Wildlife to see in Italy in June
11 spectacles at their peak in Italy in June, and 7 more still going on. Wild animals only: no zoos, no wildlife parks, no hunting. Open Italy in June in the interactive calendar for listening times on the day you pick.
At their peak in June
Apennine beech-forest dawn chorusOld-growth beech forest chorus with woodpecker drumming, flycatcher songs, and resonant forest acoustics.
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.
Scopoli's & Yelkouan shearwater coloniesScopoli's 'crying baby' wails from thousands of birds arriving over cliffs — one of the Mediterranean's strangest sounds.
Tree frog & water frog chorusDeafening tree frog 'kra-kra-kra' choruses, with the laughing croaks of water frogs from rice paddies and ditches.
Bee-eater & roller coloniesRolling 'prruip' calls of bee-eaters overhead all day, the crow-like chatter of rollers.
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.
Alpine summer: marmots & ibexPiercing marmot alarm whistles echoing across cirques, cowbells far below, alpine choughs, streams.
Firefly nightsA visual spectacle: synchronised flashing over meadows. For sound, the early-summer night ambience — crickets, nightingales, and scops owls.
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.
Also going on in June
Cicada summer chorusWall-of-sound cicada chorus in pinewoods and olive groves, with pulsing, overlapping rhythms of different species.
Mediterranean nights: nightingale & scops owlNightingales everywhere, the metronomic 'tiu' of scops owls (often several in duet), stone-curlew wails, tree frogs.
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.
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.
Fin whales & sperm whales, Pelagos SanctuaryWith a hydrophone: sperm whale clicks and codas, dolphin whistles. Fin whale calls are infrasonic (about 20 Hz) and need a suitable hydrophone.
Raptor migration: Strait of MessinaMostly visual — kettles of raptors — but also bee-eater flocks overhead, and swifts and hirundines passing.