Wildlife to see in Italy in May
12 spectacles at their peak in Italy in May, and 6 more still going on. Wild animals only: no zoos, no wildlife parks, no hunting. Open Italy in May in the interactive calendar for listening times on the day you pick.
At their peak in May
Apennine beech-forest dawn chorusOld-growth beech forest chorus with woodpecker drumming, flycatcher songs, and resonant forest acoustics.
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.
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.
Alpine black grouse leksBubbling leks on snowy slopes at the treeline, with ring ouzels, alpine accentors, and snowmelt streams.
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.
Spring passage on small islandsIsland scrub full of freshly arrived, singing migrants after 'falls', with night flight calls overhead.
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.
Raptor migration: Strait of MessinaMostly visual — kettles of raptors — but also bee-eater flocks overhead, and swifts and hirundines passing.
Also going on in May
Bee-eater & roller coloniesRolling 'prruip' calls of bee-eaters overhead all day, the crow-like chatter of rollers.
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.
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.
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.