Satisfaction of the Migratory Project for an exceptional event: the first case of nesting of Marzaiola in Maremma in Piatto Lavato (GR).
Exceptional event in Piatto Lavato, first nesting in Maremma of Marzaiola (Anas querquedula L.). Eugenio Russo cries, he can't believe his eyes, Piatto Lavato, his creature, has given him a beautiful gift. The news is 18.30 pm on 29.05.2012, Eugenio calls me with a voice broken by emotion, they were born, I saw them and Gabriele filmed them, there is the female in the lake and 11 babies, incredible.
The Garganey is a small duck that nests in Europe and Asia in the temperate range. The wintering of the Western European population occurs almost exclusively in the Sahel, in Lake Chad through the Niger valley. The Gargane overwinters in equatorial Africa and nests in the northern central Palaearctic; this leads to the highest concentration in Italy in the migratory periods (March-April and August-September). Very rare are the nesting in our peninsula almost all located in the Venetian valleys and it seems to me on only one occasion also in the Fucecchio marsh. For us at Progetto Migratoria nesting in the Washed Plate is a great satisfaction because the little duck between the Diaccia Botrona and the Padule della Trappola or the lake of Burano has chosen the lake created by our Eugenio Russo to whom all our compliments go.
Piat Lavato is a beautiful place framed between the Bruna and Sovata rivers surrounded by the hills overlooked by Buriano, Vetulonia and Montepescali. We are in the heart of the Maremma in the middle of the cereal fields, where the Prile lake once extended. In this place about twenty years ago, our Eugenio, perhaps animated by that spirit of independence that is his own or perhaps, out of love with the nascent constraints and fetters of the DIACCIA, decided to give life to his own hunting space.
For various reasons he chose "Washed Plate". Over the years the site acquired its current characteristics, revealing itself to be a reality that, even beyond expectations but not hopes, has aroused a certain curiosity, naturally "seasoned", at times, by that apparent lack of interest that is part of, however, of the ancestral habits of hunters of all time. And, so far, nothing strange: four words in a row that could find a place in any conversation between "Padulai di Maremma" to sanctify the usual drink. But it is not so simple: it happens that, to a "historical analysis", the phenomenon "Dish Washed" reserves many surprises.
After the realization of the reservoir, the drilling of the well, the construction of the huts and the arrangement of the access routes, the next step could only be the sowing and planting of botanical species consistent with an environment that had to be inviting and familiar for the aquatic species to attract. Naturally, this last act was carried out trying to get as close as possible to what is present in nature, taking as a model, but not limited to, the typical flora of wetlands.
A period of "adjustment" followed so that, with the experience of every day, it was possible to make those changes, albeit mild, which, proving valid, gave the guidelines to a whole series of interventions, not invasive but "complementary", such as to start the experience towards a possible, satisfactory result. The count of aquatic fauna, referring both to the culled and to those present, gave encouraging results.
At this point the next step could only be the maintenance of the present structure, albeit improved by those minimal interventions aimed, above all, at the containment of the flora and the maintenance of water levels, implemented with the introduction or subtraction of water depending on the season. so as to maintain a state of affairs. And this is the story of every day. In practice, the whole activity has been dedicated and is dedicated to the control of those parameters necessary to ensure absolute environmental sustainability for Piatto Lavato.
Curiously, a hunting site has created a permanent environmental monitoring laboratory which, among other things, has been making the collected data available for some time! As far as sustainability is concerned, it seems necessary to underline how any ecosystem is also a slave to time: that time which, in this case has the specific and apparently complicated name of the acceleration period of ecological succession.
Translated, as they say, in a nutshell, it means that the territory, as a whole, tends to transform itself, ecologically, during a period of time that is inversely proportional to its extension. Upon a more careful analysis of the problem, it was seen as the only solution possible at the moment, which did not have an inconsistent impact with the Washed Plate system, there was and was already in place: the maintenance of the water level. By keeping the level constant, in fact, the quantity of those chemicals (salts and electrolytes in general) naturally dissolved in the reservoir was also kept constant, contributing to the persistence of that dynamic equilibrium on which ecosystems are based.
We can therefore see how the Sustainability of Piatto Lavato, as well as that of other similar realities, in the short - medium term, given the size of the site, in order to maintain its values must require a whole series of interventions, both preventive and complementary, such to be able to ensure the status quò. In conclusion, therefore, one can only emphasize the results of a completely private amateur operation which, using as tools the weapons of those who openly declare themselves "enemies of hunters", has been able to demonstrate once more how good sense is. , without ideological condiments, has at least yielded palatable and biologically indisputable fruits.
Migration Project is not just Washed Dish we are working on other important projects including the removal of pigeons from the hospital, from the city center. and from the Military Airport of Grosseto conducted by the Falconieri di Maremma Group. In addition to this we are conducting educational activities with schools at the Living Museum of the Mediterranean Macchia, where an ANPPIL (natural area of particular local interest) will soon rise. We have assets nr. eight ornithological observatories where we collect data on migration and passage.
We have collaborated with the University of Siena and currently with the University of Florence where we have two of our boys (Guido Donnini and Davide Senserini) who are graduating and are taking the course to become official ISPRA ringers. For four years Davide Senserini has been leading the Rondini di Maremma Project, the results of the important project will be published on our Davide's thesis. In addition, Davide is conducting, in collaboration with the University of Florence and Dr. Giorgia Romeo of the Province of Grosseto, the monitoring of the Wild Cat in the Oasis of Monte Leoni.
We manage the ZPM (Migration Protection Zone of the Serra degli Impiccati) which extends for about 785 Ha where Guido Donnini is working very well with an excellent management project. Donnini himself organized seminars with the Falconieri di Maremma Group at the University of Florence where there was talk of rehabilitation of birds of prey from recovery centers and on aquatic avifauna, the monitoring project of wintering woodcocks has been underway for about four years. within the Oasis and Nature Reserves of the Province of Grosseto.
Grosseto 30.05.2012
Migration Project
The President
Luca Bececco