Menotti Passarella

(Po Delta & Venice, Italy)

Menotti is an avid birder who loves to share his knowledge with anyone and everyone. He is a native of NE Italy and has led birding and nature-study trips throughout the Po Delta and the Lagoon of Venice for many individuals and groups. His 20+ years (10 of those years spent leading professionally) of intensive birding in the Po Delta has provided him with intimate knowledge of the places where birds gather, nest, feed and hide. He is also knowledgeable of the area's fauna and flora and current environmental issues.. Menotti enthusiasm for birding is contagious and makes for exciting and fun days in the field. Menotti speaks English, French, a little German and Spanish and of course Italian. Menotti has acquired a great experience on the birds of NE Italy, discovering new breeding species (among wich: Cattle Egret and White Stork) and numerous rarities (some of which: River Warbler and Ring-billed Gull, both first for Italy; Iceland Gull and Sabine’s Gull, both third Italian records). He wrote about 50 publications and is co-author of the Check-list of the Emilia-Romagna region and member of the C.O.I. (Italian Ornithological Commission – Bird Rarity Commitee). About 370 species of birds have been recorded in the Po Delta, that means the 75% of the whole Italian avifauna, and you would be are able to find easily there birds rarely observed elsewhere in Italy, such as Pygmy Cormorant, Spoonbill, Glossy Ibis, Ferruginous Duck, Red-crested Pochard, Collared Pratincole, Slender-billed Gull, Whiskered Tern, Lesser-crested Tern, Gull-billed Tern, Red-footed Falcon, Lesser Grey Shrike and one of the few Flamingo breeding colony in the Mediterranean. He was among the first to practice the digiscoping in Italy, and he is also the founder of the first Italian mailing list on digiscoping. He runs his business organization Aster and is also the founder of Birding Italy, the whole Italy bird site in internet