Birdwatching at Northern Greece's Kerkini Lake

[Maria Athanassopoulou]

Located in the prefecture of Serres, not far from Thessaloniki, Lake Kerkini truly captivates visitors, despite the fact that it is an artificial reservoir, as today it's become a very important wetland of Greece, giving shelter to many seldom seen aquatic bird species. We had the chance to make the tour of the lake, one of the country's premier birding sites, one day last summer, when the water shone blue and the birds were refreshing themselves in the water continuously. There and on the olive trees surrounding the lake and we saw herons and myriad other birds (there are some 300 species here, including the lesser spotted eagle, Bonelli’s eagle, the great spotted eagle, the peregrine falcon, the Eurasian hobby, the Levant sparrow hawk and the northern goshawk), as buffalos and horses grazed on the shore.

Enjoy some photos: