Venice Trip

Venice Trip Report.  18^th -20^th October 2012

I don’t think I ever stop bird watching.  Driving, walking, watching the match or working I’m always watching for movement but a two day getaway to Italy’s islands resort of Venice made me think I won’t need to take to my binoculars as its surrounded by water.

Venice is famous for its pigeons especially around St Marks square but house sparrows and yellow legged gulls join in.  One of the things I was surprised about was the large movements of wood pigeons seen during the 3 days.  At San Marco Airport while waiting for the bus to Venice I could see a raptor near the car park and my thoughts were it was a red kite but no bins!!  The bus had adverts on its so it wasn’t great for window birding but I did get a male pheasant.  Cormorants, black headed gulls, lesser black backed gulls, great crested grebe and mute swans were seen on the water.  Hooded crow, magpie, blackbird, starling and kestrel were seen flying around or over the buildings. 

 

There is a buzzard up there.

We stayed near the Hilton on a boat off Giudecca which meant the next morning I was up and off the boat in search of birds for my list. Robin, goldcrests, white wagtails and a migrating lark were on our island. A trip out to the Lido to look at the beach held a real treat. Good numbers of buzzards were moving south over the peninsular with the odd goshawks and a local peregrine.  In the bushes I found goldfinches and serins.

 

Burano

A boat trip to Burano to see the painted houses soon added collared dove, common tern, black necked grebe and lots of little egrets. Not a bad trip 27 species.

Chris