White Wintering Birds - Part 3

This third post on wintering white birds relies on one of my favourite waterbird species, the spoonbill. This species remains still scarce in Italy but a bit less than in the past. During winter and migration it is not rare to observe small flocks in the main wetlands of central Italy but mostly in small numbers. It's migration, together with its social interactions, makes this species particularly interested to be studied as it was showed by a few recent studies.

White Wintering Birds - Part 2

The Little Egret is a very common bird in the Mediterranean wetlands and also the number of breeding pairs is increasing, fortunately. Nevertheless every time I watch one of this small herons hunting in a pond is amazing. A restless hunt with jerk movements shows great results with dozens of small fishes captured in a little time.

The Circeo National Park shows good feeding opportunities for herons despite the management of the area is weak. This Park was founded in 1934 and expanded in the '70s. However the effect of land reclaim of the early XX century and the growing number of human settlements isn't balanced by wildlife management actions. 

White Wintering Birds - Part 1

This is the first post of three dedicated to three white birds wintering here in central Italy. This winter has been short with a few very cold weeks. Ponds have frozen also along the coasts and this is not usual here. It has been fun watching black-headed gulls go ice skating on city ponds around Rome. On the other hand thousands of them went around cultivated fields looking for earthworms. When flying over fields, gulls were often drifted by the northern wind blowing continously during those days.

Wintertime 2017

Happy New Year

Wintering cranes

I always had the idea that, for wintering, cranes  need large, undivided open areas and this is the reason why their number in Italy is always very low. As a matter of fact agricultural Italian areas are fragmentized by roads and fenches, with buildings and other kind of humane presence. However when I was in the Hula Valley (Israel) some days ago I was really surprised of the incredible number of wintering cranes (more than 40.000 individuals!). That lowland area looks pretty similar to several agricultural areas of Italy where cranes are always scarce. It is true that in the Hula Valley farmers feed cranes for turists and for productive reasons but I don't think it's enough to explain the huge difference in number between Middle East and Italy. For sure biogeographical reasons interact with food availability in explaining the winter distribution of this amazing species since the Middle East is the first area with available habitat south of Caucasus and the mountainous areas of Kurdistan, excluding the desertic and semi-desertic areas of Syria. In any case it has been impressive to observe tens of thousands of these birds moving at sunset and flying just over my head.

 

Autumnal mood from the North Sea

Helgoland is a very particular place. Two small islets deeply shaped by buildings and infrastructures. Lot of turists, mostly german people, come here for weekend (also to buy no taxed goods). However presence and abundance of animals is notable. The colony of gannets on the cliffs of the island is impressive, you can stay among these birds watching inside their reptile-like eyes, hearing their calls and enjoying the same smell of a henhouse.

Moreover in autumn there are lot of migrating birds on the islands such as waders, eiders, sparrowhawks, northern wheatears and different species of gulls. But to be honest, since I'm a Mediterranean man and here these animals are close to the extinction, the most awesome animals to watch are seals. Common and grey seals stand on the beach of the smallest and sandy islet greatly contributing to leave a great piece of wildlife there.