I visited Italy over a decade ago with my wife Kay, who was also a birder, and we were pretty surprised at how few birds we were able to see. I learned while talking with Marco Valtriani, my guest on this episode that it was likely because we looked in all the wrong places for the season we visited, I believe in early October. I learned lots more and really enjoyed talking with Marco. He is a lead guide for Birding in Italy, a bird guide group who specialized in Italy, and especially taking visiting birders whose primary reason for visiting Italy may be other tourist activities, but who want to get in a day or more of birding and use the time optimally.
I learned that Italy has a lot of national park land set aside, but than much of it has been used for human activities over the centuries prior to being set aside. I also was pleased to learn that the practice of killing songbirds for food has been markedly curtailed and is a minimal issue today.
I also talk about this being the Christmas Bird Count Season, and my experiences and enjoyment from participating in CBCs. Consider joining a count near you, find one here.
You can read the Audubon summary report of last year’s CBCs here. For more granular data on any particular count here is a link.
Thanks for listening. Until next time, good birding.