Bird Sightings of the Kugelman Honors 2023 Europe Trip

Use this interactive map to navigate to site-specific sightings, or scroll down to see our birding masterlist.

Many of the species we encountered in Europe were encountered only once or twice, so it's difficult to establish any sort of true pattern for them. However, there are a handful of species that reoccurred frequently enough to state some definite trends. A couple of species were nearly omnipresent throughout the trip, such as House and Italian Sparrows, Yellow-legged gulls, and pigeons. Feral Pigeons and Rock Doves were everywhere we visited, but we also noticed that Wood Doves and Eurasian Collared Doves tended to become more prevalent in more suburban or rural areas, while the cities were mostly dominated by pigeons. Another common city dweller, the House Sparrow, was in the majority of locations visited; however, it was occasionally replaced by its close relative, the Italian Sparrow. The non-native Monk Parakeets were present in every capital city we visited in Europe, and the only non-capital location where we spotted Monk Parakeets was in Park Guell in Barcelona. Most locations we visited throughout the cruise were home to Hooded Crows, with only a handful of locations where they didn't make an appearance. Once we arrived in Ravenna, the Common Magpie became similarly prevalent as we traveled through Italy, France, and Spain, but didn't appear at all during our time in Greece.