A Flying Start In Florence

All manner of wildlife, from Sardinian warblers to glossy ibis and blue catfi sh, abounds on The Prof’s avifauna and angling safari in Tuscany

- David Profumo

IT IS a sunshiny Sunday morning in spring and bells peal from several towers as I march through the centre of Florence in my waders and head just upstream of the Ponte Vecchio, where a man is landing his third Arno catfish of the day.

Oliver Rampley is something of a Renaissance man. On a long walk from Venice to Rome, when he was a postgraduate English student at Oxford, he decided to make his home in Italy and now, aged 33, he runs Altana Europe, which offers bespoke wildlife, hunting and fishing tours in Tuscany. I invited myself out on an avifauna and angling safari with him this April and, from the moment he met me at the airport with a white BMW and his glamorous photographer friend, Katrina, the trip was stylish, impeccably organised and hugely entertaining.

We first headed down towards Porto Ercole, where another friend has a spacious villa right on the edge of the Lago di Burano nature reserve (it’s soon apparent that Mr Rampley is a Signor Fixit of the region). Ornithology is one of his several passions—cooking and boar hunting being others—and he’s is out scouting the salty lagoon before dawn. Over cake and industrial-strength coffee, I’ve already spotted two hoopoes strutting through the eucalyptus groves, so we’re off to a flying start, as it were.

I have to admit that, although I write nature articles for this magazine and have happily observed specimens from the lovely cotinga in Belize to Kenya’s lilac-breasted roller, I’m not a hardcore birdwatcher. As we make our way through the myrtle and bullrushes, my guide’s glittery-eyed enthusiasm is infectious, however.