Yesterday was our last full day in the Balkans, and we drove from Dubrovnik, through Bosnia and Herzegovinian, back into Montenegro. We stopped at the spectacular Ostrog Monastery on the way, and ended up back in Podgorica. Early this morning we start our trek home via Vienna.
Before we hit the road, however, I had one more chance to look for critters in Croatia, and I found a male western black redstart who almost let me take a portrait. Boy, they are flighty!
At the Monastery, we opted to park in the lower lot, having had quite enough of the one-lane switchbacks, and we hiked the rest of the way up. I didn’t see anything to photograph on the first leg, but things got interesting on the way back down.
This first little rascal, who would not sit still for a second, is a goldcrest (Regulus regulus), who has the yellow head stripe of our golden-crowned kinglets and the light eye patch of our ruby-crowned kinglets. I had heard and glimpsed one in the park outside of Riga this past August, but this is my first picture, such as it is.
This next bird was quite a bit more cooperative. I did have to follow it off the path and into the woods a bit, but it eventually settled down and let me get a nice image. Say “hello” to our first white-backed woodpecker (Dendrocopos leucotos), whose red cap indicates that he’s a male. He looks similar to the great spotted woodpeckers I saw in South Holland, but his red cap extends farther forward on his head, he’s got dark stripes on his belly, and his range does not extend into South Holland.
He moved around a bit, and here he is on another tree trunk, letting us get a nice good look at him. I read that “it is the largest of the spotted woodpeckers in the western Palearctic,” Sweet!
That’s a wrap for this visit to the Balkans, and, with any luck, I’ll be back in Estabrook Park Saturday morning.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 
