Wildlife to see in Slovenia in August
5 spectacles at their peak in Slovenia in August, and 2 more still going on. Wild animals only: no zoos, no wildlife parks, no hunting. Open Slovenia in August in the interactive calendar for listening times on the day you pick.
At their peak in August
Wolf howling and Ural owls, Kočevski Rog nightsPack howls with high pup yips from rendezvous sites, carrying several km across karst dolines; Ural owl's deep barking 'wuh-wuh-wuho' and female's hoarse calls; Tengmalm's owl in late winter; red deer in the same windows from mid September.
Edible dormouse nights and the 'polharjenje' seasonSqueals, churring and 'kissing' contact calls from the canopy, loud scrabbling on bark, beechnut shells raining down; in mast years the forest sounds like it is full of monkeys.
Bat emergence from karst cavesAudible squeaks and wing rustle at cave mouths from Miniopterus colonies of thousands; with a bat detector, horseshoe-bat constant-frequency calls at 80–110 kHz and bent-winged FM sweeps.
Marmots, ibex and chamois in the Julian AlpsMarmot alarm whistles echoing off limestone walls, chough flocks, ptarmigan croaking above the treeline, chamois hissing alarm sneezes; in autumn the roar of red deer from the valleys below.
Waders and terns on the Sečovlje salt pansLittle tern colonies screaming over the pans, stilts and avocets yelping, redshank and Kentish plover, reed warblers in the Dragonja channel; salt-worker rakes and the sea beyond the dyke.
Also going on in August
Karst nights: scops owl, nightjar and cicadasScops owl's monotone 'tyuh' every 2–3 s from village edges, nightjar churring on the dry meadows, sub-Mediterranean bush-cricket wall of sound, cicadas at 90+ dB at midday in July, eagle owl from the Vipava cliffs in late winter.
Brown bears from forest hides, KočevskoBears are mostly quiet: heavy footfalls in beech litter, sniffing, huffing and jaw-popping when nervous, cubs squalling, mating-season moans; the surrounding evening chorus (wood warbler, Ural owl at dusk, red deer) is the real soundscape.