Eco Hvar

April Bird Watch, 2016

Steve Jones from Dol continues his study of the island's birds. Anyone who is seeing or hearing anything of interest in the bird world is invited to contact him at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Wheatear Wheatear Photo: Steve Jones

April 8th 2016: As no doubt most have heard, the Nightingale is singing most of the time now.

I saw another new bird for me - Corn Bunting, once again picked up by its call, as one I wasn't familiar with. It has been in for a couple of weeks but I hadn't been close enough to see it.

Corn Bunting. Photo Steve Jones

Went up to Sv Nikola earlier in the week to see what was about, and very disappointing on the bird front. A solitary Kestrel, a Wheatear and a couple of Chaffinches singing but not seen.

Sveti Nikola, the island's highest point. Photo: Vivian Grisogono
10th April 2016: Just got back from a 90 minute wander ............... heard two Cuckoos - so another arrival - and one Hoopoe calling, although saw neither.
Cuckoo, April 28th 2016. Photo: Steve Jones

Also to be added is Linnet - I thought I had been seeing/hearing them for a while, but needed more confirmation, and I managed to get my telescope on one this morning.

14th April 2016: I have been going to appointments in Jelsa all week. I was a little bit early today and went for a stroll - thought I heard Bee-Eaters, wasn't 100% but am pretty confident so you want to keep your eyes peeled. Heard a Cuckoo in Dol yesterday .... still not seen a Swift which is a surprise to me, I suspect they might be making appearances in the UK anytime now.

15th April 2016:  Just came back from Jelsa and had a definite sighting of Bee-Eaters so my hearing was good yesterday.

Bee-eaters. Photo: Steve Jones

Eco Hvar comment: I also saw the bee-eaters in a little flock above one of Jelsa's back roads a couple of days ago. They seem to have arrived right on cue, to judge by past years. Many are having to find new homes, as a large nesting place just opposite the Bagi petrol station on the main road was dug up a couple of years ago, exposing their warren of nesting holes as pitiful relics of the past.

Bee-eaters nesting holes exposed to predators and the elements, April 2015. Photo: Vivian Grisogono

Bee-eaters' nesting holes ruthlessly exposed to predators and the elements, April 2015. Photo: Vivian Grisogono 

21st April 2016: As I barely visit a town for any period of time I am still not hearing/seeing any Swifts. Are they in in Jelsa now? I was in Split yesterday and they are everywhere, I thought I heard one in Stari Grad this morning, maybe they are just arriving. Interesting, as they would only be arriving just about now in UK, For some reason I assumed things would be earlier here.

Eco Hvar comment: Yes, the swifts have arrived in Jelsa, and just today they were extremely busy renovating their nesting places under the eaves of the buildings on the main square. A diligent and co-operative crowd!

Swifts preparing their nests on Jelsa's square, 21st April 2016. Photo Vivian Grisogono

22nd April 2016. Picked up the Nightjar "churring" last night so another recent arrival.

23rd April 2016. Another long awaited  .................. Vuga/Golden Oriole I hear calling this morning and it certainly wasn't yesterday.

Sunday 24th April.2016: Went out for 90 mins or so early this morning, wondering if the low cloud, mist and rain would have any influence on things. It was very quiet, even the singing had gone quiet apart from the dawn chorus - who can blame them?

Keep hearing Cuckoo, but long distances away and not lucky enough to have seen one here. I still wonder what their host bird would be if they breed.

Anyway, as I was driving along the airport road I chanced upon a Woodchat Shrike, all over in a few seconds. I had seen one here on Hvar a couple of years ago on holiday albeit elsewhere on the island.

Woodchat shrike (c.2013). Photo: Steve Jones

Also saw a good number of Swifts in Stari Grad - so interestingly it wouldn’t be much different to UK arrivals.

Eco Hvar: Saturday and Sunday, 23rd and 24th April 2016 have been very rainy, with some thunder and a lot of low-lying clouds. The birds seem to lie low during the heaviest rains, and then emerge in full song as soon as calm is restored. It's quite a contrast to the previous period of hot sunny weather, but welcome refreshment for gardens and fields - also for dust-covered cars.

Rain clouds hanging heavy over Pitve Church. Photo: Vivian Grisogono

© Steve Jones 2016

For more of Steve's beautiful nature pictures, see his personal pages: Bird Pictures on Hvar 2017, and Butterflies of Hvar 

Related items

back to top
You are here: Home Nature Watch April Bird Watch, 2016

Eco Environment News feeds

  • UK opening new oil and gas fields would imperil global climate goals, experts say

    Senior climate figures warn North Sea drilling would encourage fossil fuel exploitation by developing countries

    Opening new oil and gas fields in the North Sea would “send a shock wave around the world”, imperilling international climate targets, undermining the UK’s climate leadership and encouraging developing countries to exploit their own fossil fuel reserves, experts have warned.

    The UK government is under stiff pressure from the oil industry, the Conservatives, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, some trade unions and parts of the Treasury to give the green light to new oil and gas fields, despite clear evidence that doing so would not cut prices and would have almost no effect on imports.

    Continue reading...

  • ‘Should it all just be renationalised?’ – your water crisis questions answered

    Sandra Laville has been reporting on England’s sewage crisis for years. She answered your questions on the water privatisation scandal.

    Guardian environment correspondent Sandra Laville’s reporting on the sewage crisis in English water has helped to expose a scandal of privatisation that has created a swell of fury across the political divide.

    Sandra has now finished answering your questions. Read the Q&A and join the discussion below.

    The government has put the cost of renationalising water at £100bn. But this is a disputed figure. Academics working with the People’s Commission on the Water Sector say this figure is ‘serious scaremongering created on biased evidence’ which was paid for by water companies. It is based on the Regulatory Capital Value of companies as determined by Ofwat, not the” true and fair value in law”, which reflects losses from market failures, like the cost of pollution or the monopoly profits taken by shareholders and banks.

    The route to renationalisation could come via the system set up legally when the companies were privatised. Under the law companies can be put into special administration if they are unable to pay debts, if they breach licence obligations, such as on sewage pollution, or failing to supply water, and if it is considered in the public interest to do so. Special administration is a form of temporary renationalisation.

    This is the million dollar question! While tackling separation across the whole network at once is considered too disruptive and costly, particularly in urban environments, the chartered institute of water and environmental management says moving towards separated systems is their key focus to address urban pollution and storm water sewage releases. New developments, for example, are now mandated to have separate pipes for foul wastewater and surface water run off.

    They also want to see the increased use of sustainable drainage systems like water butts, and storage basins for existing properties, to reduce the amount of runoff into the system. Keeping gardens rather than paving them over, and creating so called sponge cities is also key to tackling pollution.

    The UK was described as the dirty man of Europe back in the 70s and 80s, due to levels of pollution. For example in coastal towns there were no water treatment plants to treat sewage, raw sewage was just pumped and dumped into the sea. It was only when the EU directives came in that the clean up began. Chief amongst these was the Urban Wastewater directive, the Water Framework directive, and the Bathing Water directive.

    Since leaving the EU there have been fears that these pieces of legislation could be watered down. James Bevan, as CEO of the Environment Agency, talked about changing the Water Framework Directive, essentially to make it easier for rivers to pass tests for chemical and biological health. Currently no river is rated as in good overall health under the WFD where rivers have to pass both chemical and biological health tests.

    Continue reading...

  • Say no to pesticides, mix up your lawn – and six more ways to help bees to thrive

    Like so many flying insects, these essential pollinators are suffering because of habitat loss and the overuse of chemicals. Here’s how to give them a healthier, happier home

    We know about honeybees and bumblebees, but most of the UK’s bees are neither: they’re solitary bees, loners who come in a dizzying range of sizes, colours and varieties – more than 240 species. Have you heard, for instance, of the hairy-footed flower bee? “They’re one of the first bees to emerge each year,” says Laura Larkin, the chief conservation officer at Buglife. “The males have got fantastic little fluffy bits on their feet.”

    How about leaf-cutter bees, which chomp “a perfectly circular hole” out of leaves to build their nests? Or bright-orange tawny mining bees, wool-carder bees, ivy bees? “There are so many of them and I’m still learning,” says Kate Bradbury, a wildlife gardener, writer, bee lover and the author of One Garden Against the World. “They’re just great – there’s a solitary bee for every occasion.”

    Continue reading...

  • ‘The water is no longer our friend’: how dredging is pushing Lagos Lagoon towards ecosystem collapse – photo essay

    Taking sand from the Nigerian city’s lagoon to supply a building boom harms more than fish – it affects the entire food chain, erodes coastlines and is depriving fishing communities of their livelihoods

    Before dawn, when the noise of Lagos’s danfobusesfills the air and generators rumble to life, the city’s lagoon is already stirring. Not from fish splashing or canoes gliding, but from the long suction pipes of the dredging machines, pulling up the lagoon bed and spitting out wet sand that will be used in the construction of high-rise blocks, housing estates and flyovers.

    Sand dredging is regulated by the Lagos state government and the waterways authority but in a city of more than 20 million people, where sharp sand has never been in higher demand, not all dredging is being done by the book.

    Dredging leaves its mark on the landscape along the shores of the Lagos Lagoon in Epe

    Continue reading...

  • Oil slick from bombed Iranian ship threatens protected wetland

    Shahid Bagheri leaking fuel towards Hara mangrove forest, home to migrating birds and endangered turtles

    An oil slick from a stricken Iranian ship threatens to contaminate one of the Middle East’s most important wetlands, satellite image analysis suggests, making it one of a number of spills posing a risk to the livelihoods of coastal communities in the Gulf.

    The Shahid Bagheri, a drone carrier, began leaking heavy fuel oil in Iranian territorial waters near the strait of Hormuz after it was hit by a US warplane in the first few days of the US-Israel attack on Iran.

    Continue reading...

  • Birdwatch: Climbing to 4,400 metres to spot a rare rufous-bellied seedsnipe

    Our writer travels to the eastern Andes in search of one of Ecuador’s most elusive birds

    I’m out of breath – and not just because I’m desperate to see one of Ecuador’s most elusive birds, the rufous-bellied seedsnipe. To have any chance of success, I’ve come to Cayambe Coca national park in the eastern Andes. At 4,400 metres (14,400 feet), this is the highest altitude I have ever experienced.

    Fortunately the skies are clear, the sun is shining, and my guide, Juan Carlos, is optimistic. I don’t tell him I have a track record of missing nailed-on certainties.

    Continue reading...

  • Country diary: Watching the cows, chewing on memories of protest and parenting | Nicola Chester

    Woolton Hill, Hampshire: I visit an old friend in an old haunt, where a small herd of Shetlands has been set to work

    Thirty years on from the impassioned action of the road protests, the Newbury bypass soars above us on the old railway embankment. I can’t entirely accept it even now, having been part of the campaign. Today, walking in The Chase, the nature reserve that lies adjacent, the roar of traffic slips into a background hum, aided by other memories I’ve built up here.

    Many of those have been with my dearest friend, Sarah. She volunteers as a “cow watcher” for the National Trust, and I’ve come with her as she checks their whereabouts and wellbeing. They are conservation grazers; keeping coarser scrub in check, spreading seed and poaching areas, and encouraging greater biodiversity and plantlife.

    Continue reading...

  • Cars make way for bikes as Sydney commuters saddle up to circumvent ‘crazy’ fuel costs

    The shock of the oil crisis is playing out on Australian streets, where bike sales are up and cycle lanes are busier

    Before the 1970s global oil crisis, city planners in Copenhagen were considering removing bike lanes. Bicycles were considered outdated now car was king, and just 10% of locals were cycling regularly.

    But as economic shock waves reverberated around the world, Denmark, which almost entirely relied on imported oil, took a dramatic U-turn, with citizens staging mass protests in the middle of highways demanding better cycling infrastructure.

    Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads

    Continue reading...

  • ‘All we can do now is pray they continue’: Maasai welcome the first rains but know that drought is far from over

    Harsh weather is nothing new in Kenya but the country’s climate is showing clear signs of getting hotter and drier

    The day is hot and dry but the soil underfoot is soft. “After four months of drought, we received the first rains yesterday,” says Maasai elder Abraham Kampalei. “All we can do now is pray that they continue.”

    Kampalei has lived for more than 50 of his 70 years with his family and animals in Oldonyonyokie, a hamlet in southern Kenya’s Kajiado county. He has witnessed the slow decline of the pastures. “I came here because of the abundance of grass for my livestock to graze. Today, there is almost nothing left of it,” he says.

    Continue reading...

  • ‘I escaped death a lot of times’: one man’s lifelong work protecting gorillas and communities in Congo

    As a child, Dominique Bikaba, was displaced by a new national park in the DRC. Now he is helping to secure land for wildlife and Indigenous groups against the backdrop of ongoing fighting

    Mist hangs low over the forested slopes of Kahuzi-Biega national park, where the canopy still shelters one of the last strongholds of the eastern lowland, or Grauer’s, gorilla. It is a landscape of immense biological wealth and equally immense political fragility. For 54-year-old Dominique Bikaba, it was once home.

    His family was among those displaced when their ancestral land was incorporated into the park in the 1970s. The protected area, in the lowlands of South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), harbours elephants and a remarkable range of wildlife, but it is best known as the principal home of the Grauer’s gorilla, the largest subspecies of primates, known to grow up to 250kg (39st) in weight. It is one of five great ape species found in the DRC’s vast forests, including mountain gorillas, which are also found in other parts of the Great Lakes region, such as Rwanda and Uganda.

    Continue reading...

Eco Health News feeds

Eco Nature News feeds

Copyright © 2026 Eco Hvar. All Rights Reserved. Developed by Orion Informatika.