Among the common breeding birds of southeast Arizona that have not yet made it onto our modest yard list are some that enjoy a virtually worldwide distribution.

Of the birds that are still MIA, Barn Owl isn’t so much of a surprise, I guess: our neighborhood is pretty densely vegetated by Sonoran desert standards, and the nearest open area for feeding is five or six miles away on the Santa Cruz, where the species does occur in banks and under bridges. Eventually one will fly over, snoring, late one night.

Another barn bird is a much less expected listing lacuna. Diurnal, abundant, and strongly migratory, a Barn Swallow or two should have passed over the yard at some point in these past nearly six years. We came close this morning, with three stub-tailed individuals half a mile away over Oracle Road–the vanguard of hirundinid migration, and right on time with Fourth of July coming up in just hours.

Alison reminded me that the most recent Barn Swallows we’d seen were on another continent entirely, a small flock (probably a family) perching on wires

and dramatically drinking from a Tuscan swimming pool.

It’s nice to think that those rondine are on their way south to Africa just as ours are moving to South America.

Remember the passage in Wild America where James Fisher admits to missing one thing about England? It’s the corvids: America, he mused, was lacking in great noisy social crows.

Fisher was talking about Rooks, of course, but whenever I’m in Europe admiring that continent’s diversity of crows and jays and magpies, I always think of that line. Tuscany earlier this month gave us lots of occasion to appreciate one crow I don’t see very often: Hooded Crow, the pied nominate race of the species that also includes the Carrion Crow.

Unlike their basic black cousins–decided country birds over most of their range–Hooded Crows in central Italy appear to be quite tolerant, pacing around in towns and on beaches, high in the mountains and in lowland villages. I can guarantee (rare word and carefully used in a birder’s vocabulary!) that this appealing species will be among the first to greet us in Rome next May–and may well be the last to wave goodbye when we fly out from Pisa.

My new Birds and Art in Tuscany tour will run for the first time next May 17-27, starting in Rome and ending in Pisa (the region’s major international airport). The approach is similar to that I take each year in Provence: birds provide the focus for the itinerary, but the experience is in getting to know a whole landscape, its history, its culture, and above all its art.

My co-leader Marco Valtriani and I spent a few days after my Provence tour scouting our route. It promises to be a good one, starting in the archaeological and natural riches of southern Etruria and ending up in the dramatically beautiful Apennines and Apuan Alps. Some images from some of the localities we’ll be exploring:

The tiny village of Branuccio, high in the Apennines.

The lobby of our hotel in Castelnuovo, tucked into the Garfagnana between the mountain ranges and along the Serchio, where Gray Wagtails flit beneath the city’s many bridges.

The garden, as seen from the pool, of our Castelnuovo hotel.

The Apuan Alps–wow.

The ceiling of the renowned church of Codiponte–and one of the proto-Romanesque capitals for which it is so famous:

Birders aren’t the only ones who enjoy the bright skies and warm days of Tuscany:

Living up to its name, Common Redstart is an abundant yard bird in Tuscan villages.

Even in the mountains, our birding will be relaxed and easy-paced, on wide, level paths and roads.

Mountain streams can be good birding; this one, at Equi Therme, produced Crag Martin and White-throated Dipper during our scouting. Three Peregrine Falcons appeared high above as we left, too.

Now rare over much of their former range, Red-backed Shrikes are reliably found in any open habitat. This is the male of a pair that was almost certainly nesting in the denser vegetation in the background.

It looks like snow, but it’s bright white marble at the edge of a quarry that’s been worked since antiquity.

There’s always time for a coffee break on a Birds and Art tour.

We’ll visit the fifteenth-century pilgrim hostel of San Pellegrino (not the source of the water!).

Here as everywhere else in Tuscany, we’ll be following in some pretty illustrious footsteps.

European Bee-eaters abound in coastal areas.

Orbetello Lagoon and the Argentario Promontory are major sites on our itinerary. They’ll both be crawling with migrants in May; on our June visit, notable species here included Common Shelduck, Eurasian Curlew, Stonechat, and Little Tern.

Not all culture is high culture, I suppose. (Anybody else remember the blue whale on the way to Higbee Beach?)

Our hotel near Manciano, where we’ll be spending the first six nights of the tour without the annoyance of packing and repacking, is a remodeled Tuscan estate.

And the views? Not bad.

This unassuming little pond just outside Albinia is famous for the rarities that have occurred there.

But on this visit we found the birding better at the old salt pans in Tarquinia. Those white dots are Slender-billed Gulls.

Italian Sparrows are pretty obliging, especially this male, tilting his head to show us his diagnostic crown pattern.

We’ll be eating very well indeed, both in restaurants and on a lavish picnic or two featuring local delicacies.

I hope you’ll join me next year. The tour already has several registrants, to my delight, and we’re going to have a great time.