Trip Background:
Shar and I have been together just over 3 years and arrived at Seabrook Island a year and a half ago. In her past, Shar had spent significant time in Europe, having lived in Paris for 2 years, and touring the continent. She also spent great times sailing with family in the Caribbean. My career took me all over the world, mostly on business, but many times I added on personal time and enjoyed many great adventures.
We met at a golf tournament just before the intrusion of Covid and the necessary lock down. During that time we purposed, if we survived, that we
would devote ourselves to creating new adventures together. Post the Covid quarantine we did a driving trip up the east coast from Charleston to Northern Maine and back to see my son in Boston . We spent a fantastic time in Hawaii, and visited family and friends in Seattle. We have a bit of regret that we weren’t into our new-found love of bird watching and photography on those trips.
This summer’s trip, our first international excursion together was supposed to happen last year but with the untimely passing of our dear friend Dante, in Gressoney, we postponed a year. This year we joined his wife Thelma and her good friend Elisa for a return to the Amalfi Coast, in memory of Thelma’s life with Dante. We also had the pleasure of staying with her in Gressoney St. Jean, Italy, and in addition visited Geneva, Annecy (France) Gruyere (Switzerland), and Milan.
Who forgot the BINS!!!
We are new members to the Seabrook Island Birders. Shar has been a lifelong backyard birder and has a keen ear for bird calls. I have a distinct memory, as a teenager, learning about a White-Breasted Nuthatch at school and shortly thereafter watching one climb backwards up a tree in my backyard and thought that was really cool. The balance of my life, until meeting Shar and moving to Seabrook Island, has consisted of casual birding. As we set off for our Euro
adventure, our focus was on friends, great sightseeing and creating new memories, however we purposed to include our enjoyment of birding and photographer. Already overloaded with extra baggage full of goods for our friend Thelma, we only took my Nikon D7100 and a 400mm zoom lens and our iPhones. Unfortunately, neither of us thought to bring a pair of binoculars.
We did just fine with most of the water, shore birds and the very domesticated pigeons, sparrows, etc. However, as Merlin kept finding beautiful songbirds that we saw flitting through the tree tops, we rarely got to see them clearly. We looked at each other and said “why didn’t we bring the @#$$%$#%* binoculars?!”
As Shar and I compose this blog, to share our birding adventures, we must say we are truly intimidated knowing how many of you are birders par excellence. For whatever value and joy and laughs we can bring here, we are grateful to our many mentors. Nancy Brown, Mark Andrews, Gina Sanders, Judy Morr, Bob Mercer, Jennifer Jerome, Ed Konrad and many more have taught us much and from whom we look forward to learning so much more. If in sharing
this adventure with us you find any issues with my identifications, please let me know. I have already benefited from one correction on eBird.
Too many birds:
Early on in our adventure we got excited to see the diversity of color and markings in the flocks of Rock/Feral pigeons and started eBird’ing away only to quickly realize that they were almost everywhere we went in Milan, Amalfi, Annecy, and Geneva. The same was true of Italian/House Sparrows who were ever present, particularly in the many street side cafes, looking for tidbits of food where they would literally eat out of the folks’ hands at the next
table. Other birds that fell into the category, of almost too numerous to count, were Mute Swans and Mallards. However, it was very entertaining see the many juvenile swans bobbing tails up, feeding, as well as the cute mallards swimming behind the adults.
The main attractions:
In this section we will turn our attention to some of the special and rewarding “moments of discovery” we had on our trip. Moments that all birders know bring them such pleasure, particularly when you have your first life discovery of a new species.
Sorry, this is not a very good picture, taken from a distance with my iPhone. We arrived in Milan early Sunday morning and went straight to the Malpensa Airport Sheraton for a quick breakfast, early check in and a nap. When we woke up and pulled open the blinds 4 Eurasian Magpies were hopping around the fence at the parking lot. Our first eBird entry.
Although this bird could easily fall into the category of too many birds it turned out to be a very special moment. We were standing at the top of a cliff in Ana Capri where I was attempting to get a good picture of one of the gulls in flight. I peered over the precipice and there, 5 feet away, was one of those birds preening itself. It posed for many great pictures these are just a couple.
This is one of those very special moments when we happened upon a bird that will always be a great memory. We were crossing the street in Annecy, France to explore the lake front when I saw this bird feeding on something just caught. I looked a bit further off and found two more together. When we got back to the hotel and did some research, we discovered this about their beautiful courtship dance.
More pictures from Annecy, France:
Armed with my new knowledge of Grebes, when Shar spotted these beautiful specimens sunning themselves on Lake Geneva I was confident I had found more Grebes….WRONG… an adult Red Breasted Merganser and 2 juveniles.
Birds on Lake Geneva
Spotted in Gruyere, Switzerland:
Summary and shared learnings
We have attached a summary of our eBird checklists. The biggest learning, besides taking binoculars, is to start a new eBird list each day for each location. We did our lists for general areas e.g. Amalfi Coast, Gressoney, and Geneva. We realize our contribution to eBird would have been much more relevant with more precise locations. As noted, at the beginning, we are novices and look to continue to learn, improve and share great experiences with all our Seabrook Island Birders.
Appendices:
June 26, 2023 to July 1, 2023 : Amalfi
112 Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)
51 Common Swift
47 Yellow-Legged Gull
1 Eurasian Golden Oriole
4 Eurasian Magpie
1 Eurasian Blackcap
13 Eurasian Blackbird
27 Italian Sparrow
19 Eurasian Tree Sparrow
1 White Wagtail
1 European Greenfinch
1 European Serin
July 2, 2023 to July 4, 2023: Gressoney-Saint-Jean Aosta Valley
13 Common Swift
1 Coal Tit
1 Created Tit
1 Eurasian Blue Tit
3 Great Tit
1 Eurasian Blackcap
1 Eurasian Treecreeper
2 Eurasian Wren
1 Song Thrush
12 Eurasian Blackbird
18 House/Italian Sparrow
4 Common Chaffich
2 European Serin
July 5, 2023 to July 9, 2023: Geneve, Switzerland
17 Graylag Goose
1 Red-Breasted Goose
48 Mute Swan
53 Mallard
5 Red-creasted Pochard
2 Common Eider
2 Common Merganser
3 Red-breasted Merganser
3 Great Creasted Grebe
93 Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)
29 Common Swift
11 Eurasian Coot
3 Black Headed Gull
7 gull sp
3 Black Kite
29 House Sparrow
Submitted and photos by Shar and Alan Fink
SIB 