Spring Part 2 - Montenegro

In the past I have been a bore on the subject of the Spring migration in Montenegro, and the following will be no exception. The visit from which I returned at the end of last week did not measure up to the vintage April of 2012, and I’ll go into a couple of the reasons why I think that’s the case, but I still have a smile on my face as I write this, and there barely a single day that didn’t come with a surprise. Given that we were there for ten days, that’s not at all bad.

We arrived on 28 March into Dubrovnik, with my first Spring migrant, a Hoopoe (Upupa epops), making his entrance as we passed between the Croatian and Montenegrin borders at Debeli Brijeg.

The following morning was one of a series of glorious sunny days, and as I took my first walk into Bigovo, it was clear that for birds, too, the Spring was here. Swallows (Hirundo rustica) were already in residence, there were a few Subalpine Warblers  (Sylvia cantillans) displaying, and a Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos) was already singing from cover. But there were clearly also birds that were simply passing through; Chiffchaffs (Phylloscopus collybita), for instance, and Blackcaps (Sylvia atricapilla), neither of which, to my knowledge, breeds in the village. And there was a single, flighty, nominate Yellow Wagtail (Motacilla flava) too. But the migrants of the day were Redstarts (Phoenicurus phoenicurus), of which there were several dotted around the village. Interestingly, two of these birds, both females, had clear white edges to their secondaries, creating the effect of a panel on the folded wing. This is a diagnostic feature of the Eastern samamisicus race, which I’d seen for the first time, on a male, in Eritrea last winter, but which surely migrates on a more Easterly path? Interesting. There was a female Black Redstart (Phoenicurus ochruros) on the garden wall, as well, this being presumably a late and more local migrant.

Looking towards the village over the wooded valley in Bigovo

On 30 March the first Short-toed Eagle (Circaetus gallicus) of the year drifted over the house and there was a Whinchat (Saxicola rubetra) in the village, but I had little time to look for other migrants as  I had to pick up my parents from Podgorica. This involved a drive past Skadar Lake, where I picked up a single Dalmatian Pelican (Pelecanus crispus) and a flock of Alpine Swifts (Tachymarptis melba). On the drive back, avoiding major roadworks on the coast, we took the precipitous mountain road over the Lovcen massif and picked up our first House Martins (Delichon urbicum) nesting, as they always do, inside a cave at the top of the road from Kotor to Njegusi.

More migrants made their first appearances on 31 March, with the first Tree Pipits (Anthus trivialis) and Cirl Buntings (Emberiza cirlus) in the village. The latter breed here and these birds seemed paired-up, so are probably here to stay. But at the same time there were lingering signs of winter, too. On 29 March a Robin (Erithacus rubecula) had made its appearance by the causeway from the Church to the village, an area of small fields and orchards with the sea on one side and woodland on the other that seems to be the focal point for migrants here. Robins are birds I have never seen later than the end of March, making them winter visitors here, in my book, and as if to confirm that timetable this Robin put in his last appearance on 31 March, and was not seen again.

The open area of orchards and fields next to the "causeway". This is migrant central for the village in the Spring.

The first day of April took Dad and I to the nearby Tivatska Solila where we picked-up the first Eastern Black-eared Wheatears (Oenanthe hispanica melanoleuca), Northern Wheatears (Oenanthe oenanthe), Spoonbills (Platalea leucorodia), Garganeys (Spatula querquedula), Corn Buntings (Miliaria calandra), Red-rumped Swallows (Hirundo daurica) and Sand Martins  (Riparia riparia) this year. Mirabile dictu, Dad and I also managed to get good views of a singing Nightingale, for the first time, it seemed to me, since I was a boy in Canterbury. A Sardinian Warbler (Sylvia melanocephala) popped-up in the village too, but they seem much less common here than they used to be.

Cuckoos (Cuculus canorus), Whitethroats (Sylvia communis), Lesser Whitethroats (Sylvia curruca) and a Collared Flycatcher (Ficedula albicollis) all put in their first appearances on 2 April. I’m always surprised at how few Lesser Whitethroats we see here, given that the entire European population migrates through the Balkans, but perhaps they pursue a more Easterly and inland route. There was only one seen on this day, and he was the only one I saw throughout our time in Montenegro.

On 3 April it was the turn of Serins (Serinus serinus)– a bird I hadn’t previously seen in the village, but which I had been expecting. More noteworthy for me was an overflying Hooded Crow (Corvus corone cornix). In more than six years I’d never seen this species in the village, though it’s common enough over the ridge in Radanovici. Perhaps its appearance is a sign of encroaching development, and I’ll know that for sure when I see my first Feral Pigeons (Columbia livia var. dom.) for the first time here.

New appearances on 4 April were Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), a Hawfinch (Coccothraustes coccothraustes) near the causeway, and yet another first for the village – a lone Reed Warbler (Acrocephalus scirpaceus), helpfully perching on a reed. On 6 April the first Scops Owl (Otus scops) started calling mechanically from the scrubby forest around the house.

In the meantime, on 5 April I’d taken myself to Kotor and found most of the usual species in the usual places– Alpine Choughs (Pyrrhocorax graculus) bizarrely in the centre of the town at sea level, and Sombre Tit (Parus lugubris) and dozens of loud Western Rock-nuthatches (Sitta neumayer) behind the city walls on the walking path. I missed a Blue Rock-thrush (Monticola solitarius) this time, though.

Looking down across the Bay of Kotor from behind the walls. All you need is a soundtrack of calling Western Rock-nuthatches to bring this alive.

Throughout all of this time the weather had been an unbroken series of beautiful days, perfect for gardening, which is what we were doing almost all the time. But I was beginning to suspect that this weather, no matter how pleasant, was the explanation for the essentially unspectacular migration we’d so far been experiencing. Alas, my parents had to leave before I could put this theory to the test, because on 8 April, things changed. We woke to haze and a strong southerly wind, with showers beginning later, and exposing the haze as a miasma of Saharan sand, which coated everything in pink dust. It brought with it birds, and many more of them than we’d seen to date, with sizeable flocks of Whinchats, a single Squacco Heron (Ardeola ralloides) and a couple of apparently paired-up Woodchat Shrikes (Lanius senator) at the Tivatska Solila. A juvenile Marsh Harrier (Circus aeruginosus), which had been there when Dad I visited on 1 April, was still there, but he spiralled upward and headed North with the wind behind him as I watched.

9 April, our departure day, confirmed my hunch. It had been cloudy with occasional thunderstorms overnight, driven by the continuing wind from the South, and it was obvious from the start that there were far more birds in the village than had been the case until now, with Tree Pipits, in particular, well into double figures. But the crowning moment of the day, for me, was watching what must have been hundreds of high-flying Alpine Swifts fronting a bedraggled adult male MONTAGU’S HARRIER (Circus pygargus) as it ploughed its way North against the hills, its large black wingtips obvious even in the low light. This, again, was an expected species but it’s the first I’ve seen in the Western Palearctic, all my previous sightings having been in Africa, and it’s the fourth species of Harrier I’ve seen in Bigovo. This means that I’ve seen all four Western Palearctic Harriers in the village. I find that pretty remarkable.

An example of the perfect weather that dominated our visit. Poor us.

The drive to Dubrovnik brought two final migrants; a Turtle Dove (Streptopelia turtur) by the road near the airport, and Spanish Sparrows (Passer hispaniolensis), which breed colonially on the airport building itself, together wth House Sparrows (Passer domesticus), but which had not arrived when we did ten days before.

So, a wonderful experience, but for the most part the migration this year was a stream rather than a river in spate, as I’ve experienced it before. To expand a little on what I said earlier, I suspect the reasons for this were that we were a little early (Dad checked, and our 2012 experience was around 18 April) and that the weather was simply too good – something only a birder could say, surely? My hunch is that with the clear skies and light winds that prevailed until the last couple of days, birds were able to navigate in straight lines at night, and were not dependent on landmarks, as they are when the clouds come down and the wind blows hard. Then, they’re forced to follow the coast and to stop wherever they are for rest and feeding; that place, as often as not, being Bigovo. So, for future reference, and if you’re looking for the migration experience in Montenegro, come around the middle of April, and look out for unsettled weather on southerly winds. Luckily, that combination is common at this time of year. And luckier still, even without it there will still be wonderful show of migrants anyway, as the preceding attests.

There’s a postscript to all this. The birds I’ve mentioned were none of them the most unusual species I saw on this visit. That was that rarest of beasts in Montenegro, another birder. Dad and I spotted this outlandish creature at Tivatska Solila on 1 April and, perhaps more incredibly than seeing him at all, it turned out that he was from Belgium. I was delighted to hear that one of the reasons he’d come, and had done so on the basis of another Belgian birding friend’s recommendation, was for the birds. Montenegro needs, and deserves, much more of this and I’m overjoyed to see it finally coming onto the European birding map. I’m also very happy to have made contact with a potential birding colleague in my current home country, and I’m looking forward to a first outing with him, to the Belgian coast, this very weekend, with a report to follow in due course.

Until next time...

... in with the New. Montenegro, again.

There is a great deal to be said for travelling the world, and indeed I have myself said a great deal about it over the course of the last year in this Blog. But there is also a great deal to be said for having a sense of place - of knowing somewhere so deeply that you feel its continuities and its changes intimately.

Thanks to my work I enjoy many of the pleasures of travelling the world. But it comes with a downside, and that's the lack of a sense of rootedness. We happen now to live in Brussels, but it's not yet our home in any meaningful sense, and it may never be so because we have no idea how long we'll stay here. I still love my parents' house in the English Cotswolds, of course, but everyone's sense of belonging changes after having children of their own, and though I still take a close interest in the birds and animals seen from the house and around the village (Dad has kept a fascinating near-daily list since he and Mum moved in two decades ago), it is no longer my home.

So, where is? Well, the only place that we have that is our own and somewhere we can always go back to is our small house near Bigovo, on the coast of Montenegro, my wife's home country. I've written about Montenegro before, but not about my "home patch" in detail. Our house was built five years ago and has always been lovely; designed by an architect friend, Sanja Raonic, it deservedly won awards and has always managed to sail above the shortcomings of its own construction. But the garden was something we neglected in preparing the house, and when we arrived to take over from the builder we were presented with a stunning new house surrounded by a blasted wasteland of rock, which in due course became home to every wasp and hornet for miles around. The only bird we saw in the garden that year, perched on a rare survivor of the vegetable holocaust that was the building process, was a Red-backed Shrike (Lanius collurio) feasting on this serendipitous glut of hymenoptera.

Our lovely house, seen from the road this Spring. The garden has changed since the Red-backed Shrike made his first appearance

This singular bird, gorging himself on that blazing August day, was the beginning of a list of birds seen in and immediately around the village that has since swelled to 100 species, including an incredible 14 species of raptor. To put this in perspective, over the course of 5 years of discontinuous and disjointed visits to Bigovo, I've managed to log as many species as my Dad has seen around Ascott-under-Wychwood in 20 years of essentially continuous residence.

Bigovo - the harbour in the winter

Our visits to Bigovo may be occasional, but they've now been frequent enough, and have covered enough of the year, for me to start to form a picture of what to expect, when; and, perhaps more importantly, when to expect the unexpected.

Bigovo seen from across the bay after an overnight storm. This stretch of sea can produce surprises in bad weather, including my first ever Red-necked Grebe (Podiceps grisegena)

Summer is hands-down the worst period for birds. The variety breeding in the village is not enormous and those that do breed here are secretive and have inordinate amounts of cover. A July list of birds seen from the house can easily stop at three or four species, though if your song and call recognition is good you'll hear a few more than that. In August things tick up a little, with the beginnings of the autumn migration, but it's a shadow of the Spring, in my experience.

Later in the autumn, things get more interesting, with single species dominating for days at a time: Spotted Flycatchers (Muscicapa striata) in September; Stonechats (Saxicola rubicola) in October, with a trickle continuing well into November. But honestly this is the season least known to me and it is clearly a time when unusual birds could turn up, even if each day seems to have less diversity packed into than is the case in the Spring. I'm also fascinated as to whether the obvious raptor migration seen at the front of the year is repeated in reverse towards the end of it. And I should probably end this para with the point that the early autumn is absolutely the most pleasant time to visit the Montenegrin coast. The crowds of summer are gone, as is the sometimes oppressive heat, but the sea retains warmth enough to make a dip pleasant well into October.

Winter holds much of interest. Whatever the weather there will be legions - hundreds, if not thousands - of Blackbirds (Turdus merula) and Robins (Erithacus rubecula), with a scattering of Song Thrushes (Turdus philomelos) thrown in. I haven't observed any pattern to their behaviour while wintering. They don't flock and don't seem to move communally, as Fieldfares (Turdus pilaris) or Redwings (Turdus iliacus) would, for instance. Rather this seems to be a case of lots of birds individually wintering in the same place. The Blackbirds feed extensively on the local Strawberry Trees (Arbutus unedo), including one in our garden, but, interestingly, they seem to shun Pyracantha here, even though it's a famous bird-friendly shrub in North-West Europe. I wonder why? Is it because the Pyracantha fruits need to be "bletted" (i.e. softened by frost) as some old fruits like Medlar need to be?

All these wintering passerines of course attract predators, and the local resident population of Sparrowhawks (Accipiter nisus) is clearly augmented in the winter, with Goshawks (Accipiter gentilis) joining for the party as well. And though the field guides mark the coast as out of range for both species, this winter saw both Marsh Tits (Parus palustris) and Willow Tits (Parus montanus) in the village, in one case in the same mixed feeding flock. There are usually one or two Hawfinches (Coccothraustes coccothraustes) around the village, but in common with many other species hard weather can produce larger numbers. Hawfinches in Central and Eastern Europe don't behave as the books would have you believe; they're bolder and more obvious, and can form significant flocks. I've seen up to 30 together in Bigovo, and outside Belgrade I've seen congregations of up to 70 birds. Winter can also produce unexpected raptors. I've seen Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) twice over the village at this time of year.

The bushy garrigue around the house, blurring into oak forest in the valley bottom. This photo taken at the very end of December. Note that the large oak trees on the right hand side of the photo, and in the distance, still have many of their leaves. They lose them only at this time of year, and regain them in early March, making them barely deciduous.

But the season to long for in Montenegro, everywhere, including Bigovo, is Spring. It starts around the beginning of March with Hen Harriers (Circus cyaneus), sometimes up to ten at at time around the village. We had one over the garden, once, flying below the level of the sitting room windows, the house being at the top of a slope.

My best experience of the Spring migration at its peak in Montenegro was with Dad in April 2012, and it was a magical one; an endless, frenzied stream of birds pullulating through the village, with Wood Warblers (Phylloscopus sibilatrix), Pied Flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca), Collared Flycatchers (Ficedula albicollis), Blackcaps (Sylvia atricapilla), Garden Warblers (Sylvia borin), Whitethroats (Sylvia communis), Lesser Whitethroats (Sylvia curruca), Whinchats (Saxicola rubetra), Redstarts (Phoenicurus ochruros), Northern Wheatears (Oenanthe oenanthe), Eastern Black-eared Wheatears (Oenanthe hispanica malanoleuca), Woodchat Shrikes (Lanius senator), Hoopoes (Upupa epops), Golden Orioles (Oriolus oriolus), Short-toed Larks (Calandrella brachydactyla) and Yellow Wagtails (Motacilla flava) all putting in their appearances, many of them in the then still largely unformed garden. Overhead were migrating Pallid Harriers (Circus macrourus) - five at once - Short-toed Eagles (Circaetus gallicus) and a solitary Long-legged Buzzard (Buteo rufinus) as well as Alpine Swifts (Tachymarptis melba) and all the local hirundines, including Red-rumped Swallow (Hirundo daurica). On the sea Red-necked Grebes (Podiceps grisegena) have made appearances at this time of year, and I suspect it's always good for a surprise. I've seen Wrynecks (Jynx torquilla) here in the Spring too, my only sightings of this bird anywhere, to date, and I've seen Levant Sparrowhawks (Accipiter brevipes) further down the coast near Budva, so they're a good possibility from the village as well.

As Spring progresses, raptors take a prominent place, with a noticeable movement of Honey Buzzards (Pernis apivorus) in May, perhaps having passed over the Straits of Otranto from Italy. Eleonora's Falcons (Falco eleonorae) breed a little way down and up the coast and I've seen them nearby, though not yet from the village itself. And then there are the incoming breeders: Eastern Subalpine Warblers (Sylvia cantillans albistriata), Eastern Olivaceous Warblers (Hippolais pallida), Eastern Orphean Warblers (Sylvia hortensis crassirostris), Cirl Buntings (Emberiza cirlus), Black-headed Buntings (Emberiza melanocephala), and so on. But it's from this time of year that the migration, melding into breeding, becomes a soundtrack more than a visual event, dominated for two months or more by legions of Nightingales (Luscinia megarhynchos), with a backing chorus provided by Nightjars (Caprimulgus europaeus), a Scops Owl (Otus scops) or two, and the local Golden Jackals (Canis aureus) howling from the hills.

Looking down across the developing garden to the hills beyond - the haunt of Golden Jackals and Wild Boar (Sus scrofa)

I note all this not only out of pride for my adopted country and my local patch, but also in anticipation; the (Western) Easter, and with it my younger son's school holiday, falls at the end of March this year, meaning I'm likely to be in Montenegro for the peak migration season. Even now this means long evenings studying the warbler and raptor pages of the Collins Guide with a sense of avaricious longing.

But what of this New Year? In an earlier post I mentioned that we started 2016 in Montenegro, while even earlier I mentioned that I try always to spend New Year's Day birding. Well, I failed on the latter point. To explain this I have to circle back to the beginning of this post. When building the house in Bigovo we neglected the garden, and have spent the past five years correcting this omission. It's now finally coming together - the structure is defined, but what is lacking is mature plants. In Mediterranean climates winter is the optimum time for planting, as it allows plants to settle into the soil before the summer drought sets in. So on this visit to Montenegro one passion - birding - had to play second fiddle to another - gardening - while we undertook the backbreaking work of digging a hundred or more new plants into the mixture of rock and clay that is our soil. It was not a loss, of course, because it meant I was outside for much of the time for the first few days of the year. What did I see?

Well, until shortly before we left, this had not been a hard winter in the Balkans. Indeed there was a shocking lack of snow on the mountains when we arrived at the end of December. As a consequence of this many of the birds that concentrate on the Montenegrin coast as a refuge from ice and snow inland were largely or entirely absent; no Hawfinches this time, and no Firecrests (Regulus ignicapilla) either,  though they've been common in winters past. There was nothing of note on the sea either. But I've already mentioned the huge numbers of Blackbirds and Robins, and the passing flock containing both Marsh and Willow Tits. There was a Goshawk, too - an immature female, putting the fear of God into the local Woodpigeons (Columba palumbus). And high overhead on the Orthodox Christmas Eve (6 January) an adult Golden Eagle beat its way Eastward above the house. Nothing incredible. Nothing jaw-dropping, but the icing on the cake of fresh air and physical labour, and nice confirmations of, and deviations from, a local pattern which I'm slowly beginning to understand.

Looking forward to the Spring, when this photo was taken.