Slovenia - May 2024 - A weekend birding break

I spent a weekend in Slovenia in mid-May this year, mainly because I'd never been and so it was a country tick, but also to go birding in southern Europe which I hadn't done for a while. It was a painfully early departure from Heathrow on a Saturday morning but the tube runs all night so it wasn't a problem getting there, it just meant very little sleep. To try and rectify this I slept the whole flight and by 10am I was on the ground and birding, with a Buzzard at Ljubljana airport. The approximate route I drove is below.

I picked up my car and made for the nearest pin, Hrase ponds which is just south of the airport, to stretch my legs and get in the right frame of mind. I didn't go far, just up and down a track on one side of the water. Here there were singing Icterine Warblers, a Red-backed Shrike, Marsh Tit and a Spotted Flycatcher. A positive start.

My next stop was the western part of Ljubljana Marsh, south of the city. Things became distinctly more European here with Golden Orioles and Cuckoos singing, a Hoopoe and three Red-backed Shrikes. Then on the eastern side of this patchwork of fields and ditches I came across both Hobby and Red-footed Falcon, Nightingale, Serin, yet more Icterine Warblers and an excellent dung heap with all three Wagtails and a handful of Tree Sparrow.

Lake Cerknica

My desination for the evening was Lake Cerknica, about an hour south of Ljubljana. I'd booked a room in the nearby village of Dolenje Jezero and planned to explore both on foot and in the car from there. It is a vast area of reedbeds and shallow water with fantastic birding on offer. I initially walked down the track as it said no cars, but then I noticed that everyone else was driving straight through, so after a while I went back to the village and picked it up and was thus able to go a lot further along the southern side of the lake. The full list is above, but the highlights were a pair of Garganey in flight, a White Stork, a Squacco Heron, nearly 30 Great White Egret and a Marsh Harrier. A scope is essential here as the lake is enormous, and as the sides are mostly reeds the actual water is some distance away. A small squall dropped some hirundines in late on, and about half way along this edge there is a tower hide that affords great views of the lake. The water finally peters out at the village of Gorenje Jezero, and there is more good birding just before here, especially along a causeway that leads to the village. There was a singing Corncrake here, more White Stork, Whinchat, Fieldfare, Reed Bunting and lots of Sedge Warblers.

I was up early the next morning for a repeat, again walking on foot from the village to the start of the lake. The same birds all over again, but no people at all, and this seemed to amplify the Golden Orioles and Cuckoos. The plan today was to head down to the coast via some good birding spots. The first stop was at Krajinkski Park where a well wooded valley held Black Woodpecker and Short-toed Treecreeper amongst other birds, and then I continued to Dolenja Vas a bit further southwest. This was excellent, a grassland valley with steep sides and filled with birds. A Quail sang, and Woodlarks song-flighted over the slopes, meanwhile each bush seemed to have a Red-backed Shrike in it, and both Corn Bunting and Yellowhammer were belting it out.

Marsh Tit

I was at the coast before 10am, birding Skocjanski Marsh. This is a proper nature reserve with trails around the outer edge and various screens and hides. It's pretty popular with non-birders as well, but I didn't mind that and did a complete circuit whilst dodging joggers and pushchairs. I added a ton of new birds for the trip here, Black-winged Stilt, LRP, Redshank, Greenshank, Little Tern, Whiskered Tern and Common Tern. Great Reed Warblers, absent at Cerknica, were all over the place with their outsized grunts and wheezes. 

I went up to the Crnotice Plateau to try for Bobwhite - a naturalised population here - but failed to find any. Sardinian Warbler and a flock of Swift were new for the trip though. I then drove as far east as I could, right to the border with Croatia at Rakitovec, hoping I could sneak another country in. The track was a bit dicey but I made it all the way to the end and then carried on on foot, however the border wasn't accessible so I had to make do with making an eBird list of birds that were clearly over the other side, which included Short-toed Eagle and Griffon Vulture which did the decent thing and sailed over me and into Slovenia. Borders don't apply to birds. There was also a Rock Bunting singing here. Retracing my steps to the plateau I found a vantage point from which to look down at the large quarry at Crni Kal, adding House Martin, Alpine Swift, Linnet, another Rock Bunting, Black Redstart and a Blue Rock Thrush. 

I then went to the Saltpans at Secovlje. Access was a lot harder than I anticipated without actually going in so I contented myself with scoping parts of it, adding Avocet, Shelduck, Spoonbill and Zitting Cisticola. By now approaching 6pm it was time to head back towards the airport. I figured I just had time to take in Lake Bled and Vintgar Gorge to the northwest of Ljubljana, about two hours away. I cannot now remember why I was going there, but there was something good in the gorge that I didn't see as it turned out to be closed by the time I arrived at about 8pm. Lake Bled itself was heaving with people having an evening stroll, and it wasn't remotely possible to even stop the car anywhere to take the same photographs that everyone else takes. Shame.

I ended the weekend on 113 species having had a thoroughly good time. The country is tiny, easily doable in just a weekend, and seems mostly to be used as a corridor by German tourists seeking to skirt around the Alps and access the coast near Trieste or down into Croatia. There is a good variety of habitats and birding stops are not all that far from each other, and I'd definitely recommend it for a spring break.