Rome

Just back from Rome, were I spend the last three days seeing a lot of great architecture. Sadly, didn't really have any time to check some Roman birds. However there was one amazing phenomenon I witnessed in person for the first time - a massive Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) roost - all along the river Tiber in the evenings.

There were surely a few million of these birds and as they gathered for the night a large part of the city stung of fresh bird dropping.
Sadly because of my position while this was happening I didn't manage to get any decent snaps of them in cloud formations. What a sight that was! Check out a you tube video that someone has posted about the same from Rome - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YadP3w7vkJA

The only other bird that I managed to watch for a while was the Hooded crow (Corvus cornix)
Snapped above walking in the ancient Roman forum.

A few birds from Venice

Since I haven't been getting time to dedicate to birding I've been doing birding whenever and where ever I can. Here's a few birds from my recent trip to Venice.

Habitat shot [so to say :) ]


A Lifer - the Yellow-legged Gull (very close to the lesser black-backed that I posted earlier on this blog from Rotterdam)

And here's a close up of this beauty.

These Common Black-headeds are all over the place (at times even out numbering pigeons - just kiddin)

And here's the last one from Venice of the small but beautiful European Robin.

A few European Butterflies.

Like the Odonata collection, here's a small collection of Butterflies I have clicked over the last one year here in Europe.

Below a few species from Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

The next collage of the Comma is from Surrey (close to London) UK.

This image of the High Brown Fritillary Butterfly with a few moths from Texel Island (in the North sea), the Netherlands.

And last but not the least the Common Blue from Venice in Italy.