burial and the late 1970s, when they were finally discovered. Afterwards, we journeyed on back roads from there to Litochoro, stopping only for some scenic shots of snow-covered Mount Olympus, rearing above the rolling countryside around it.
Our day started early the next morning (for some of us, at least) with a pre-breakfast walk through the picturesque town of Litochoro, which sits at the base of the mountain. There, we got to grips with the subtle differences between Common and Pallid swifts, which zoomed in a screaming flock of hundreds above the streets. A stroll through a nearby park brought us good looks at several European Greenfinches and European Goldfinches, and the tour's only White Wagtail waggled its way (briefly) across the pan-tiled roof of the town's Greek Orthodox church. After breakfast, we headed up the mountain on a gloriously sunny morning. Chief among our targets was White-bellied Dipper and we were delighted to find a recently fledged youngster sitting quietly at the base of a waterfall; while we watched, an adult brought it a huge mouthful of invertebrates. A Gray Wagtail sang from the roof of a shed near the park's small cafe. In a leafy stretch of Beech forest, we found a calling pair of Marsh Tits and a Eurasian Nuthatch that crawled along branches over our heads, but it took a bit more work to finally lay eyes on a singing Eurasian Wren as it moved through the gully below us! A Common Chiffchaff sang its easily learned, onomatopoeic song from a small roadside tree, while the songs of others echoed from the hillsides. A mixed flock of Crested, Coal and Eurasian Blue tits worked through the pines and a pair of Long-tailed Tits rummaged around their large nest hanging high in a tree near our lunch spot beside a reconstructed monastery. From there, it was a long drive south to Delphi, ending with a climb over the flanks of Mount Parnassos. We arrived just in time for dinner!
We ventured west of Delphi the following morning. On a maquis-covered hillside, we had great looks at several warblers, including a Rüppel's Warbler that sang for long minutes from a bush right in front of us. Sardinian and Eastern Subalpine warblers also showed nicely, and we spotted a Eurasian Stonechat hunting from bush tops further up the hill. But the unexpected star of the show was a singing Cretzschmar's Bunting, a species which is declining across Greece with the drop in goat and sheep herds (which keep the hillsides grazed to the lower vegetation levels the buntings prefer); we hadn't seen the bird there since before COVID. On a nearby cliff face, we found a small colony of Rock Sparrows, plus a handful of Rock Doves -- which appeared to be the real deal -- that were protesting the unwelcome presence of a couple of Little Owls. A pair of Western Rock Nuthatches did push-ups on a rock near the base of the cliff, and a male Blue Rock Thrush sang challenges while a female hopped across the hillside, searching for prey. An Eastern Black-eared Wheatear sat up along the roadside, showing a narrower black mask than the one we'd seen at Iasmos. After a taverna lunch, we headed to the sprawling ancient ruins of Delphi (yet another World Heritage Site), where Georgios first took us through the museum then out among buildings that have stood (more or less) for millenia.
A few of us were up and out before breakfast the next morning to bird along the edges of the village. Our target was Sombre Tit and, after a bit of a search, we found a busy family group of four working through a weedy field down the hill from the hotel. A couple of Cirl Buntings were an added bonus. After breakfast, we had another gloriously sunny start to our day up Mount Parnassos. Once we'd driven up the winding slopes above Arachova (with a brief stop for Eurasian Crag-Martins nesting under an avalanche bridge), we stopped for some scenic shots -- and discovered a vast flock of Yellow-billed Choughs swirling along the cliff edge above us. Nearby, a Rufous-tailed Rock-Thrush sang from a telephone pole, until it left to chase off a rival. Red-backed Shrikes were ubiquitous in the open areas, Firecrests called from every wooded quarter, and our picnic spot yielded a tour-first Middle-spotted Woodpecker at a nesthole and a heard-only Eurasian Wryneck. We ventured just above the treeline at one of the mountain's ski resorts, and found a few Black Redstarts and Northern Wheatears bouncing across the low turf and flitting through the rock piles. Lower down, in a grassy meadow among the Grecian Firs, we found a Mistle Thrush perched atop a tree while a Lesser Whitethroat worked through a shrub nearby. A Black Woodpecker bounded over in several places, shouting challenges as it went. Eurasian Serins tinkled as they flitted through a weedy patch beside the road, flashing their yellow rumps as they flew, and we got even better looks at another pair high in trees near our picnic site.
Our final morning started before breakfast again for a few who'd skipped yesterday's outing. Fortunately, we again found a couple of Sombre Tits working through the pines down the hill from our hotel; we also had lovely looks at a Eurasian Blue Tit and a trio of Great Tits rummaging in bushes right in front of us. On our way out of town, we stopped at big pullouts, trying to locate an Eastern Orphean Warbler for those who’d missed the first one. After several attempts, we found one which put on a good show, singing from a bush top right across the road from where we stood. A jaunt back up the first part of Mount Parnassos netted us even better looks at Lesser Whitethroat, plus a Tawny Pipit scuttling around on the road in front of the first van. But the Eurasian Wryneck that we'd hoped for continued to elude us. Eventually, we continued on to monastery of Osios Loukas, where we marveled at mosaics which still glitter in the thousand-year-old church. And, after a final drizzly picnic, we carried on to Athens, where we had a final dinner and checklist together.
Thanks so much for joining in the adventure. It was good fun romping around Greece with all of you. I hope to see you soon, on another trip somewere. Until then, good birding!
Other creatures of interest:
Mammals:
EUROPEAN RED SQUIRREL (Sciurus vulgaris)
COYPU (Myocastor coypus)
RED FOX (Vulpes vulpes)
GOLDEN JACKAL (Canus aureus)
WESTERN ROE DEER (Capreolus capreolus)
Reptiles and amphibians:
BALKAN POND TURTLE (Mauremys rivulata)
SPUR-THIGHED (GREEK) TORTOISE (Testudo graeca)
GREEK (BALKAN) STREAM FROG (Rana graeca)
EUROPEAN TREE FROG (Hyla arborea)
EUROPEAN GREEN LIZARD (Lacerta viridis)
ERHARD'S WALL LIZARD (Podarcis erhardii)
EUROPEAN LEGLESS LIZARD (Pseudopus apodus)
DICE SNAKE (Natrix tessellata)
CASPIAN WHIPSNAKE (Dolichophis caspius)
You can see my complete trip report on eBird at this link: https://ebird.org/tripreport/516070
You can see my iNaturalist report of non-avian taxa at this link: https://uk.inaturalist.org/projects/greece-2026
You can download a combined PDF of this page and the eBird report at this link: https://fieldguides.com/triplists/gre26TRIPLIST.pdf
-- Megan