A Tuscan Spring

Hoopoe

Sometime in January we decided enough (rain and mud) was enough and to preserve our sanity we booked a spring holiday in our favourite part of Europe, Tuscany. The lack of blogs in the past month or so reflects the fun I’ve been having recently starting with an horrific dental abscess resulting in a late night visit to an emergency dentist. The dentist sorted out the abscess but in return seems to have given me some horrific bug which was the worst I’ve had for many a year and laid me low for two weeks. Three covid test were all negative so perhaps it was just a dose of flu followed by a chest infection – man flu is a truly terrible thing! Luckily, I had just about recovered in time for our Tuscan holiday.

 

A two hour flight to Pisa with BA followed by  a two hour drive delivered us to our villa on the outskirts of Castagneto Carducci at mid-afternoon on Monday 15^th April. This is going to sound very snobbish but it was the first time for at least 20 years that I had flown in the BA economy cabin and I’m surprised that they did not charge for use of the toilet as absolutely everything else had to be paid for including coffee.  We were met at the villa by the lovely owner, Fabio, who was an excellent host and helped us out with all manner of things while we were there. Fabio’s villa was everything we wanted, elogantly Tuscan with a beautiful Mediterranean garden melting into views of the tree clad Tuscan hills. This really felt like what the doctor ordered after a long winter and early spring struggling to do anything in the soggy, boggy slog that our small holding had become.

  

While this was very definitely not a birding holiday, rather it was a chance for us to unwind in lovely surroundings with absolutely no pressure to do anything at all, I did manage a few bits and pieces of birding mainly around the villa. I’ve been to Italy many times before, both for work and pleasure, and was well aware that it is definitely not one of the worlds birding hotspots. Hunting is a very popular pastime in Italy and hunting Italian style pretty much means that everything is fair game!

 

Almost from my first walk in the villa garden, actually a delightfully old olive grove, I heard Hoopoes singing. Their status in the UK is one of a scarce passage migrant so it is very unlikely that you will hear them sing although, rather astonishingly, a pair successfully bred in the UK last year. I assume their name comes from their distinctive hoo-hoo-hoo song, a sound that my wife rightly said sounded more African than European. Every morning while lying in bed waking up I could hear competitive males trying to out hoo-hoo-hoo each other. Actually seeing the birds was much more challenging as they were quite shy and skittish. When I showed a picture I had managed to get of one to a local she told me they were considered a real delicacy – no wonder they were so wary of humans! I did later discover that hunting them is now banned but I don’t know how well this is adhered to! The Hoopoe is probably Europe’s most unmistakable bird -  mainly a distinctive cinnamon colour with black and white wings, a tall erectile crest, a broad white band across a black tail, and a long narrow downcurved bill. 

  

 

The most common birds around the villa were Starlings, Swallows and noisy Italian Sparrows. In appearance the Italian Sparrow is intermediate between our House Sparrow  and the Spanish Sparrow and was for a long time considered to be a hybrid of the two but is now most commonly treated as a separate species.

Italian Sparrow

Serin

Serins were also much in evidence around the villa. Males would perch up on the overhead wires and sing to the females who would come and check out the possible suitor. I tried to get a picture of them in a more natural environment but they always flew from the wire out of sight into the middle of the tall Tuscan Cyprus trees. The Serins status in the UK is again that of a rare passage migrant. I have seen them in the UK but never a male in the full bright yellow breeding plumage that was on display in Tuscany. The song, it has to be said, is not the sweetest of the avian kingdom. It is aptly described thus by Collins “frantically fast and almost strained stream of squeaky, sharp and jingling notes, often liked to crushing glass”. It breeds across southern and central Europe  and North Africa . Southern and Atlantic coast populations are largely resident, but the northern breeders migrate  further south in Europe for the winter.

Wryneck

The biggest avian surprise at the villa occurred when I was sitting on our patio enjoying the Tuscan air and view. I caught glimpse of what looked like a Starling on the drive. I should say that I did not have my glasses on so the bird was a bit fuzzy. I raised my camera just in time to see a beautifully Wryneck flying off! Checking the camera, I had one picture of an out of focus tail in the corner of the shot as it departed off – bu**er! I sat still and waited and, luckily, it made one more visit picking up ants from the edge of the drive with its extraordinarily long tongue. The Wryneck is sadly extinct as a breeding bird in the UK mainly being seen in the autumn as a rare passage migrant. I’ve said before, see here, but I'll say it again, the Wryneck is one of my favourite birds.

Wrynecks are members of the woodpecker family and share the habit of our resident Green Woodpecker of feeding almost exclusively on ants. I simply love the cryptic plumage of the Wryneck, not garishly in your face brightly coloured but a subtle and beautifully palette of browns, fawn and cream perfect for the necessary camouflage in its woodland continental breeding  grounds.

 

I’m guessing the Wryneck was new in and having a fuel stop on route to its breeding grounds as I never saw it again.

We also had a very brief garden fly through by a Greater Spotted Cuckoo – a bird I have only seen once in the UK. They are brood parasites of Magpies which were also common.

 

Cattle Egrets were much in evidence with flocks often flying over the garden. A comic moment occurred when I was talking to Fabio’s daughter and showing her some of my pictures. She said had I seen the white birds flying around and we soon sorted out that these were Cattle Egrets. She then said, “look there they are” and two pristine breeding plumage Cattle Egrets had landed in the garden! Needless to say that my camera was outside halfway between me and the Egrets and despite trying to sneak outside the Egrets took flight and flew off!

We had an afternoons excursion to Oasi WWF Padule Orti-Bottagone mainly to see Black-winged Stilts and Greater Flamingos but that will be the subject of my next blog.

 

As often happens on foreign holidays, there were a few distant birds, mainly falcons and eagles that I could not tie down to species level.

 

And so we return to blighty recharged and refreshed – god willing we will be back in Tuscany soon!

Footnote – my blogs are posted with sometimes rather imaginative spelling and grammar due to my extreme dyslexia!