The first rarity was a first-winter Rosy Starling sitting on a wire out of the little village at sunset on 28.10.2012. It was for just a short while, when we tried to get closer it took flight all alone as the ~500 Common Starling surrounding it remained still.
Interestingly a leucistic Common Starling was present the same day too and allowed a nice comparison.
Two days after, again at dusk, we found a wonderful Trumpeter Finch in tha same place visited by a Moussier's Redstart last year and a Desert Wheatear two years ago...nice mix of african and asian birds!
Probably the rarest animal of the trip was this dragonfly found during strong southern winds: it's the first italian record for this tropical species and one of the very few for Europe. It's name is Pantala flavescens. During the next days we saw up to 13 indd on Linosa.
Migrating common and scarce birds are always fantastic, like this Ring Ouzel:
Stone Curlews:
Robin:
and Common Sandpiper:
On 2.11 Ottavio found this Daurian Shrike some 500m away from us as just a little point far far away perched on a bush that looked like something "shrikish"...great!!
After having watched and enjoyed the Shrike, we were happily and loudly walking back to home commenting about what we had just seen when a penetrating call took us back to concentration: an Olive-backed Pipit was flying over us!
I was able to get only bad pics, but I know Igor had some much better and will soon be available. This is the 7th OBP for Pelagie Islands and 15th for Italy.
UPDATE: here is one of the amazing pics taken by Igor!
Laughing Doves are resident with a couple of pairs breeding, but maybe some new birds arrive time to time like the one depicted here
On 3.11 another beauty was found on the island: an incredible Rustic Bunting in the field opposite to the one that hosted a Yellow-breasted last fall. Luckily the Rustic was more cooperative and was observed by all the birders present on Linosa that day!
As usual sunsets were wonderful and I'm already missing Linosa!
