Rain, the Salt Lake trail and Flamingoes

It was a very dry January in Cyprus. At least, it was until about a week ago. I continued my three-times-per-week walks with my friend Sheila, along part of the Salt Lake trail, and from time to time we commented on how empty the Salt Lake still seemed, with very few of the usual flamingoes. Here's a sunrise from a week ago, with quite a few clouds in the sky, although I had almost forgotten that clouds often precede rain...

Then on Sunday, it rained. Not heavily,  but quite a bit.

On Monday it rained too, in short but heavy bursts typical of this region. We could do with some of the steady drizzle I was more accustomed to when growing up, but that's all too rare here.

On Tuesday, we decided to brave the trail in the hope that it would not be too muddy. We had to avoid a few puddles:

But were walking along at our usual pace when we rounded a corner and saw this:

Had it been a dry week, we might have tried to get around the fallen tree, but everywhere was still very wet, so we turned around and went the other way. I'm quite glad we did, because we got to see some flamingoes:

If you click the image, it should take you to a larger version of the photo that shows them more clearly. I did try zooming in on another photo, but inevitably it's not as sharp - however I quite liked this group of seven flamingoes in a row, with their reflections in the water:

It rained again somewhat on Wednesday, hard enough that our roof leaked quite badly over the stairs, but briefly enough that the sun came out again and dried up most of the rain.  On Thursday's walk, the flamingoes were even more in evidence:

We think there were around two hundred to be seen. That might sound like quite a few, but a year ago they arrived much earlier, and we estimated that there were over two thousand VERY noisy flamingoes! 

The Salt Lake still seems quite empty compared to last year. There isn't a whole lot of snow in the mountains, either. We  hope this is not going to be another year with enforced water restrictions.