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, nightingales in full song, spoonbills, great
reed warblers, purple heron, pygmy cormorant and the biggest surprise, two
Russian white-fronted geese lingering from winter.
A few thousand white-fronts can be present here in winter, with 5,400 counted in January
this year I believe. From the looks of my photos it appears that the left hand bird, a 1st winter, has an injured wing and is probably unable to take the long flight back
to Siberia and the other has just stayed with it.
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.
Bee-eaters breed on the reserve and there were several about today.
Great reed warblers are always worth the entrance fee!
Nightingale.
Mediterranean gulls.
This looks like a grass snake to me but I'm no sure that it's a good enough
photo to be certain.
European pond terrapin. Sadly there are many alien North American red-eared
sliders on the reserve, introduced as usual by ill informed people releasing
their pets into the the ponds with no thought for the consequences to native wildlife.
This great Peter Scott like painting was hanging in the cafe and shows
white-fronted geese and two red-breasted geese coming in to land at Isola
della Cona. I think that this is the work of Dr. Fabio Perco who apart from being a conservationist who helped found the reserve was also a talented bird artist. I'm not certain of this though, so if anybody knows for sure can you please put a comment on the post, thanks.
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