This morning I picked up a friend with whom I went to the Parco della Piana (= a bird reserve that I’ve written about before) to check out all the baby birds. It’s a weekday, of course, so we were alone…just the two of us and the birds. A magical experience…

As soon as we arrived, two pairs of black-winged stilts began circling above our heads, screaming and yelling and scolding us. At times they’d swoop down a bit as if to attack us. Quite amazing. They were, of course, defending their chicks. But right then we weren’t even close to the chicks. I mean, all the swooping and yelling began in the parking lot… 

Well, we did our best to avoid stressing out the devoted parents. We hid inside the various huts around the lake. Each time we exited a hut to go to another one, though, the adult stilts would zoom up into the air and try to shoo us away…  

By the way, my friend said she now understood why Stefano and I have such a passion for bird watching. She was absolutely mesmerized and kept pointing to different birds around the lake, asking me to identify them. She was particularly struck by the baby coots with their red heads…and the baby and adult stilts, of course…and by a great weed warbler (cannareccione, in Italian) that sang its little head off in our honor (well…)…Anyway, lots of fun. 

I have to go to bed now (still some jet lagzzzz), but here is one of the photos I took of a baby stilt (the little creature came quite close to our hut) this morning.

Is it cute or WHAT? 🙂