The last two weeks have been quiet here. Despite of visiting twice the Villa Doria Pamphilj and once the park Pineta Sacchetti I didn’t succeed in finding any good birds during this time. Fortunately, I could convince myself today to explore a new area instead of adding another and probably unproductive visit of the two other mentioned sites to my roman birding career. So, I travelled almost an hour with the Metro A to the south-eastern part of the city to one of the entrances of the “Parco della Caffarella” which is part of the large “Parco Regionale Appia Antica”. Compared to the two other parks featured on this blog it’s a good mixture of the both combining on the one hand typical parkland areas (which you have to share with many people) and on the other hand also some less cultivated and populated areas.
Thanks to the diversified landscape birding was much better, though at some times very tough, since especially passerines tend to hide themselves and are often difficult to spot. It seems to me that this is a lot easier in Germany. The best example for this is probably the Subalpine Warbler I saw today. I only caught a glimpse of it, just long enough to be sure of the identification. It’s almost the same story with Cetti’s Warblers (only heard), Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps.
At least, Goldfinches, Serins and Starlings were rather easy to observe vagabonding in the area in quite numerous flocks. Perhaps the highlight of the tour was that for the first time the smell of bird migration was in the air. Black Redstart, Stonechat and Meadow Pipit were the visible signs of this impression of me. On the way back towards the metro station eventually some few Pallid Swifts came into sight out of nowhere and formed a very nice and unexpected tick. Hopefully, the birding situation will continue to improve in the following days.
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