The back story
Wild Venice: Flamingos, Egrets and the Lagoon
Flamingos in the northern lagoon, egrets on the salt marshes and the wild dunes of the Lido: the natural side of Venice.
Photo Credit
Image courtesy of © Matteobragato · CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia CommonsThe natural side of Venice and its lagoon, from the flamingos that winter in the northern lagoon and the egrets and herons of the salt marshes to the dunes and pine wood of the Alberoni on the Lido, with a directory of the gardens and shores in our guide.
Venice is a city in a lagoon, and the lagoon is one of the great wetlands of the Mediterranean. Around the islands spreads a world of shallows, channels and salt marshes, the barene, where flamingos, egrets and herons feed within sight of the bell towers. UNESCO lists the city and its lagoon together as a World Heritage site.
This is a short, honest guide to the lagoon's wild side. To see it, take a vaporetto to the northern islands or out to the Lido, or join a boat trip into the marshes; bring binoculars, and go in the cooler months, when the birds are most numerous.
A few miles from St Mark's, flamingos feed on the shallows of the lagoon.
Flamingos and the barene
Greater flamingos now winter in the lagoon in their thousands, most of them in the northern lagoon, where the natural salt marshes are widest; flocks have also returned to the quieter southern lagoon. Pink against the grey-green marsh, they are best seen from a boat on the way to Torcello or Burano.
Photo Credit
Image courtesy of © pjt56 · CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia CommonsThe barene themselves are low islands of marsh plants, flooded by the highest tides, and they are where the lagoon's birds feed and rest. Little egrets and herons stalk their edges, and black-winged stilts wade in the shallows.
The Lido and the Alberoni dunes
At the southern tip of the Lido, the WWF oasis of the Dune degli Alberoni protects about 160 hectares of dunes, pine wood and shore facing the Adriatic. The Kentish plover, a small shorebird that lays its eggs on the open sand, still nests on this beach, so keep to the paths through the dunes in spring and summer.
Photo Credit
Image courtesy of © Ritamargaret · CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia CommonsFeature: the lagoon's salt marshes
The barene once covered a far greater part of the lagoon than they do today; tides, erosion and the deepening of channels have worn many of them away. In recent years EU-backed projects have rebuilt salt marshes in the lagoon, and the birds have followed: flamingos, once rare in the southern lagoon, are now seen there in groups of hundreds.
Did you know? Flamingos have tried to nest in the Venetian lagoon, in 2008 and 2013, but no lasting colony has yet formed: for now they are winter visitors.
Our advice
Our advice: take the vaporetto to Burano and Torcello on a clear winter morning and watch the marshes from the boat; for a closer look, book a guided lagoon trip with a licensed boatman. On the Lido, keep to the marked paths at the Alberoni, keep dogs on a lead, and give nesting birds a wide berth.
Why it's on our list
- Flamingos and the barene
- The Lido and the Alberoni dunes
- Feature: the lagoon's salt marshes
- Our advice
Location
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