Jeannie's Travel Addiction

June 21, 2018

I am always on the look out for new bird sightings!!  This trip did not disappoint me. There was a small park in Bolzano, Italy  and, seriously-  there was a bird house of some sort in every tree.  Most were occupied  by,  what we call in the USA, house sparrows.  But if  I didn’t  keep looking, I  might miss someone new.  Or a surprising  picture like this…

where Mama  bird  is practically   sticking her whole head down  baby bird’s throat!  Or…

I might have missed my  only sighting of a chaffinch, which is supposed to be very abundant in Europe.  But  I only saw one.   Maybe it was because I have never fed the birds hot dog pieces before.   :  )

This white wagtail was in a park in Munich, very busily searching  for bugs in the grass.  It must have been a lucrative spot because he was there for a long time and  could have cared less about me taking photos of him.

In Austria, I saw dozens and dozens of house martins, in the sky and flying  to and from their nests. Martins, like swallows,  spend most of their time in the air and only eat bugs.  They can mate and feed their young in the air.  House  martins  make cup-shaped mud nests, usually below the eaves of buildings.

“Unexpected intrusions of beauty. This is what life is.”   by Saul Bellow

Family portrait of  barn swallows  in Italy.

This shot really shows off  the forked tail.

Feeding time.

This barn swallow’s  nest was under the awning of a gelato  stand/store but she didn’t seem to mind all of the  gelato-loving people  traffic.

Hope you enjoyed this final and all  of my posts from my  Germany/Austria/Italy trip for 2018.

Thanks for reading!