Wednesday 15 August 2012

Mount Tampa, Romania

Looming above Brasov in Romania is Mount Tampa. The top is easily reached by cable car and it's a pleasant if steep, walk back dow the mountain through deciduous woodland. On my recent trip through Europe I had a spare half day and decided to walk the path in the hope of some of the more unsual woodpeckers and woodland birds.

A woodpecker was one of the first birds I saw, unfortunately it was only a great spotted woodpecker, a common bird back in England. The leaf cover was heavy at this time of the summer so birding wasn't easy as the post breeding birds are also somewhat quiet.

There were plenty of marsh tit calling with their diagnostic pichuuu call and several more common birds such as blackbird and robin feeding young. On top of the mountain the tree cover thinned out onto a grassy slope to the north, three common raven flew over and then one, probably two, juvenile goshawk flew out of the lower woodland, this was a lifer for me and they were clearly larger than the related sparrowhawk.

Almost at the base of the mountain I came across a recently fledged flycatcher sitting on a low branch chirping like a house sparrow in the hope of food from it's parent birds. It was so young I couldn't ID it but was probably a collared flycatcher. Two colourful nuthatch creeping down the oak trunks was also a welcome find.

A full list of the 12 species seen can be found HERE on e-Bird.

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