June 2007 ~ Alberi, Montaione, Tuscany, Italy

In June 2007 I took a two week holiday with my family in Italy. We drove close to 1,000 miles in the two weeks and felt quite exhausted at the end of it. In need of another holiday, in fact. As it was a family holiday (and we went with some good friends) it wasn't really intended to be a bird watching trip. However, I did manage to get away for an hour or two early some mornings to explore the local area.

We stayed in a small village called Alberi, close to the town of Montaione. It was surrounded by hills with vines, olive groves, fields and woodland. Through the middle of the village ran a clear stream with plenty of fish.

I didn't have my 500mm prime lens with me just my 100-400mm lens, that I call my travel lens. This made things a little difficult as the birds in Italy (not noted as a bird watching destination) are extremely timid (apart from the sparrows and pigeons) with even the moorhens running for dense cover at the first sign of my approach, even from a couple of hundred yards away.

I still managed to see a lot and get the odd photograph that wasn't too bad. Close to our 'home' we had plenty of sparrows. These being somewhat different in their appearance to our local house sparrows. Much more attractively marked in my opinion. There were also starlings, magpies and a host of house martins, swallows and swifts. Surprisingly we also had a number of jays that frequented the garden. There was a small pond (full of frogs) that birds visited to quench their thirst. We also had a number of colourful lizards and even a small snake in the garden. At night we had a noisy little owl sometimes calling loudly just outside our window.

Further down along the road by the brook were some grassy fields, where I saw plenty of hoopoe, the first time I'd seen these birds. They were quite hard to get close to and flew off to sit on a tree or wire some distance off when they spotted me. At night the air along the road by the stream was full of fireflies. What a sight!

Along some paths leading to vines or olive groves, I came across a number of colourful bee-eaters, a few turtle doves, nightingales, a green woodpecker and quite a few serin. On the last day I even saw a golden oriole having a go at two hooded crows that had dared to land in a tree the the oriole clearly considered his own. The paths were often unmade gravel or dirt roads and were lined with dozens of wild flowers and were full of different butterflies and moths, including hummingbird moths. There were plenty of lizards and snakes here also.

The clean brook, full of fish attracted a pair of kingfishers that could sometimes be seen racing up and down the brook from one good fishing spot to another. Grey heron and night heron could be seen some days attempting to make a snack of one of the fish. Along the banks and at the end of the village there were grey wagtails and pied wagtails. At the very end of the village the brook passed under the road and entered private land that could not be accessed. The other side of the bridge it cascaded over two weirs that could only be viewed from the bridge. Here there was a bird that must have been a green sandpiper but it was hard to tell exactly what it was as it flew away as soon as anyone appeared on the bridge. It did not have a barred tail but rather had a pure white fan shaped tail as it flew away and I can't find anything that looked exactly like it in my field guides.

In general although I didn't get any really great bird pictures, I had a great holiday and enjoyed the short periods of bird watching that I managed to fit in. You can see pictures of some of the birds in the foreign birds section of this web site and pictures of some of the butterflies, amphibians and reptiles in the non-bird photo section.