dalat
...
It was a one week trip, together with my non-birding wife. Venice for her, Po Delta and Isonzo Delta for me, and some hiking in the Dolomites for both. It was a very enjoyable holiday, also thanks to wonderfull weather throughout.
Me being a beginning birder, time of the year being not the very best (with lots of interesting breeders gone aready) and the limited patience of my wife to stand hours in clouds of mosquitos, all made that the bird list is probably not the most impressive one. Still very happy with 93 species.
We started south, at some wetlands north of Ravenna. It was to be a bad start, we were woken up in our tent by noise that sounded like the fireworks at New Year ’s Eve. My worries were confirmed as soon as we entered the parking of the wetland Pialassa della Baiona: hunters all over, every 100 m a couple of them, shooting constantly in the air at I don’t know what, all the ducks must have been long gone. The wetlands looked wonderful, but the only birds I got to see there where loads of decoy ducks.
I don’t know much of hunting regulations there, but at this massif scale I can’t really image that it was illegal what they did, despite the yellow “divieto di caccia” signs on every tree (mabye someone can explain me?). I felt quite weird to walk around there with my scope, curiously watched by guys with guns at every corner. Quickly left that place.
As more shooting noise was coming from the nearby area of Punto Alberete (same map as above), we headed on towards the big lagoon of Comacchio. On the way there was a watchtower overlooking the large lake of Valle Mandriole (same map as above). Unfortunately the stairs to the towers were all broken, but this spot held the first birds, starting with a lifer, the baby-faced Pygmy Cormorant, egrets and some nice waders.
In Valle de Camacchio , things turned to be good then. Although also hunters were far out on the lagoon, even near the apparently strictly protected peninsula of Boscoforte (no public access allowed), lots of birds to be seen from the dike. Best spot was the area right east of the beginning of Boscoforte, where two Bitterns (lifer!) where flying over the lake within minutes, also a lonely Spoonbill (lots more lateron) and a nice selection of ducks and grebes having escaped the massacre further out. I then spent the rest of the morning to improve my wader skills on along the mud flats near the main dike, while my wife entertained herself by photographing little egrets and enjoying scope-views of masses of Flamingos. Great area, could have spent another 2 days there…
For lunch we got caught in the Eel-eating-festival in the village of Comacchio (much to the delight of my wife, she loves eel), so just little more than an hour was left to look at the northern side of the lagoon, near the Stazione de pesca Foce. Great there, Flamingos close by in gorgeous evening light, an amazing sight were flocks of 300+ Pied Avocets doing mallard like mass dabbling, all rear up in the sky at the same time. Also nice views of more Pygmy Cormorants and Sandwich terns.
I hoped for the hunting spectacle being limited to Sunday, but in vain, next morning we were woken up by the same noise again, So we spent the day cruising north through the Po Delta. Best spots where the Valle de Bertoluzzi and nearby smaller ponds of Valle de Canneviè.
Valle de Bertoluzzi would have been great, lots of waders, ducks, spoonbills etc. there, but access is difficult, the watch tower there is quite grown in by trees, I had to climb on the roof to get some views (very shaky, not very advisable to do).
My wife was getting anxious to get to Venice, so we continued crisscrossing the delta, with several stops at promising places, e.g the aquaculture area south of Porto Levante.
Next two days had Feral Pigeons on San Marco and Yellow-legged gulls on the canals.
Venice ticked off, we continued to the Reserve Islola della Cona in the Delta of the Isonzo river near the city of Trieste. Now that was a nice experience, very good facilities, friendly staff to chat with and loads of birds.
First view on the flooded field near the restaurant had a large black bird standing out from the crowds of ducks and geese. A Waldrapp :eek!: Later I learned that this one and four more birds hanging around the reserve origin from the Waldrapp (Bald Ibis) introduction programme in Austria and Germany (the guys that are trying to teach young birds that were bred north of the Alps in Austria and Germany how to migrate over the alps, by guiding them with an ultralight plane). The bird I saw was an adult, that just bred this year, the juveniles did not stay with the adults as expected but apparently disappeared and where not refound so far…
There was a good range of ducks and waders, lots of Greylag and a few early White-fronted Geese, the usual herons and egrets as well as more Pygmy Cormorants, and some exotic birds threw color in: first of all a dark Reef Egret, apparently a genuine vagrant that hangs around there already since a couple of years, a Sacred Ibis, Silver Teal and Bar-headed Geese. The Bora-winds were blowing hard and tide was very high, so not good to for waders along the shore, but lots of potential for phantastic birding there. I really liked that place. They also have accommodation there although at the day we arrived it was closed unfortunately (Thursday).
To end the trip well, hiking the Dolomites produced some nice and more familiar alpine birds: Golden eagle, Nutcracker, Ring Ouzel, Citril Finch and a probably flushed Rock Partrigde.
Po and Isonzo Delta are certainly worth a full week, preferably in April/May I guess. There are not so many trip reports on these areas out there. These are the resources I used:
- An older trip report in German
- The website of the Po Delta Park with very good maps and descriptions of birding trails in the Po-Delta, however only for the southern part covered by the region Emilia-Romagna
- Website of the Reserve Isola della Cona, with maps and all necessary information
Pics:
1) fake ducks
2) buts of Pied Avocets
3) fauna at Po Delta
4+5) crowds at Isola della Cona
Cheers, Florian
Me being a beginning birder, time of the year being not the very best (with lots of interesting breeders gone aready) and the limited patience of my wife to stand hours in clouds of mosquitos, all made that the bird list is probably not the most impressive one. Still very happy with 93 species.
We started south, at some wetlands north of Ravenna. It was to be a bad start, we were woken up in our tent by noise that sounded like the fireworks at New Year ’s Eve. My worries were confirmed as soon as we entered the parking of the wetland Pialassa della Baiona: hunters all over, every 100 m a couple of them, shooting constantly in the air at I don’t know what, all the ducks must have been long gone. The wetlands looked wonderful, but the only birds I got to see there where loads of decoy ducks.
I don’t know much of hunting regulations there, but at this massif scale I can’t really image that it was illegal what they did, despite the yellow “divieto di caccia” signs on every tree (mabye someone can explain me?). I felt quite weird to walk around there with my scope, curiously watched by guys with guns at every corner. Quickly left that place.
As more shooting noise was coming from the nearby area of Punto Alberete (same map as above), we headed on towards the big lagoon of Comacchio. On the way there was a watchtower overlooking the large lake of Valle Mandriole (same map as above). Unfortunately the stairs to the towers were all broken, but this spot held the first birds, starting with a lifer, the baby-faced Pygmy Cormorant, egrets and some nice waders.
In Valle de Camacchio , things turned to be good then. Although also hunters were far out on the lagoon, even near the apparently strictly protected peninsula of Boscoforte (no public access allowed), lots of birds to be seen from the dike. Best spot was the area right east of the beginning of Boscoforte, where two Bitterns (lifer!) where flying over the lake within minutes, also a lonely Spoonbill (lots more lateron) and a nice selection of ducks and grebes having escaped the massacre further out. I then spent the rest of the morning to improve my wader skills on along the mud flats near the main dike, while my wife entertained herself by photographing little egrets and enjoying scope-views of masses of Flamingos. Great area, could have spent another 2 days there…
For lunch we got caught in the Eel-eating-festival in the village of Comacchio (much to the delight of my wife, she loves eel), so just little more than an hour was left to look at the northern side of the lagoon, near the Stazione de pesca Foce. Great there, Flamingos close by in gorgeous evening light, an amazing sight were flocks of 300+ Pied Avocets doing mallard like mass dabbling, all rear up in the sky at the same time. Also nice views of more Pygmy Cormorants and Sandwich terns.
I hoped for the hunting spectacle being limited to Sunday, but in vain, next morning we were woken up by the same noise again, So we spent the day cruising north through the Po Delta. Best spots where the Valle de Bertoluzzi and nearby smaller ponds of Valle de Canneviè.
Valle de Bertoluzzi would have been great, lots of waders, ducks, spoonbills etc. there, but access is difficult, the watch tower there is quite grown in by trees, I had to climb on the roof to get some views (very shaky, not very advisable to do).
My wife was getting anxious to get to Venice, so we continued crisscrossing the delta, with several stops at promising places, e.g the aquaculture area south of Porto Levante.
Next two days had Feral Pigeons on San Marco and Yellow-legged gulls on the canals.
Venice ticked off, we continued to the Reserve Islola della Cona in the Delta of the Isonzo river near the city of Trieste. Now that was a nice experience, very good facilities, friendly staff to chat with and loads of birds.
First view on the flooded field near the restaurant had a large black bird standing out from the crowds of ducks and geese. A Waldrapp :eek!: Later I learned that this one and four more birds hanging around the reserve origin from the Waldrapp (Bald Ibis) introduction programme in Austria and Germany (the guys that are trying to teach young birds that were bred north of the Alps in Austria and Germany how to migrate over the alps, by guiding them with an ultralight plane). The bird I saw was an adult, that just bred this year, the juveniles did not stay with the adults as expected but apparently disappeared and where not refound so far…
There was a good range of ducks and waders, lots of Greylag and a few early White-fronted Geese, the usual herons and egrets as well as more Pygmy Cormorants, and some exotic birds threw color in: first of all a dark Reef Egret, apparently a genuine vagrant that hangs around there already since a couple of years, a Sacred Ibis, Silver Teal and Bar-headed Geese. The Bora-winds were blowing hard and tide was very high, so not good to for waders along the shore, but lots of potential for phantastic birding there. I really liked that place. They also have accommodation there although at the day we arrived it was closed unfortunately (Thursday).
To end the trip well, hiking the Dolomites produced some nice and more familiar alpine birds: Golden eagle, Nutcracker, Ring Ouzel, Citril Finch and a probably flushed Rock Partrigde.
Po and Isonzo Delta are certainly worth a full week, preferably in April/May I guess. There are not so many trip reports on these areas out there. These are the resources I used:
- An older trip report in German
- The website of the Po Delta Park with very good maps and descriptions of birding trails in the Po-Delta, however only for the southern part covered by the region Emilia-Romagna
- Website of the Reserve Isola della Cona, with maps and all necessary information
Pics:
1) fake ducks
2) buts of Pied Avocets
3) fauna at Po Delta
4+5) crowds at Isola della Cona
Cheers, Florian
Attachments
Last edited:
