Rick Wright e-mails from Rome:

It’s always tantalizing for a leader to show up the day before a tour begins. It’s essential, of course: there are always last-minute arrangements to attend to, always last-minute emergencies to fix. But once all that’s out of the way (and thanks to the yeoman work done by the Tour Managers back in Tucson, it never takes all that much time), then it’s time to go birding. A few hours to re-familiarize yourself with routes and sites, to gauge the progress of the season, or even, as I’ve done today, just to get your ear back in.

I’m staying at a very pleasant Holiday Inn between Rome and Fiumicino Airport, where Marco and I will meet up with the group tomorrow for the drive north into Tuscany. It was raining when I arrived, but it let up soon enough that I threw on my jacket and took a stroll around the neighborhood. It’s not exactly wilderness here in the middle of our industrial park, but I was amazed by what I saw. Among the thirty species I tallied in a two-hour stroll, never getting more than a quarter mile from the hotel’s parking lot, were Hobby, European Turtle-Dove, European Bee-eater, Rose-ringed Parakeet, Sardinian Warbler, Zitting Cisticola, Cetti’s Warbler, Firecrest, and (naturally) Italian Sparrow.

A good start, and all I could do to keep from asking the front desk to get all the other early arrivals downstairs so we could start birding!