The pre-breeding migration from close up

Although the cold of these last days, the spring is next, is in the days that grow tall, in the first flowers that open. For million birds, large and small, the moment is approached to leave the wintering areas and to return in the breeding places.

Our Peninsula is crossed from various migratory routes that connect Africa sub-Saharan to continental Europe, and the pre-breeding migration is object of systematic study on the small islands of the Mediterranean and in many coastal localities.

For many birders is a moment not to lose, an occasion in order to observe birds that are only in transit, that they appear from the sea silent like shadows, in order to disappear little after slipping on the open wings or with decided strike of wing.

A natural phenomenon, observed since the antiquity, than does not stop to fascinate to us, becoming rich always of new particular thanks to the search that is taken advantage of more and more sophisticated techniques.

The first used system in order to study the migrations has been ringing, that consists in a small ring put on the leg of the animal. The recoveries of ringed birds has allowed us to discover that some of they cross the entire globe, like in the event of the common Sterna that it is moved from New Zeland to Sweden, or that in “only” 27 days a swallow flew from the South Africa to England.

The technique of ringing concurs of monitoring many other aspects of the life of the birds, supplying to us useful answers in the management of the fauna and the environment. The ringing activities in Italy are coordinated from the National Institute Wild Fauna, than issue the authorizations, rings and manage the national data bank. And since the birds do not know borders, from the collaboration with the other centers of research are been born the EURING, that it manages the centralized database of recoveries of the birds ringed in Europe.

The initiative “Welcome Sterpina! The pre-breeding migration from close up”, sponsored from the Fluvial Park of the Tevere, aimed to monitoring the migration of the birds in the natural corridor represented from the course of the river, and to offer the possibility to the public to know that species that uses the area in this period of the year.

In the first year of monitoring of pre-breeding migration have been ringed 157 individuals pertaining to 23species; between these Subalpine warbler, or sterpina, small insectivorous bird that returns in order to nest in the shrub near to the edges of the forests.

In the period comprised between 23 February and 18May, all Sundays from the 9,00 to the 12,00 it will be possible to assist to the carried out operations of inanellamento near the Ornithological Station of Titignano.

The visit is free but the reservation is necessary.

More information are available on the portale of the Italian Parks to the address:

http://www.parks.it/eventi/Edettaglio.php?id=20006

For information and reservations: Titignano tel. 0763.308.000

http://www.titignano.com/gb/titignano_stazione_cattura.html