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...

Montenegro

I lived briefly in Bulgaria in the early 1990s. I was trying to make a name for myself and was so absorbed by politics that I didn't even bother to take my binoculars with me when I went there, an omission that seems to me now to have been bordering on insane. Like Simon Barnes, the sports and birding writer, "the idea of travelling without binoculars seems to me absurd". Or at least it does now but, what can I say? I was young and foolish. The point is that I missed almost all the birding that has made Bulgaria one of the top nature tourism destinations in Europe, and I could have been in on it from the start.

By contrast I've been visiting Montenegro since 2006, and I doubt I've been there once without binoculars. My wife is Montenegrin, and we have a house there, so there's no question at all that I'm thoroughly biased - but I'm convinced that this tiny and stunning country has as much to the offer the birder as Bulgaria or any of the other Balkan countries now setting up their stalls in the ecotourism marketplace. To give an example, although we spend only a few weeks there every year, I've seen 91 species of bird, including 12 species of raptor, in and around the village where our house is, since 2009.

Birding tours are, slowly, taking off, and, thanks to the work of Darko Saveljic and his Centre for Protection and Research of Birds of Montenegro (CZIP) there are, increasingly, facilities and information for even the casual visiting birder. Better still, and far more importantly, there are now habitats under legal protection, where wildlife tourism is promoted. But that protection is tenuous and haphazardly implemented - hunting of migratory birds is depressingly common, for instance, even in protected areas - so the more birders who come and the more the interests of local communities therefore become aligned with conservation rather than rapacious development, the better protection is likely to be afforded to these precious remaining areas.

So, as it happens, I've just come back from ten days in Montenegro - days mainly of swimming and relaxing and working on the house - but naturally with some birding thrown in, including a full day on 22 June, which I think I'll try and write about separately. There's no doubt that the summer months, even including this period of June, are not the best, bird-wise, in this part of the world. Migration season - particularly the Spring migration, and particularly April - are much better and can throw up some fantastic species; I've seen five Pallid Harriers (Circus macrourus) over my house at that time of year, for instance.

The harbour in Bigovo, from the terrace of the "Grispolis" fish restaurant. Absolutely dreadful for birding, but there are rare times when you have to say, "who cares?"

But there are still some stunners to be found, and heard, even now. I arrived at our house in the late afternoon to be greeted by a cacophony of Nightingales (Luscinia megarhynchos), Sardinian Warblers (Sylvia melanocephala), Eastern Olivaceous Warblers (Hippolais pallida), Subalpine Warblers (Sylvia cantillans), Cetti's Warblers (Cettia cetti), Blackbirds (Turdus merula), Turtle Doves (Streptopelia turtur) and Cirl Buntings (Emberiza cirlus). Later in the evening they were joined by Nightjars (Caprimulgus europaeus) and often, though not on this visit, Golden Jackals (Canis aureus) howl like Wolves from the surrounding hills and Scops Owls (Otus scops) whistle mechanically from the scrub. None of these species is particularly easy to see here - the garrigue is thick, so this is a place to get to know your songs. Thanks to my newly-downloaded Collins Bird Guide App, that's easier than it used to be. It's the book, only better.

The scrubby woodland behind and around our house. Home to countless unseen warblers and chats.

On the following morning I headed to the Tivatska Solila - an old salt works near the pleasant town of Tivat now entirely abandoned in terms of the salt, but partly used as a sewage works. Much of the upper drainage of this area has been built on and this, coupled with constant disturbance by bait diggers on the seaward side, and, alas, frequent disturbance by hunters on the landward side in winter, means that the place can be hit and miss. I've had some amazing days here; a great flock of Glossy Ibises (Plegadis falcinellus) fronted by a migrating adult male Pallid Harrier; Common Cranes (Grus grus) beating their way into the face of a raging Bora (as the Tramontana wind is known here); Water Rails (Rallus aquaticus) lined up along a drainage ditch as if in a demonstration of vanishing point perspective by Alberti. But those days have mainly been in the winter and Spring. It was now, although not very hot, obviously summer and the day was definitely on the miss side as many are at this time of year; some patrolling Zitting Cisticolas (Cisticola juncidis), a few Corn Buntings (Miliaria calandra), a Pygmy Cormorant (Microcarbo pygmaeus) or two and a desultory few Great Reed Warblers (Acrocephalus arundinaceus). Not one to write home about.

Tivatska Solila - either heaving with birds or pretty much dead. 

As the heat set in I headed up the old road towards Njegusi on the top of the Lovcen Massif. This is one of the great drives of Europe - a series of switchbacks and hairpin bends from sea level to around 1000 metres or so up what to all intents and purposes is a largely sheer rock face. It's basically a single-track road and not for the faint of heart, but then the Montenegrin bus drivers manage to bring coaches up and down it, so maybe I just need to man-up a bit. I had headed up for the birds - Yellow-billed Choughs (Pyrrhocorax graculus) and House Martins (Delichon urbicum) that nest in a cave and zip in and out like bats - a vestige of what their nesting habits in Europe must have been like until a couple of thousand years ago - but I ended up staying for my first cevapi and kajmak of the year. These words will be meaningless to the uninitiated, but are music to the ears, and the tongues, of balkanophiles such as myself.

A thatched bothy in Lovcen National Park. It's not just the birds that should bring you here. The wild flowers are out of this world, and there's great herpetology for those with the eye for it.

Inspired by this the next day I took myself to Kotor. The city itself is stunning but tiny and can be explored and savoured in a comfortable hour, but after that, tempted as you may be by the impossibly vertiginous city walls, do not try to climb them from the inside. The secret, instead, is to take the path that begins behind the small water works just outside the walls. This is the true "Ladder of Cattaro", as it was known after the city's Venetian moniker, and again it winds all the way up to Njegusi. For much of the nineteenth century this was the only road linking the tiny independent Kingdom of Montenegro, centred on the Lovcen massif, with the coast which was then under the control of Austria-Hungary, and it was built for mule traffic. Mules are sturdy animals, of course, but not known for their enthusiasm or willingness to put themselves out. As a consequence, this track, now used only for walking, climbs the rock at a stately pace and angle. It's hard going merely because it's all uphill, but it's a good deal easier than the stairs inside the wall, it's free, and its much, much better for birding. It's a reliable place for a few Balkan specialities - Blue Rock Thrush (Monticola solitarius), Sombre Tit (Parus lugubris), Western Rock-Nuthatch (Sitta neumayer) and Eastern Black-eared Wheatear (Oenanthe hispanica melanoleuca) were all seen on this visit, for instance, and I've regularly seen Eastern Orphean Warblers (Sylvia hortensis crassirostris) in the past here too. Yellow-billed Choughs come all the way down to sea level here, particularly in the winter, but they're common enough at the level of the top of the walls even now. I've also heard reports of Rock Partridges (Alectoris graeca) from that altitude upwards, but not seen them myself. One secret of this site is to come early. It is increasingly popular with hikers - a phenomenon of the last year or two which is bound to increase, because it's freaking gorgeous - but more importantly you're shaded from the sun in the morning if you start early, and it's baking if you're too late.

The country around the ladder of Cattaro and the stunning views it affords. The old road, now a path, is visible in the foreground, and this photo gives a good indication of the comfortable angle it affords, making it a long, but easy walk up to Njegusi.

On the way back I stopped between the villages of Ljesevici and Bigovo. Last year I found a few pairs of nesting Black-headed Buntings (Emberiza melanocephala) up here, and sure enough there was at least one singing male there this time too. But neither here, nor in Bigovo, nor in Kotor - all places I saw the species last year - could I find a single Orphean Warbler. What's happened to them all?

The extensive Garrigue between Ljesevici and Bigovo. Home to the common Mediterranean species and to Black-headed Buntings.