Sicily February 2019 (1 Viewer)

This february I was in Sicily for a week. It wasn't just a birding trip, so I didn't do a whole week of just birding, plus we had some days of bad weather. Never the less, I would like to share my experiences from there and show some photos.We were situated in the east/ south east of the island, right at the sea. The view of Mount Etna alone was so fascinating! But now to the birding part!

Birding there is just so awesome, but also not that easy sometimes. The most difficult part was finding places to bird. You can't just drive somewhere, get out of the car and start birding. Almost all of the landscape is private and fenced and gated. Which is really annoying because the landscape is so cool and sometimes you would like to just go hiking there.
That said, if you do a little resarch, you can find all the Nature Reserves and Salines and stuff and do some awesome birding there.

The first reserve I visited was "Riserva Naturale Orientata Fiume Ciane e Saline di Sira" a little south of Syrakus. There you have a nice mixture of salines, sea and a river mouth. I had three lifers there: Greater Flamingo, Sardinian Warbler and Pintail. Other species included Greenshank, Common Sandpiper, Shoveler, Mallard, Little Egret, Grey Heron, Great Egret, Great Crested Grebe, ...

Probably the coolest reserve was "Vendicari", south of Noto. Habitats include salines, marshes, reeds, sea, beach, ... so really diverse. There were a lot of Greater Flamingos, a lot of ducks, herons and egrets, Sardinian Warbler, Stonechat, Citting Cisticola, Cetti's Warbler, Grey Plover, Slender- billed Gull, ...

Another Reserve I can recommend is "Saline Nature Reserve Priolo", which is a saline a little south of Augusta. The coolest thing is that there is a birding hide out into the lake so you can get up close to Flamingos. And I mean really close, like 10 meters (30 feet). We also saw there all kind of ducks and herons, Slender- billed Gulls, black- necked divers, a Common Sandpiper, ...

What also is really fascinating in Sicily is sea watching and gull watching. All in all I saw 6 different species of gulls: Yellow- legged Gull, Blackheaded Gull, Lesser black- backed Gull, Mediterranian Gull, Caspian Gull and Slender- billed Gull. I also saw Sandwich Terns and some unidentified Shearwaters.

The highlight of the trip was on the last day before departure: Booted Eagles! there were at least three of the light colour morph. Once they were with two large falcons, unfortunetly I only saw the falcons for a short time, so I couldnt tell if they were Lanners or Peregrines. Never the less, the eagles were just so awsome!

All in all it was a really cool trip and I can really recommend Sicily for birding (and for the food of course ).
During the trip I had 13 new lifers: Booted Eagle, Pintail, Grey Plover, Slender- billed Gull, Sandwich Tern, Cetti's Warbler, Citting Cisticola, Eurasian Crag Martin, Italian Sparrow, Sardinian Warbler, Spotless Starling, Cattle Egret and Greater Flamingo and I saw 10 of my targeted species.

Some targeted species, like Bonelli's Eagle, Purple Swamphen, Audouin's Gull, Rock Sparrow or Calander Lark, I unfortunetly didn't see but that doesn't matter, now there is a reason for another trip to Sicily :king:

good birding!

(Pictures: Greater Flamingos, Spotless Starlings, Slender- billed Gull, Mediterranian Gulls, Black- headed Gulls and Sandwich Tern)

Grey Plover and Booted Eagle

If you ever go again I recommend checking out the simeto river mouth and oasi ponte barca near Catania (usually regular sites for Pallas's Gull but I haven't heard of any sightings this winter), capo murro di porco (annual richards pipits wintering), and a couple of other lakes including pantano morghella and pantano longarini.

Nice report from an underreported area.

@Gladiator96: thx a lot! I was looking for some lakes and more birding places to visit, so these are some great tips. I wanted to check out Lago de Lentini because I heared you can see wintering Pallas's Gulls there, but it is impossible to get to the lake without a guide. There is a dam around the lake and you can't go up there. We stopped at the nearest road and there were at least some gulls on the railing of the dam, that's where I saw the Caspian Gull. But the lake must be a great place for gulls, because you could see hundreds of gulls flying around in the disctance!

@wolfbirder: thx a lot! That's true, it is kind of underreported! I didn't find that much information about birding in Sicily and I don't know why, it's such a cool place for birding!


By the way, another place I can recommend is the harbour of Portopalo in the very south- east of Sicily. It was a great place for Gulls and Sandwich Terns and there was also a Kingfisher. Around Portopalo I also saw a Hoopoe and at a beach near by Sardinian Warbler, a Common Sandpiper and the Shearwaters.

Meant to be loads of hunting, a bit like Malta.

Hard to find a guide on the island too.

wolfbirder said:

Meant to be loads of hunting, a bit like Malta.

Hard to find a guide on the island too.

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Actually, not really, not as bad as Malta anyway. The regular hunting season here in Tuscany goes from mid-September to the end of January - I don't know about Sicily, although being that far south I would expect it to end earlier.

Until about 20-30 years ago it used to be really bad during the spring migration when the local pastime in suitable places was to shoot down Honey Buzzards (and anything else that happened to fly past) as they made their way north. This has mostly stopped thanks to the anti-poaching camps set up by conservation groups, LIPU (the Italian branch of BirdLife intl) and WWF among them. Groups of volunteers patrol the headlands and mountain passes along the migration pathways (my OH took part in a few of these back in the day) to deter potential poachers. This has worked very well in Sicily and slightly less well on the mainland side (Calabria) but the camps still happen every year.

As for guides, there's a small but very efficient community of birders and ornithologists (the latter mostly working on conservation efforts for Bonelli's Eagle and Lanner). If anyone here should ever need a guide, they can PM me and I can put them in touch with someone in Sicily.

Regarding your unidentified shearwaters, if they were smaller "manx-like" they were probably yelkouan, if they were larger Cory's-like probably Scopoli's.

3Italianbirders said:

Actually, not really, not as bad as Malta anyway. The regular hunting season here in Tuscany goes from mid-September to the end of January - I don't know about Sicily, although being that far south I would expect it to end earlier.

Until about 20-30 years ago it used to be really bad during the spring migration when the local pastime in suitable places was to shoot down Honey Buzzards (and anything else that happened to fly past) as they made their way north. This has mostly stopped thanks to the anti-poaching camps set up by conservation groups, LIPU (the Italian branch of BirdLife intl) and WWF among them. Groups of volunteers patrol the headlands and mountain passes along the migration pathways (my OH took part in a few of these back in the day) to deter potential poachers. This has worked very well in Sicily and slightly less well on the mainland side (Calabria) but the camps still happen every year.

As for guides, there's a small but very efficient community of birders and ornithologists (the latter mostly working on conservation efforts for Bonelli's Eagle and Lanner). If anyone here should ever need a guide, they can PM me and I can put them in touch with someone in Sicily.

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That’s really positive. Sorry to portray an inaccurate view.

It was just a year or two ago I failed to find anyone who might be able to guide me to see Lanner, your contact is useful.

I don't think any of our contacts would take you to see a Lanner site - not as things stand lately at least, maybe someone less principled would, but I doubt you'd be interested in that. Lanner numbers are crashing throughout Italy and nests in Sicily, which is the last stronghold, are monitored 24/7 to try to prevent egg/chick theft by falconers and collectors. I can tell you that when we went to Sicily a few years ago and wanted to see Bonelli's eagle we asked our contacts and they refused to tell us even the general area. That's how bad things are. And not only in Sicily.

This is a Lanner chick being brought up by falconers. They keep it in the living room (note the "tasteful" decor) so that it becomes accustomed to human presence and thus tamer. :C

Sorry about the rant. Obviously nothing personal.

3Italianbirders said:

I don't think any of our contacts would take you to see a Lanner site - not as things stand lately at least, maybe someone less principled would, but I doubt you'd be interested in that. Lanner numbers are crashing throughout Italy and nests in Sicily, which is the last stronghold, are monitored 24/7 to try to prevent egg/chick theft by falconers and collectors. I can tell you that when we went to Sicily a few years ago and wanted to see Bonelli's eagle we asked our contacts and they refused to tell us even the general area. That's how bad things are. And not only in Sicily.

This is a Lanner chick being brought up by falconers. They keep it in the living room (note the "tasteful" decor) so that it becomes accustomed to human presence and thus tamer. :C

Sorry about the rant. Obviously nothing personal.

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Not at all.....you are perfectly right to correct me, and highlight the true picture.

I didn't expect to be taken to a nest of course, just a good general area for them. But I understand the sensitivity.

Thank you all for your comments! I read some field trips and there was a guide mentioned who also goes to Lake Lentini.

Alexjh1 said:

Regarding your unidentified shearwaters, if they were smaller "manx-like" they were probably yelkouan, if they were larger Cory's-like probably Scopoli's.

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In Austria, we don't have access to the sea, so unfortunetly I don't do a lot of sea watching and these were actually the first Shearwaters I ever saw, so I can't really compare them to any other Shearwaters plus, they were really far away! Thank you nevertheless!

I am lucky to be able to visit Sicily and Sardinia every couple of years or so, and I'd like to add a couple of things from my own experience – and this is meant to amplify not contest what has already been said.
The hunting on the Messina Strait is a shadow of what it used to be. In the 80s and 90s it was like a war zone but on a day in May last year we saw hundreds of migrants and heard not a single shot. I was there to see the groups from LIPU, WWF and others in their work - excellent people doing a fine job.
We also visited a few Bonelli's nest sites and saw the efforts to protect the eagles. The work is coordinated by GTR and LIPU was looking after four of the sites. LIPU-UK, the British section have paid for surveillance cameras and mobile technology and it's very heartening to see the birds breeding safely. There's more on the interesting site for GTR at http://www.gruppotutelarapaci.it/en/
Yes, the Lanner is in dire straits and there are not many left, we were trusted enough, and this was very touching, to be shown a nest from a distance but it's so sad that this security is necessary.
A Bonelli chick is said to be worth $5000 to a falconer - I have no idea what price the falcon would fetch.
On a happier note, for anyone visiting I recommend the wetlands on the SE corner, Vendicari on the east coast but my favourites are the cluster near Granelli on the south coast. For spring migrants this is the first fresh water, food and shelter after the sea crossing and anything might turn up.
https://zoom.earth/#36.70889,15.020113,14z,map
www.lipu-uk.org
Hope that's useful.
David

dragnil said:

A Bonelli chick is said to be worth $5000 to a falconer - I have no idea what price the falcon would fetch.

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They say around twice or even three times as much, but of course there is no way of knowing exactly.