Porto Lagos, a stop on the way to Lake Kerkini

Porto Lagos is a small village, which is coastal and lakeside at the same time since next to it is Lake Vistonida and its coasts are washed by the Thracian sea. This was the only stop that we had planned on the way from Tycheron to Lake Kerkini.

Porto Lagos is popular with ornithologist and it was a perfect place for us to stop. There is a rich bird fauna at Porto Lagos and we saw, more or less, the same type of birds here that we had seen the day before at the Evros Delta.

What we searched for was the Greater Flamingo, but this time we wanted better pictures of this magnificent bird.

It was a windless morning with a beautiful setting even if the sun was obscured by clouds.

This was one of the first pictures I took at Porto Lagos and it is a picture I like. The calmness together with the ripples from the Great Crested Grebe is what makes this picture for me. I also like that you get a feeling for the size of Lake Vistonida with the tree line as the background.

We saw many groups of Greater Flamingo, but most were too far out for us. Still some of us got the opportunity to take a couple of pictures of a single Greater Flamingo. When I say some of us I mean that it is hard to stop a full Minibus, open the door and make everyone inside get out before the bird has gone away. I was lucky to be able to get a few photos of the bird and this is one of them.

What I like in this picture is the Greater Flamingos ballet posture. I think it is a beautiful posture that fits the gracefully Flamingo in a nice way. It is also a little funny and it makes me wonder if the Flamingo posture is a predecessor to the ballet posture.

It was a nice stop and we saw that there were big potential here to put up hides along the shoreline to work with Herons, Egrets and other birds, but that had to wait for another time as we had another goal in mind and that was the Dalmatian Pelicans at Lake Kerkini.

Photo Gallery: Porto Lagos, a stop on the way to Lake Kerkini