adult male

I have been visiting the Marche region of Italy for the past two weeks. (I am returning home later this week.) While I don’t normally take my camera with me when I travel–because I prefer to travel light–I decided this time it might be fun to bring my camera and do some birding while I’m here.

It took me more than a week to get acclimated to the birding hotspots in the hilltop town where I am staying. What I mean by “hotspot”: a location where there is a lot of bird activity at a particular time of day and where the light is also good enough for photography.

As it turns out, the best hotspot I’ve found is on my terrace in the early morning hours when the sun shines directly on a large pine tree across the street. That tree is teeming with all sorts of songbird species from sunrise until about 10:30 a.m.–and for the past three days, I’ve been there for it! I’ve taken so many photographs, I thought it would be best to divide them according to species and share them in separate posts.

This post, as the title suggests, is dedicated to Black Redstarts. These small songbirds belong to a family of Old World flycatchers. Males have black-gray upperparts and a reddish tail. Females are grayish-brown and also have a red tail. I’ve been enjoying watching these little birds flit around rooftops, chimneys, and treetops, where they perch and sing or swoop down to catch insects in midair or off the ground. You can learn more about this species here.

I hope you enjoy these photographs.

Here are some views of the area where I’m staying.