Southwest Turkey

Tours that take the strain out of enjoying Europe’s flora and fauna! Based in just a couple of good quality hotels, with direct flights, and these at kind times of day. And most importantly, field trips will be kept to a maximum of six or so hours, giving you plenty of time to relax before and after. Direct flights are available from some regional airports.

Kaş is a veritable playground for the naturalist with a wonderful range of flora and fauna, superb landscapes, fine marine life and with the comfort of a particularly lovely hotel and a wide choice of great restaurants to enjoy, it makes the perfect base for a wildlife at leisure tour.

Kaş’s narrow streets are lined with tempting little shops, cafes, bars and restaurants as the town rises up from its picturesque harbour. Past the amphitheatre, a road takes us out to the flower-filled Peninsula, now the domain of beautiful villas and hotels, yet only forty-five years ago this entire coast didn’t have a single tarmac road! Our lovely hotel nestles amongst garrigue rich in flowers and loaded with aromatic herbs, attracting abundant butterflies such as Southern and Scarce Swallowtails, Blue-spot Hairstreaks and the strikingly brilliant Loew’s Blue. Colourful Bee-eaters are migrating past as well as Hoopoes and Rollers. Kaş has perhaps the richest orchid flora in Turkey and we’ll see many fine species including Holy Orchid, Spurred Helleborine and Violet Limodore. Bee orchids are tremendously varied and we’ll see Ophrys lyciensis, Ophrys phaseliana, Ophrys reinholdii, Ophrys episcopalis and even the chlorantha form of Bee Orchid. The stunning Komper’s Orchid will be much enjoyed and we’ll hope that Kas’s own endemic orchid, Ophrys lycica, will still be in flower.

Green Turtles swim just offshore of the hotel and are common in these coastal waters. Andriake’s wetland, though small, has a huge list of birds and we’ll see a range of waders, egrets and herons, ducks, and migrant passerines. From the harbour here we’ll take a boat trip through the islands off Kekova, marvelling at the underwater archaeology and searching for both Green Turtles and Loggerheads, both of which are quite common here at this time of year. You’ll have the chance to snorkel at a couple of localities on this boat trip (and from your hotel) and the range of fish is quite good, with shoals of long thin Cornetfish, lots of colourful Wrasse, notably the exquisite Ornate Wrasse, and a decent chance of seeing Octopus and Squid, and of course, the turtles.

Just a few kilometres as the Eleonora’s Falcon flies, the land rises sharply to over a thousand metres and here we’ll wander in cool Cedar Forests where Irises still bloom alongside the red goblets of Tulipa armena, Paeonias, the newly described Campanula aktasii and lovely Silene cryptoneura. The lovely little Krüper’s Nuthatch is common alongside Short-toed Eagles, various woodpeckers and Goshawks. Inland further and we’ll explore the high Sinekçibeli Pass where Eastern Festoons, Powdered Brimstones and False Apollos still fly. The highest mountain in the region, the imposing 3000m Ak Dağı, has a road that will take us up in to its serenely beautiful yaylas, summer pastures around small deep green lakes, where fresh cold water still flows strongly from melting snows before plunging down an impressive waterfall. We’ll encounter abundant Fritillaria pinardii, elegant Fritillaria whitallii, and huge clumps of Aubrietia that would make even Bakewell purple with envy! Snowfinches feed around snowpatches where abundant Merendera attica and Scilla bifolia bloom and Red-fronted Serins, Finsch’s Wheatears and Cretzschmarr’s Buntings are amongst a birdlife redolent of areas farther to the east. If spring is early, rocks are decorated with the large blue saucers of Omphalodes luciliae and on the slopes are Muscari bourgaei; if its late then slopes will still be carpeted with the endemic Crocus akdaghensis, blue Anemone blanda and lovely Corydalis erdelii.

The second part of the tour takes us to Datça Peninsula. It would be difficult to find a flowerier place in the entire Mediterranean. What for much of the year is a forbiddingly barren-looking mountainous peninsula erupts into spectacular bloom in April and May. The combination of multi-hued Cistus bushes, bushes of blue Lithodora, neat mounds of flowering Euphorbias, great splashes of pink Convolvulus and the architectural Giant Fennels is mind-boggling. Looking closer there’s so much more. The gorgeous deep pink-lilac Iberis pruitii grows on bare tracks looking someone’s dropped packets of sweets as they’ve walked, and there’s little mounds of the very woolly Convolvulus compactus. Orchids are everywhere, in particular bee orchids, and Datça has many species of them – Ophrys candica, Ophrys minoa, Ophrys episcopalis and Ophrys ferrum-equinum subspecies mandalyana are some of the finest.

Serapias cordigera showers the open pinewoods with deep brick-coloured blooms and here they occur in unusual forms too with flowers often wholly or partly lime-green. These same pinewoods are home to a population of Caracal – we’ll go and look in the evening though chances are very slim, however we’ve a very good chance of seeing Wild Boar, Stone Marten and several owl species – Barn, Tawny, Long-eared and Scop’s Owls are all likely.

The wild and rugged Datça Peninsula is barely 80 kilometres from the modern tourist resorts around Marmaris yet it has managed to remain largely unspoilt and undeveloped into the 21^st century. Much of the peninsula is protected as a national park that was set up more than fifty years ago initially to protect the last Western Anatolian population of Leopard. None have been seen for around fifteen years now however there are still Brown Bears and Wolves here and very many Ibex. We’ll surely see the latter – posing on the limestone ramparts of Boz Dagi. This high rugged mountain has impressive cliffs on which breed various raptors including Bonelli’s Eagles, Peregrine and Lanner Falcon and the northern slopes, almost completely uninhabited are clothed is some of the richest lushest maquis in Turkey. Ruppell’s Warblers and Bonelli’s Warblers are everywhere. We’ll be based just outside the lovely little town of Datça close to this mountain and just 35 kilometres from the Knidos, a remarkable archaeological site at the tip of the peninsula. Cory’s Shearwaters and Audouin’s Gulls are offshore along with Bottle-nosed Dolphins.

Pamukkale needs little introduction, images of the fabulous aquamarine travertine terraces that cascade down the mountainside near Denizli are featured everywhere that talks of Turkey. The ancient Greco-Roman city of Hieropolis was built above the remarkable terraces. Nearby rises Honaz Dağı, an impressive mountain at over 8350 feet (2570m) and which has a very different flora and fauna to the Datça Peninsula. Here we can find clumps of yellow Iris suaveolens and the unusual yellow Moltkia aurea whilst birds include Cretzschmarr’s Buntings, Short-toed Eagles and Woodlark.

Colourful cliffs beset with spectacular Lycian Rock Tombs dominate the pleasant little town of Dalyan nestled against a bend in the Dalyan (ancient Calbys) River. Dalyan could hardly have more diverse habitats. Within a few kilometres are reedbeds, lakes, beaches, limestone maquis, pine forests, globally important Liquidambar Forests, mountains and cliffs. Not surprising then that Dalyan is so rich in wildlife. A gentle walk takes us through the ruins of the Carian Port at Kaunos where Rock Nuthatches shout from ancient arches and you’re sure to see numerous Agama Lizards and even the odd Balkan Green Lizard sunning themselves. A rich flora includes many bellflowers, campions, boraginaceae and orchids such as Holy Orchid and various Tongue Orchids. White-breasted Kingfishers can be sometimes be seen from the river front of our hotel though we’ll more certainly encounter them in Hamitköy marshes at the other end of the lake and close by our hotel in Köyceğiz. Masses of tall egg-yolk yellow Iris xanthospuria dominates the meadows here in a spectacular show with the tall fluffy paler wands of Thalictrum flavum for company. This is migrant bird heaven with an unimaginable variety of warblers, as well as Collared, Pied and even Semi-collared Flycatchers, Wryneck, and lots of Shrikes – Woodchat, Red-backed and Masked.
Bee-eaters and Hoopoes will now be passing through and we’ll enjoy the various forms of Yellow Wagtail, especially the local Black-headed one.

We’ll use one of these boats to explore the river system and Lake Köyceğiz, a wonderfully relaxing trip, and with plenty of birds; Herons and Egrets, Terns and Harriers. Lesser Emperor Dragonflies and Slender and Epaulet Skimmers race by, or perch on the boat’s rails. Long-legged Buzzard and Short-toed Eagles drift overhead as we visit Dalyan’s four-kilometre long beach. Loggerhead Turtles will already have begin their nesting season but in daylight hours one is still allowed there and we can usually see them hanging around just offshore. Marshy pools and reedbeds next to the Liquidamabar woods are home to the gorgeous Indigo Dropwing, Eastern Willow Spreadwing and the rare Turkish Red Damsel Ceriagrion georgifreyi whilst Southern Swallowtails and Southern White Admirals course up and down the shadey tracks. Middle-spotted Woodpeckers, Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers, Hawfinches and Golden Orioles are among the birds that make these emerald-green woodlands their home. Spurred Helleborines and the lovely deep red-pink ‘rubra’ form of Violet Limodores are common. Further up into the mountains we’ll pass through mixed pine and plane woodlands where we can see Green Woodpeckers, Short-toed Treecreepers and maybe even White-backed Woodpeckers. Up onto the highest, almost alpine areas of Sandros Mountain and we’ll look for Black Woodpecker, Goshawk and Kruper’s Nuthatch around a small lake where snow may still be lying and Colchicums, Crocuses and Gageas are in bloom.