Report from 21 to 27 March 2022

Spring is official upon us, although you wouldn’t know it from the morning temperatures. The air warms up quickly though, because the sun is always shining. And I do mean always: we have not had any rain to speak of in three months. The wader migration is becoming quite engrossing: three or four hundred small shorebirds, mostly Ruff, but also including Green Sandpiper, Common Snipe, Lapwing, Little Ringed Plover, Black-winged Stilt, and a handful each of Wood Sandpiper, Spotted Redshank, and Greenshank crowding into one small impoundments are great fun to watch, and become a veritable firework show when a Goshawk or Peregrine is on the hunt. Later in the week, shorebird numbers began to fall. The first Purple Heron of the year has arrived, and so have the Night Herons, although one could be forgiven for failing to notice them: they spend all day motionless in a small willow grove, and are only visible because the leaves aren’t fully out yet. The Spotted Crake and Little Crake are even more elusive, and the fact that we have been able to glimpse them – not once, but several times – suggests that there are quite a few around.
A Flamingo has shown up on the lake, about as unexpected a species as we could imagine. It is a juvenile, and its plumage is not yet pink. It is clearly off course, and was exhausted when it arrived. It found some suitable habitat at La Cassinazza and decided to stop, and as of this writing is still here.