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, 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.

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 !

Cirl bunting.

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. 

Italian wall lizard.

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, Clusius' and spring. Also many other flowers which will need to be identified when I get home.

There are at least two species of trumpet Gentian at Velika Planina, Gentiana clusii and G. acaulis. Due to time limitations, today I was only able to identify the former, commonly known Clusius' Gentian.

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.

White-winged black terns, Marton Mere

Two adult summer plumage white-winged black terns were at Marton Mere near Blackpool today. One of the birds is really stunning, the other a little less so. I'm not sure if it's a male / female thing, or perhaps one is a full adult, the other a second year, but both are really fabulous birds. This is the first time that I have seen more than a single white-winged black tern in the UK, though I did see a flock of 200 in Greece a many years ago.

I always struggle with photos of flying birds, especially terns, but fortunately these birds were following a repetitive feeding pattern so I tried manually focusing on the lilly pads and then just waited for them to come back. These were easily the best I achieved all afternoon, I'm happy with them. 

The osprey saga continues

I was in Horrock's hide at 13:20 when an osprey appeared at the western end of Pennington flash. My obvious assumption was that it was the adult female which has been frequenting the flash since Tuesday, and in fact I'd gone back this afternoon precisely because I expected that bird to reappear mid-afternoon following a very early morning appearance today at 06:20. 

However, though the bird circled over the water a few times it clearly wasn't for staying and it drifted off over the main car park and east, but not before flying right over my head enabling me to fire off a few reasonable photos which clearly show that this osprey was in fact a 2nd calendar year bird and not the adult female.

It's just about conceivable that this is the same bird which roosted 4th-7th May, though if it is, where it's been for the past 10 days is a mystery. Perhaps it's more likely that this is the fifth osprey of the year at the flash and the fourth in the past two weeks!

What a mad year!

Note the damaged tail of the adult on the right and compare with the bird on the left. Also the barring on the underwing coverts of the lefthand bird compared to the pure white of the adult female. Another bizarre twist in the story of ospreys at the flash this year.

Osprey again, fishing in East Bay

The osprey at Pennington Flash continues to perform well. Yesterday it was present from about 10am to 12:15pm, and today came in over the spit at 8:45am then headed to East Bay where it spent most of it's time with the occasional foray over to the western end always harassed by gulls. It dropped into the water on at least four occasions and on the first three came up empty handed. On the final occasion it came up with what looked like a bream and headed off west with the fish at 9:20am. Great to see such a sight just a 10 minute walk from home!