Yesterday we spoke to a friend and fellow birder who was doing bird counts down on the coast and she told us that they had heard/seen Bearded Reedlings, a species that had managed to elude me countless times. G had seen it a few times many years ago, when they were more common in central Italy. In the past few years numbers have been decreasing fast, although not in other parts of the country.
So we decided that a visit was in order and this morning we drove the 2 hours to the WWF-managed Burano reserve, on the coast at the southernmost edge of Tuscany. And a good thing we did. Not only we saw the Bearded Reedlings (a pair) :king::king::king:, but the lake was full of Pochards, some a few metres away, providing fantastic photo opportunities, and Sandwich Terns, among Coots, Cormorants, Great Crested Grebes, Flamingoes, a Spoonbill, Great White Egrets, Little Egrets, Kingfishers etc. We also saw a couple of Marsh Harriers, Water Rails, Moorhens, Kestrels, Cetti’s Warblers, and an unexpected Grey Wagtail.
Our next destination was the Orbetello lagoon, where we saw more Flamingoes, Black-necked Grebes, Dunlins, Common Sandpipers and Black-headed Gulls.
Heading to the Padule Aperto fields around the Diaccia Botrona wetland we saw Cattle Egrets everywhere, Kestrels, Buzzards, Yellow-legged Gulls, Grey Herons and one Little Owl. In the fields the first flocks of wintering Greylag Geese (but no Cranes yet), several Kestrels, Buzzards, Grey Plovers, a Marsh Harrier, one Merlin or two, and one Hen Harrier.
So we decided that a visit was in order and this morning we drove the 2 hours to the WWF-managed Burano reserve, on the coast at the southernmost edge of Tuscany. And a good thing we did. Not only we saw the Bearded Reedlings (a pair) :king::king::king:, but the lake was full of Pochards, some a few metres away, providing fantastic photo opportunities, and Sandwich Terns, among Coots, Cormorants, Great Crested Grebes, Flamingoes, a Spoonbill, Great White Egrets, Little Egrets, Kingfishers etc. We also saw a couple of Marsh Harriers, Water Rails, Moorhens, Kestrels, Cetti’s Warblers, and an unexpected Grey Wagtail.
Our next destination was the Orbetello lagoon, where we saw more Flamingoes, Black-necked Grebes, Dunlins, Common Sandpipers and Black-headed Gulls.
Heading to the Padule Aperto fields around the Diaccia Botrona wetland we saw Cattle Egrets everywhere, Kestrels, Buzzards, Yellow-legged Gulls, Grey Herons and one Little Owl. In the fields the first flocks of wintering Greylag Geese (but no Cranes yet), several Kestrels, Buzzards, Grey Plovers, a Marsh Harrier, one Merlin or two, and one Hen Harrier.
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