I'm back from a very successful wildlife-watching and photo tour to Italy's Abruzzo National Park where, with patient persistence and determination, we found all our animal targets and more!
We had several sightings of Apennine Wolves at close range, including one which gave us an exciting chase after a Red Deer - a sure highlight of the trip (see video below). A pair of Marsican Bear, the world's rarest bear with only 50 in the wild, were seen during sunset on our last evening to the delight of our group.
Mammals were in good abundance with Chamois, Wild Boar, Badgers, Foxes, Red Deer and Hares seen almost every day. For the ornithologists among us, bird ticks came thick and fast with 100+ species in 6 days, including some fantastic local rarities - White Backed Woodpecker, Wryneck, Subalpine Warbler and Lesser Grey Shrike, usually elusive to pin down, showed well for our party. And there was no lack of other colourful critters on our nature walks, such as exquisite Purple Emperor butterflies, Western Green Lizards and the endemic Marsican Iris unique to this region's mountains.
It was a pleasure to share the wonders of this wild land with other nature lovers and photographers, and I hope to bring this workshop back in 2019! Keep an eye on the workshop page for updates, and in the meantime take a look at the photo gallery for some of my favourite images from the magical Abruzzo.
VIDEO: Wolf on the hunt for red deer
