ISTANBUL – BIRDING IN TRANSIT

There are direct flights to Azerbaijan from London airports. But you could travel via Istanbul and layover in style! Why not try these... Taxi into town via living murals – whose plants reduce air pollution – and roadside mini-mills, generating electricity from traffic downdrafts. Stay in chilled-out Beşiktas. Eat Turkish. Or Iranian. Or Armenian. Or Irish! Look for Syrian Woodpecker in Yildiz Park. Grab a late afternoon ferry on the Bosphorus and watch hundreds of Yelkouan Shearwaters zooming busily up and down this strait that joins the Med to the Black Sea, and Europe to the Middle East. Watch the sun set over mosques swirling with Alpine Swifts.