Deers and Flamingos

Up bright and early today for a couple of guided tours in Po Delta Park. First to the Riserva Naturale Bosco della Mesola to take a trip into the reserve to see deer. And second to Comacchio lagoons for birdwatching, where the pink flamingos nest.

Last night Russ had put the coordinates into the Maps.me program so we were set to go. 1 1/2 hours and 90 km later we arrived at the coordinates and were on a farm road next to an orchard in the middle of nowhere. Seems he did something wrong with the coordinates. Phones' mobile data connection didn't seem to function and the farmer didn't have WIFI in the orchard so what to do? Fortunately the lady from the tour office called and we managed to get directions - now we go 40 km back toward our starting point! We ended up catching the second tour of the morning.

On the tour we saw maybe 20 deer. There were two stags we saw up close that were beautiful. A number of does and young we saw a bit more distant.

Upon our return to the tour starting point we made sure of the next start point - don't need that headache again.

On the way to the Flamingo tour we stopped in a small resteraunt the guide had recommended - excellent Italian pasta and good table wine.

The starting point for the flamingo tour was at Manifattura dei Marinati in downtown Comacchio. It's a museum and still they make traditional fishermen's boats and pickles (!) there. 

In Comacchio's lagoons we saw water birds - mainly flamingos but also cormornant, grebe and other diving ducks.

The viewing point for the flamingos is set up to not bother the birds. We were far enough away that we were happy to have our monocular along and our 30X optical zoom camera gave us good views.

Both tour guides and the staff at the starting points were helpful and pleasant as has been our experience all across Italy.