Tuesday 8 June 2010

Hittites and the steppe lakes

If Cath gets time I'm sure she will fill you in with who they were and what they did. In the meantime yet another historical site devoid of farmers and so full of flowers, birds and some very interesting rocks. Lots of buntings, rock nuthatches and long legged buzzards to watch whilst being amazed by ancient man's ability to move huge lumps of limestone. The site was called Hattusa and dates from 2500BC, as the buildings were made of wood and mud bricks on top of a substantial limestone base which is all that remains, unfortunately. The site is vast and took us three hours to get round it using the car to move between each temple, gate and fortress.
Camped overlooking the site and managed a beer at sunset, the first since Birecek which was over two weeks ago!!
Moved on to view a couple of lakes to try and find the other type of Pelican. Failed, but that was partly due to the rain and the Turkish farmers using so much of the lake water we cvould only just work out where the lake was. Kulu Golu, the second lake, was much better with hundreds of Flamingoes and good numbersw of tern, gulls and ruddy shelduck. WWe got too close to an Avocet's nest and were subjected to noisy display techniques. Just before the rain returned we found a Demoiselle Crane, miles from where it should have been. On the way to our next stop north of Ankara we stumbled across an Egyptian Vulture just to round off the day.

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