Runde, Norway

 We drove 254 miles north from Bergen to Runde specifically to look for birds.  We stopped for dinner a half hour short of Runde just after 8pm and started to research which part of the island would be best for spotting puffins in the morning.  That’s when we learned that the cliff where they nest is on the west side of the island which is only accessible by foot and the only time to see them on the cliff is in the evening after 7pm. Since we weren’t planning to spend the whole day in Runde tomorrow,  we hurried along and drove straight to the trail head by 9:30pm.  The hike was a half mile trail with approx. 980 foot elevation gain (I’ll save you the math, that’s a very steep hike). I told Avi that it’s a good thing that I am fairly lazy about researching ahead of time, because otherwise I would have said no-go to this birding spot.  It ended up being VERY worth the pain when we saw THOUSANDS of Atlantic puffins flying around and roosting on the cliff face! Also, even though sunset is after 11pm, it remains light 24 hours, so we weren’t hiking in the dark.

Atlantic Puffin - same species as found on the east coast in North America.
The area where the puffins were nesting / the cliff face was roped off, but the birds seemed unaffected by their spectators and came pretty close.

Eurasian Oystercatcher 

Great Skua - landed at 11:30pm.  Still plenty of light to see it!
Lifer #1492

Why birding is so hard, Norway edition…

 Spot the differences of these common birds in Oslo, Norway:

L to R: Stock Dove, Wood Pigeon, Rock Dove (the common feral bird you see in every urban area)

L to R: Eurasian Tree Sparrow, House Sparrow (abundant worldwide)

Oslo & Flåm, Norway

 A few birds I’ve seen so far in Norway.  We’re still on the “sightseeing” portion of our trip, so I haven’t spent much time focusing on the birds.  The “birding” portion will all start in two days 😉

Fieldfare - they are everywhere here, like American Robins at home.

Eurasian Bullfinch

Marsh Tit - # 1490 on the life list!

Common Chaffinches - it is definitely spring here with lots of fledglings.

Day 5 Cyprus - Paphos

 Last day birding on Cyprus.  We found 51 species, 8 of which were lifers.

Eurasian Kestrel

European Goldfinches

Red-throated Pipit

Great-spotted Cuckoo - a rare find!

Greater Sand-plover

Day 4 Cyprus - Akrotiri Marsh

European Greenfinch 

Common Buzzard -
contrary to popular belief, buzzards do not look like vultures.

Greater Flamingo
It amazes me that so much color is
hidden when the bird is just standing around 👇

Same bird as above 👆 

 

Day 2 Cyprus - Lanarca Sewage Works

 Today was not a planned birding day, but we opted to make a “quick” stop (that turned into over an hour) at the Lanarca Sewage Works.  Water treatment plants have some of the best birding, just ask any birder.  And no, 99% of the time it doesn’t smell.

Spur-winged Lapwing

European Robin

Laughing Dove

To be honest, most of our birding looks like this.  

Day 1 Cyprus - Lanarca

 First day waking up in Cyprus.  We did some morning (jet-lagged) birding at Hala Sultan Tekke.  I have seen most of the birds on Cyprus in other countries, so I was excited to see four new ones!  

Spectacled Warbler

Eurasian Kestrel

Common Buzzard

male European Stonechat

female European Stonechat

Common Shelduck

Hooded Crow

Greater Flamingo

Ferrara and mainland Venice, Italy Oct. 2025

 

Green-backed Woodpecker - life bird #1,290!

Eurasian Magpie

a Great Tit goofing off

a little artsy European Stonechat

Common Sandpiper

one last African Sacred Ibis flew by to send me off That's all for birding in Italy on this trip.  We found 62 species, 4 of which were new for my life list.  Our next trip will be a biggie for collecting birds, so keep an eye out for new posts starting the middle of November!

Emilia-Romagna, Italy Oct. 2025

We are working our way back toward the airport in Venice after 3 relaxing days in Ravenna looking at mosaics.  We decided to revisit two birding spots before stopping for the night in Ferrara - Comacchio where we hoped to find two vagrant Lesser Flamingos but got fogged out on the first try and Ripristini Bellini where we dipped (missed) on the vagrant Sociable Lapwings on our first try.

As we were driving along on the two-lane country road, my loving husband and exceptional birding companion / valet, who is quite versed in what to do when I yell “Bird!”, went to the next roundabout, headed back to where we came from, and pulled over on the grassy shoulder at almost the precise location where I saw this Eurasian Curlew in a field.  What a team!

After a little picnic of buffalo di mozzarella, prosciutto, salami, pecorino and chocolate, I headed down the spit at Comacchio while Avi headed back to the car to get his binoculars.  Before he even got back, I had one of the lesser flamingos in sight .  It was pretty far out, but there was no mistaking the shorter stature and black bill.  Sadly, no good photos because they were too far away.

 ✅ Lesser Flamingos is my1,288th life bird!

Feeling smug, we headed straight back to the car and over to Ripristini Bellini to try our luck on the lapwing.  The birding area is a series of farm fields and it was full of birds -about 30 Ring-necked Pheasants, as many Northern Lapwings, and we flushed about 30 Gray Partridges that were in the grass by the road.  I never thought we would see a skittish Gray Partridge, let alone a big covey of them! (Of course there was no time to line up my camera for a decent shot.)  We never found the Sociable Lapwings.

✅ Gray Partridges is my 1,289th life bird!

And to top off the day, I found the first [eBird] record of a Fieldfare in the area in two years!  (To clarify, other birders may have seen Fieldfares in the area and not recorded them.  This does happen a lot as there are a lot of birders, especially outside the U.S., that keep their lists in other ways or don’t keep lists.)  It’s not new to my life list, but still exciting.

Our tally for the trip so far is 57 species of birds this week n Italy, 3 of which were new to my life list.

San Marino Oct. 2025

We stayed overnight in San Marino (the city and country).  The city is built on a rocky outcropping, Mount Titano.  I was saddened, but not shocked that there were no birds besides pigeons as it is autumn and there is very little vegetation in the city.  That said, I still had to log the one (feral) species, just to add it to how many countries I’ve birded in, lol.

I present to you, the feral San Marino Rock Pigeon

More Po Delta Birding, October 2025

 

Possibly a Long-legged Buzzard - it would be considered a "rare bird" (i.e. out of its normal distribution area), but someone else saw it a week ago in the same area and the Merlin app claims this is what I took a photo of)

If this is true, it is a new life list bird for me - #1288

Common Buzzard

Trying to find a Lesser Flamingo in a flock of Greater Flamingos in the fog is like looking for a needle in a haystack.  (We didn't find one.)

Great Crested Grebe

That makes 47 species so far for Italy - only 2 were new for my life list, but at this level, I am at the level of birding where the birds are infrequent to rare (unless I go to a new continent).