European Bird Sightings

So far on my trip I have seen house sparrows, European Robins, Italian Sparrows, rock doves, Eurasian Collared doves, European turtle doves, common swifts, common kingfisher, Eurasian magpie, Eurasian jackdaw, Common Raven, Carrion crow, Greater Flamingo, northern  Shoveler duck, Coot, Great egret, Little Egret, European white storks, Eurasian spoonbill and dunlins.  The storks were sitting on their nests on top of power poles along the highway near the river.  Their nests looked similar to osprey nests. Most of the other birds were seen at the Vendicari Nature preserve south of Catania, almost to the south east corner of the island. The vendicare preserve was a wonderful place with bird watching blinds observation platforms, beautiful beaches, an ancient Roman building where tuna was processed, walking paths, and a salt marsh where most of the birds hung out together. As we watched we saw one flamingo fly to the bigger group. That group of flamingos stood up and started doing the mating dance and that was fun to see.