In August, 2014 my fiancee Lisa and I traveled to Croatia to spend a little over a week sharing a villa with a number of my closest friends. While the visit was primarily devoted to family-vacation activities, we did carve out some time for birding.
In the following account I will generally list a species only the first time it was detected unless a subsequent sighting was of particular interest and quality, thus avoiding repetitious mention of common species such as garden warbler and barn swallow. The common name of a bird will be followed the first time by the Latin species name in parentheses. Life birds are listed in all capitals.
Saturday the second: Our plane landed in Dubrovnik in late afternoon and we spent the first hour or two collecting luggage and getting a rental car. I had little concentration to spare for birding while we were there or on the drive up the coast road to the villa, so the only birds logged during the evening were yellow-legged gull (Larus michahellis), barn swallow (Hirundo rustica), house martin (Delichon urbica), and common swift (Apus apus).
Sunday the third: Our base was to be the Villa Stolovi, close to an almost-nonexistent hamlet called Slivno Ravno. The villa was set up in the hills overlooking the bay within the peninsula of Peljesac. From its perch, the land sloped down in gentle hills and slopes at least a kilometer to the sea. The hillsides were clothed in a mixture of cultivated fields and unregulated scrub trees. Only the very occasional small roof was visible. The view of the arm of the sea from the outdoor gallery of the villa was breathtaking, both by day and night; the villa itself was beautiful and comfortable, with an excellent pool. I heartily recommend the location on its non-birding merits alone.
That said, the birding around the villa was very good and yielded some of the region’s specialties. The first morning I slept in a bit and then spent some time familiarizing myself with the local habitat. Birds seen within a short walk of the villa included a possible yellowhammer, a pipit or lark that departed too quickly for identification, blue tit (Parus caeruleus), great tit (Parus major), and a flying GOLDEN ORIOLE (Oriolus oriolus) (one of at least two or three that were commonly heard and occcasionally seen near the villa).
Later in the day we took a group trip to nearby Metkovic and had lunch at a restaurant by a small canal. Least grebe (Tachyhaptus ruficollis), common moorhen (Gallinula chloropus), English sparrow (Passer domesticus), and pied wagtail (Motacilla alba) all were seen from the area of the restaurant. Later, riding back along the Neretva river, we spotted shag (Phalacrocorax aristotelis) and common black-headed gull (Larus ridibundus).
Back at the villa in the afternoon I took another stroll down to some cultivated fields and found one of the obscure warblers repeatedly flycatching from an olive bush. As I was unable to make an on-the-spot identification, I took detailed notes which later allowed me to verify an early hypothesis - the bird was an OLIVE-TREE WARBLER (Hippolais olivetorum). I also had a second life sighting of red-backed shrike (Lanus collurio), and spotted the first of many Northern wheatears (Oenanthe oenanthe) around the villa. The usual martins, swallows, and swifts feeding in the closing evening were briefly joined by a sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) soaring up the valley - also a second-in-life sighting..
Monday the fourth: Another morning walk near the villa turned up the first of many, many GARDEN WARBLERS (Sylvia borin) that were fairly accommodating. I found a decent spot for birding among the terraced plantings late in the morning, but only had brief (inconclusive) views of possible chaffinch and rock nuthatch.
Lisa and I took a ride to the port city of Split to do some sightseeing. Split is a modern city, but has several sites of archeological interest, including the so-called Palace of Diocletian - “so-called” because it is not truly a palace but a section of the city enclosed by an ancient wall in which modern amenities crowd in with Roman-era buildings. In Split the only new trip birds I noted were hooded crow (Corvus cornix) and pigeon (Columba livia). On the ride back, however, we had a SHORT-TOED EAGLE (Circaetus gallicus) soaring near the A1. Back at the villa I took a brief after-dinner walk and found some corn buntings (Miliaria calandra) in a bush above the road.
Tuesday the fifth: In the morning Lisa and I drove down the hill to the nearby Neretva Delta area. The shallow flats featured great cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo) and little egrets (Egretta garzetta) in addition to the usual gulls. Near the town of Brace, at the mouth of the river, there was an ornithological reserve and boat launches. The sand flats and short-grass margins of the water yielded a common sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos) and a WATER PIPIT (Anthus spinoletta).
Trees lining the road from the reserve to a campground were full of European goldfinches, and a siskin or two flew through. The water treatment plant had a pair of COMMON KINGFISHERS (Alcedo atthis), marvellous little jewels that I had long wanted to see.
We tried continuing on the road out of Brace back to the main road, but by this time it was getting hot and the local farmers were active. We did scare up a flying hoopoe (Upupa epops), a European collared-dove (Streptopelia decaocto), and a probable greenfinch. Retracing our path, we stopped at a side road at middling elevations that accessed a mixed evergreen/deciduous patch. Here I had an excellent look at a perched male golden oriole; Lisa, unfortunately, was a few moments too late to see it.
Having had a long day on the road the day before, we decided to loaf the rest of the morning and the afternoon at the villa and enjoy the pool. Later, driving out to pick up dinner, we found a hoopoe dust-bathing at a curve on the entrance-road. It stayed there while we watched it and Lisa particularly enjoyed its flamboyant black-and-orange plumage. Then our friends happened to come up the road from the other direction, and the bird flew off.
Wednesday the sixth: We planned to do some birding up in the area north and west of Kula Norinska, not far from Metkovic, where there was a back road through what I understood to be good habitat for regional specialties. Ironically, when we were still at the villa and I was waiting for Lisa to come down to the car, I spotted some tits in the bushes by the parking space and soon had enviable looks at a pair of scarce SOMBRE TITS (Parus lugubris). I noted particularly the large size, the enlarged bills, and the brown cap of the female. I also saw a bird perched atop one of the light posts around a tennis court just downhill from the villa; it could well have been a rock nuthatch, but again I lacked decent views as I did not have my scope out.
We then headed in the direction of Metkovic, but after crossing the Neretva River and heading east, picked up a small road going north into the hills toward Desne. When that road curved east we stopped at a likely-looking spot and found WOOD WARBLER (Phylloscopus sibilatrix) with its bright yellow throat and supercilium. Further east, we had European jays (Garrulus glandarius) calling and flying about, and a soaring Northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis).
Just short of where the road would turn south to Kula Norinska, we happened upon a flock of EUROPEAN BEE-EATERS (Merops apiaster) - real crowd-pleasers with their elongated central tail feathers, bright coloration, and streamlined forms.
Heading back west again, we stopped at a small church where a WOODCHAT SHRIKE (Lanius senator) and its young could scarcely have been missed. There was a bird chattering in the long reeds below the church that was probably a great reed warbler, but it never came into view. Red-backed shrikes were present here, too.
We returned to the villa and spent most of the day in a group activity. Taking a quick break in the late afternoon, I set up the scope on the balcony and studied the garden warblers, getting excellent looks at the drab plumage, eye-ring and white throat.
Thursday the seventh: I again set up the scope on the balcony, having found the tennis court, its fences, and its light posts were magnets for birds in the morning. Corn buntings and Northern wheatears predominated among the visitors, but after twenty minutes or so of observation I spotted a BLACK-EARED WHEATEAR (Oenanthe hispanica) atop one of the lightpoles, with creamy plumage and fully black throat. This was another of the local specialty species - it appears the Villa Stolovi is an excellent location for the target birds of Croatia.
The rest of the day was spent in a group endeavor, so I did no more birding worth mentioning.
Friday the eighth: We all took a trip in to Dubrovnik, a can’t-miss spot for visitors to Croatia. The original fortified walls surrounding the old city have been maintained, and for about twenty dollars you can walk the ramparts in a complete circuit, taking about an hour. The views both of the city and the seascape were spectacular. Also, among the yellow-legged gulls and common swifts I picked out an ALPINE SWIFT (Apus melba), which due to our elevation on the wall was practically at eye level. Its bank swallow-like collar and overall coloration made for an easy identification.
On the way back to the villa we stopped at a farm stand right by the entrance to the dirt road to Slivno Ravno, and Lisa called my attention to a soaring raptor that turned out to be a common buzzard (Buteo buteo).
Back at the villa I scoped out the tennis court again. Northern wheatears, woodchat shrikes (adult and immature), and garden warblers again dominated the visitors, but one of the grey shrikes showed up. Initially I thought it must be a Northern shrike due to the lack of a black forehead. However, upon review, I noted the summer range of Northern shrike was nowhere near Croatia, which made sense as I was familiar with it as a cold-weather bird in the States. Some research showed that immature lesser grey shrikes have a Northern-like mask, and lack the indicators that I usually look for to distinguish an immature from an adult shrike (e.g., barred or scalloped breast, brownish rather than grey mantle plumage). The timing and location of the sighting, combined with the gross plumage details, were thus conclusive for a juvenile LESSER GREY SHRIKE (Lanius minor).
Saturday the ninth: We had to leave early but I squeezed in a short walk before we took off. Among many repeat sightings I found some young and adult common blackbirds (Turdus merula).
With that we commenced a very, very long day of travel, arriving home almost twenty-three hours after our start.
Croatia was fantastic, and we will certainly return someday.