Bezirgan is a brilliant place for bird watchers. It's not necessary to be an expert - the joy is in watching the birds go about their everyday business, with the added thrill of sometimes spotting a rare bird or a rare event.
Two hawks wheeling in the sky, screaming in an aerial dogfight....baby swallows demanding food....the crash! of a sparrow hawk hurtling from the skies into the rose arch after a sparrow....

We're often asked "why Owlsland?" And here's the reason! Three kinds of owl can be found around us, and this is the commonest, the Little Owl, athene noctua. He can often be seen perched on the chimneys of the old traditional farmhouses.

Since they don't migrate, it's possible to see them all year, even in daytime, on the rafters of old buildings, on telephone poles, trees and fences.

Scops Owl, otus scops, is the smallest of the owls to be seen here, only about 8" high with a 20" wingspan.

He's a summer visitor, coming here from Africa to breed. This pair have nested in a bole of the great plane tree across from Owlsland for the past few years and raised chicks.

The largest of our owls is the tawny owl, strix aluco. In the great old plane tree beside the Dervish Cafe, a pair nest every year.

The robin redbreast is surely the world's favourite bird, and here he is in Turkey, too. Whenever anyone ploughs or digs, there he is at their side, hoping for worms. The Turks call him "kina", which is "henna", for his red breast.

Some birds are welcome winter visitors, like this black redstart, which is easily recognized by the vivid flash of red from his tail as he flies.

Like the robin, he will stay close to a gardener, knowing that a tasty grub may be his reward. Here, he's on one of the ancient pieces of carved stone which litter the village, legacy of the Lycians, the Greeks and the Romans.

There are lots of birds of prey in the valley, but most are very rarely garden visitors. The exception is the sparrowhawk. Usually when he comes, all you see is a flurry of feathers and a crash as he falls from the sky onto a hapless small bird.

Recently, this young female sparrowhawk, with her brown feathers and and barred chest, and her eyes still of yellow not yet turned to orange has taken to paying us a visit. She doesn't just swoop down on her chosen prey, but will follow it on foot into cover, as she is doing here.

A male goldfinch is a spectacular sight, with his glowing colours. They're seed-eaters, eating seeds of the thistles which are plentiful by the edges of the fields. They especially love sunflower seeds, and we've found that the smaller-headed varieties like "Moonwalker" and "Teddybear" stand better than the common huge sunflowers, giving lots of smaller seeds, and attracting lots of goldfinches.

One of the loveliest songs to be heard must surely be that of the black headed bunting. Another migrant who leaves us for the winter, he likes to sing perched on the highest branches of small trees and large shrubs.

There's a postbox in the centre of the village, where we can post our letters. But this pair of bluetits found a much better use for it!

It's right beside the Dervish Café where all the men sit for hours, but people coming and going didn't seem to bother them in the least.

They flew in and out with food for the chicks, and successfully raised a whole brood last year. We hope they'll come back next year - only problem is that no one could post anything till the fledglings flew!

We love to listen to the "coo COO coo" of the collared dove, and there are three pairs regularly visit the garden.

They happily mix with the garden's huge flock of resident sparrows, sharing the barley, bulgur wheat and seeds we put out for them.

Possibly our favourite summer visitors are the swallows, who arrive every year about mid March. Despite being tiny creatures weighing about 20 grammes, they have flown all the way from Africa. And even more amazingly, they find their way back to the same nest! Groups of them can be seen collecting mud for necessary repairs, or to build new nests.

A nest in our garage is home to one pair who happily raise a brood of chicks every year, apparently not even slightly concerned by our moggies.

The chicks have a constant state - hungry, hungry, hungry!

Their harassed parents are kept busy from morning till night feeding them.

Being faced with an array of wide open beaks and ceaseless demanding shrieks can't be easy.

What they do is always feed the middle chick. Then when the parent flies off to seek more insects, the fledglings shuffle round the nest, ensuring that a different baby is middle one next time. Which is pretty clever when you think about it!

Chaffinches stay with us all year. They're birds which perhaps tend to be overlooked, which is a pity, because their brightly coloured plumage is quite spectacular and their song is varied and lovely (and loud!).

Bronze fennel is a great favourite with small seed eating birds in autumn. This is a willow warbler.

A pair of masked shrike breed in the garden every year, and the male has to spend much of his time chasing jays, which would eat the eggs or the chicks, away from his nest. Though but a fraction of its size, he flies above the jay, then drops on the larger bird like a stuka dive bomber, succeeding in seeing off the would-be thief.

In between fighting off predating jays, the pair of shrike have to find time to feed the growing chicks. Here, he has caught a caterpillar...

....and here he lives up to his nickname of "butcher bird" as he finishes it off.

Surely if there is one thing guaranteed to brighten the day, it has to be the song of a blackbird in the early morning.

You maybe can't repay the beauty and sheer joy of a blackbird's song, but you can offer him some food to see him through the hard days of winter. We save apples and quinces from the fruit trees, and get lots of blackbirds coming to eat them.

Syrian woodpeckers are abundant here. You can hear their unmistakeable loud "drumming" on a tree trunk from a long way off, and spot their very distinctive wavy flight.

Another bird which stays all year is the great tit. Several families of them nest in the eaves of the house, and they're our best customers at the bird feeders!.

This is a whinchat in the early spring.

Hoopoes are fairly uncommon in Bezirgan, though you do see them occasionally. A spectacular bird, called "Baltali" in Turkish, from "balta", meaning "axe" because of his axe-shaped crest.

It definitely isn't necessary to be an expert to enjoy birds. But if you can casually throw a mention of a Cretzschmar's Bunting into a conversation, it's sure to convince listeners that you're David Attenborough! Another migrant, these return here in early spring.

Another migrant which returns in early spring is the Sardinian warbler, pictured here in the acacia tree.

Spring is a busy time for returning migrants! This is another, the Ortolan bunting.

One of the sweetest singers of all is the skylark, whose song would make the most downcast of spirits soar. They're common around the edges of the village, where they nest in the large expanses of flat cornfields.

And speaking of sweet singers, another is the rock nuthatch. Because of his song, he's locally known as "bulbul", the word for the nightingale.

The rock nuthatch nest is an astonishing construction of mud, sometimes built against a house wall, as here, but often on a rock.

Probably the most spectacular spring migrant of them all, the Bee-eater. With his vivid colours, his long delicate beak designed for picking bees from the hives, and his distinctive warbling cry, he is unmistakeable.

Probably our favourite bird in the garden is the sparrow, because they're real survivors. A huge flock of them takes up residence in the big rambling rose arch, which protects them against cats and hawks alike.

They'll eat anything - insects, bulgur wheat, barley, fruit, cheese, birdseed, anything we put out for the birds, and even what we put out for the dogs!

And they'll nest anywhere - every gutter-end has a sparrow's nest, and they happily take up residence in the nest boxes. If you look closely you can see one of the chicks demanding food!

The pair which nest in this box generally have two clutches every year, so they're kept endlessly busy feeding babies like these ones.

Another summer visitor is the oriole. The flash of bright yellow amongst the trees is unmistakeable, but it's quite difficult to catch him in one place long enough to get a picture.

The collared flycatcher is a perfect example of camouflage in action.

There are lots of wheatears around, sometimes quite difficult to tell apart. This one is a male black-eared wheatear. oenanthe hispanica

Another wheatear, this time a pied wheatear, oenanthe pleschanka

The villain of the piece! Though the jay is a beautiful bird with his colourful plumage, he is a feathered thug who will steal and eat the eggs and young chicks of the other birds. Unfortunately, their numbers are growing, since they have very few predators.

The pied wagtail is a striking bird, and easily spotted by his distinctive gait and long wagging tail.

Lots of warblers to be seen, too, and again, often quite hard to identify. This one is hippolais pallida, the olivaceous warbler.

Another little warbler, the chiffchaff is very like the willow warbler to look at, but can be told apart by his song, which gives him his common name. In latin, he is phylloscopus collybita.

We know that summer's drawing to its end when the swallows start to mass on the wires prior to migrating south for the winter.

Magnificent birds of prey abound in the mountain, and sometimes they soar down over the valley. This is a Booted Eagle, Heiraaetus pennatus, one of the smaller eagles, which swoops down to catch small mammals, reptiles and small birds on the ground.