Slemenova Špica

Not content with tackling the Vrsic pass yesterday, today we went back for seconds, this time from Kranjska Gora, 24 hairpin bends up and the same back down. We parked at the top and walked to the summit of Slemenova Špica, altitude 1911m (6270ft), which involved a climb of 1600ft for us and a walk of 9km (5.5 miles). Just when we thought we'd seen every spectacular view available, this walk offered us even more. Truly breathtaking. 

Lots of amazing flowers on the way including alpine and least snowbells, glacier crowfoot, shrubby milkwort plus the usual dwarf alpenrose. Plenty of birds including alpine choughs and once again a high altitude lesser whitethroat singing at 1850m! A short walk this afternoon and I managed to find Dinaric hawksbeard, a Slovenian speciality and a rarity even here.

Vršič Pass

Today we took on the Vršič Pass in the Julian Alps to get from Bovec to Kranjska Gora. Infamous for it's steep inclines and umpteen hairpin bends, the road climbs to 1500m (nearly 5000ft), but we found the reality a lot less intimidating than the myth and certainly I've faced worse roads in Scotland.

No doubting the scenery though, absolutely awesome, every day seems to get better at the moment. Some nice birds, the biggest surprise of all though, a lesser whitethroat singing at 1750m (5700ft)! Who knew that lesser whitethroat was an alpine species? Loads of great flowers as well, including more gentians and carpets of mountain avens. Add to that a couple of great stops at spectacular mountain huts in truly breathtaking scenery and it really was a day that will live long in the memory.

Korita Možnice in the Julian Alps

Back in Slovenia and today we had a great walk to Korita Možnice, just north of Bovec. The walk goes through beech woodland following a river as it carves it's way through limestone, creating gorges, waterfalls and pools along it's course. Just the most stunning scenery, we were surrounded by the high mountains of the Julian Alps. Birds included two griffon vultures being mobbed by a honey buzzard, several alpine swifts, a flyby black woodpecker and a black-bellied dipper. Also lots of flowers including several orchids such as bird's-nest, common twayblade and white helleborine. Many interesting butterflies including large wall brown, swallowtail, southern white Admiral, black-veined white and various blues.

Veliki Možniški slap, a waterfall through a natural arch

Isola della Cona NR, Italy

We spent this morning at the Isola della Cona nature reserve in north east Italy. What a place, easily the best wildlife site we have seen so far with several bee-eaters, greater flamingos, 27 little gulls, 50+ Mediterranean gulls, several golden orioles, nightgales in full song, spoonbills, great reed warblers, purple heron, pygmy cormorant and the biggest surprise, 2 Russian white-fronted geese lingering from winter, when a few thousand can be present here. From the looks of my photos it appears that one of the pair has an injured wing and is probably unable to take the long flight back to Siberia, though it must be able to fly short distances because the reserve wardens were surprised when I showed them the photos and said that this was the first time that they had seen them.

None birdy highlights included a couple of snakes, several Italian Wall lizards and best of all a wild boar, only the third I have ever seen.

As usual on this holiday, camera photos will be uploaded to these posts when I get home.

Venice

Sorry for the very touristy nature of the photos in this post, but this morning we caught the 6:50 train from a little town near Trieste and less than two hours later we arrived at Venice Santa Lucia train station. Tall narrow streets with buildings crammed together, no parks and thousands of tourists, I just wasn't expecting much bird life. Add to that the near 30 degree heat and even I was never going to carry binoculars and a proper(ish) camera today.

It turned out ok in the end though, there were a few common terns, a single pygmy cormorant, three more African sacred ibis flew over, a few little egrets and best of all, five pallid swifts chased each other close to the waterbus we were on, fortunately close enough for me to be confident of the identification without binoculars.

 

Valle Cavanata NR, Italy

We moved to North East Italy today and called in at a couple of decent nature reserves on the way. The first was Valle Cavanata, just east of the holiday resort of Grado, which is an impressive site with a large saline lagoon. We were told that greater flamingos were quite scarce visitors in the area but today there was a flock of around 150. Most pleasing though, an unfamiliar geweck-eweck-eweck call overhead, alerted me to a flock of 20 gull-billed terns flying over. This was the first time that I have heard this distinctive call which apparently is unmistakable when identifying this species. Also here, around 15 pygmy cormorants and 19 Mediterranean gulls.

Piran

A single gull-billed tern was off the promenade at Piran today, with a couple of common terns, otherwise pretty quiet, except for three Mediterranean gulls and a few Italian wall lizards .

Dawn chorus at Strunjan

I was awake at 5am and could hear the song of a nightingale in the garden outside our apartment. I decided to get up and sit on the patio.

It was a glorious morning, sunny and with the temperature around 18'C even so early. Looking across the valley I could see olive groves, gardens and woodland. Yesterday evening at least four scops owls were calling nearby, but this morning it was over to the songbirds. 

The nightingale was now so loud that it nearly burst my ear drums, almost right overhead, but I couldn't see it. Blackcaps and blackbirds were also singing heartily nearby, a single cirl bunting churred and a hoopoe called distantly, then suddenly an unseen golden oriole burst into song. All around I could hear the jingle of serins. 

Then, just as I'd almost given up seeing them, two bright yellow orioles chased each other past me and disappeared into the woodland opposite. It still was barely 6am. What an experience !

Škocjanski zatok Nature Resreve, Koper, Slovenia

Today we moved from the mountains north of Ljubljana to the Mediterranean coast in the south of Slovenia, between Koper and Strunjan. Near Koper we called in at Škocjanski zatok nature reserve. It's a great place which surely would be even better on an early morning in late April, but today I had to be content with a couple of hours in the baking heat just after lunch. 

Even so, I saw my first pygmy cormorants since Greece in 1988, plus a lot of other more typical Mediterranean wetland species. 

I'm currently unable to access the photos on my camera, so all photos are from my phone. I'll update these posts with hopefully better photos when I get home.

Velika Planina, Slovenia

Today we visited the spectacular Velika Pelina just north of Ljubljana in Slovenia. It's an alpine plateau at 1550m (5000+ ft), which fortunately is easily accessible via a cable car and a chairlift.

There are a few good birds to be seen, which today included alpine Chough and a pair of black redstarts feeding four hungry chicks in a nest on the patio of a cafe at the top of the cable car. 

The highlight of the day though, the masses of gentians in full flower. Two species I think, trumpet and spring. Also many other flowers which will need to be identified when I get home.

Trumpet gentians.

Kamniska Bistrica

Continuing north for a few kilometres from the Velika Planina cable car car park we arrived at the spectacular Kamniska Bistrica and did a short 3 mile walk along the river. Lots of interesting flowers, most of which will need to be identified when I get home, including a good array of orchids.