Wildlife to see in Italy in April
8 spectacles at their peak in Italy in April, and 6 more still going on. Wild animals only: no zoos, no wildlife parks, no hunting. Open Italy in April in the interactive calendar for listening times on the day you pick.
At their peak in April
Mediterranean nights: nightingale & scops owlNightingales everywhere, the metronomic 'tiu' of scops owls (often several in duet), stone-curlew wails, tree frogs.
Reedbed dawn chorus: great reed warbler, bittern, purple heronGrating great reed warbler song from every reed stem, bittern booms, little bittern barks, whiskered terns overhead and marsh frogs beneath.
Tree frog & water frog chorusDeafening tree frog 'kra-kra-kra' choruses, with the laughing croaks of water frogs from rice paddies and ditches.
Alpine black grouse leksBubbling leks on snowy slopes at the treeline, with ring ouzels, alpine accentors, and snowmelt streams.
Flamingo colonies & courtshipGoose-like gabbling of big flocks, and the synchronised 'marching' displays with a constant honking.
Spring passage on small islandsIsland scrub full of freshly arrived, singing migrants after 'falls', with night flight calls overhead.
Griffon vultures of the Bosa coast, SardiniaMostly visual: Italy's largest griffon colony riding the updraughts of volcanic sea cliffs. Sound is the Mediterranean swell under the cliffs, the wing-rush of birds passing close, hissing at the ledges, blue rock thrush and, in summer, Eleonora's falcons chattering along the coast.
Raptor migration: Strait of MessinaMostly visual — kettles of raptors — but also bee-eater flocks overhead, and swifts and hirundines passing.
Also going on in April
Apennine beech-forest dawn chorusOld-growth beech forest chorus with woodpecker drumming, flycatcher songs, and resonant forest acoustics.
Scopoli's & Yelkouan shearwater coloniesScopoli's 'crying baby' wails from thousands of birds arriving over cliffs — one of the Mediterranean's strangest sounds.
Golden jackal choruses on the KarstRising yelping group howls — faster and higher than wolves — answered by neighbouring families across the limestone plateau; the densest population in Italy.
Heron colonies ('garzaie')Croaking, gargling colony noise, night heron 'quok' calls at dusk, begging chicks.
Lesser kestrel colonies in the Sassi of MateraHundreds of chattering 'che-che-che' kestrels wheeling over the roofs of a UNESCO old town at dusk, with swifts, jackdaws and church bells.
Swift screaming parties over old townsScreaming packs racing between palazzi, the deeper trilling of alpine swifts from cliff-like towers, bells and evening passeggiata below.