At 7.30 the next morning Mick and I found ourselves at the Torre Flavia, a tiny area of marshland adjacent to the town of Ladispoli and literally a two minute drive from our hotel. It was another beautiful day in central Italy. The layout of this place was a little confusing - from the air it looked like a decent series of pools, and it may well have been, but there was no way to see into about 80% of them. There seemed to be a path into the centre of the reserve but it was locked. The tactic it seemed was to hang around the edges and hope that something moved, and so in addition to doing a full circuit of the perimeter this is what we did.
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| Teal |
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| Garganey |
The full circuit takes no more than about fifteen minutes really, but we got very lucky indeed with a Quail in off the sea, straight over the top of us and into the reserve, and as we were looking for where the path went a Stone Curlew exploded from some cover just over the ropes and flew up the beach before dropping in. Mick also saw a Bittern emerge from the reeds, fly a short loop, and drop back in before I could even react! In addition to these good birds we found three Garganey on a pool we actually could see, a Glossy Ibis, a single Flamingo, a few Stilt, a couple of Ruff and a Little Ringed Plover, and off the beach as well as commuting flocks of Yelkouan Shearwater there were also smaller numbers of Scopoli's Shearwater. I won't list every species we sawy, but a two hour session here netted 50 species which for such a small area, most of which we couldn't see, was really very good. At some point my glasses fell off my head, never ideal, but I lucked out and found them in the sand on the beach where we had been scanning for seabirds.
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| Sacred Ibis |
Our next stop was about an hour away, the Saline di Tarquinia to the north. Another confusing site, we did not realise that the vast majority of it was closed, and only discovered this at the furthest point from the car, at which point we had to turn around and walk all the way back and attempt to approach from the other side which was only partially successful. There is only one option at the moment and that is to walk north to south along the paved track with the salt pans to your left, and scan through the fence when you are able. Mid morning on a hot day the light and haze were awful, but we added some Avocet, Grey Plover, Whimbrel, Little Tern, Common Tern, Slender-billed Gull and a couple of Spoonbill. At the decaying and fenced off central buildings we heard Turtle Dove purring, heard our first and possibly only Chiffchaff, and then on the walk back some Bee-eaters flew over. We heard them before we saw them and were alert enough to realise and look up. Overall we actually saw very little and what we did see was a long way away!
Returning to the car and driving a big loop south around the lagoons we approached the Saline from the southern coast from the area known as San Giorgio. This is a decent hotspot in its own right, but we were not able to dig out much in the heat of the day. Of note were a field full of Whinchat, a Whitethroat, lots of Corn Bunting, and on the lagoon we finally reached only to discover that views were severely restricted yet again we picked up a Black-necked Grebe and another Caspian Tern. We declined to walk any further. Anyway, if you visit the Saline the best bet would seem to be to take the path between the beach and the salt pans from where I think you would get much clearer views and be able to see a lot more.
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| The Saline di Tarquinia. We took the blue route, which was barred where you can see the buildings. As you can see you lose sight the water about half way along and in fact never see it again, which we did not expect. We then went all the way back and approached from the south along the beach before giving up. What we ought to have done is taken the red route. So now you know. |
It was time to start heading back towards Rome. We had a few sites earmarked, one we couldn't find, and the second was surrounded by a fence with a big padlock on the gate and we couldn't get in. This seems to be the story of bird reserved in Italy. Closed. We finally found a site we could access called the Oasi Castel di Guido, a woodland area, and did a big loop that took an hour or so. Eastern Subalpine Warbler were quite common here, and we also finally found our first and only Robin, hurrah! Short-toed Eagle was overhead and just as we reached the car a single Alpine Swift cruised over among the Commons.
Back near Rome we just had time to make it to the Centro Habitat Mediterrraneo in Ostia, braving increasingly heavy traffic to reach this wetland site. Closed. The opening hours are from 10am to 1pm, and like most of these sites it is completely fenced off and there is virtually no way to see in. Seriously Italy, what is going on? Most reserves were locked, and the one nearest your capital city is open for just three hours a day on five days of the week, and thsoe hours are esentially the worst ones for birding. Pretty pathetic. We saw a Redstart from the car on the way back.
So that was it. 112 species, pretty decent. Lots of nice birds, good food, lovely weather. Ideal weekend. Trip list to follow.
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