Wild Rome: Starlings, Parakeets and the Appia Antica

The natural side of Rome, from the winter starling flocks over the city and the parakeets of its villas to the foxes of its parks, the Caffarella valley and the Parco degli Acquedotti in the Appia Antica regional park, and the crabs of Trajan’s Markets, with a directory of the parks in our guide.

Rome’s parks, historic villas, protected areas, rivers and archaeological sites make, in the words of the city’s tourist board, the perfect habitat for many animal species. Foxes and wild boar, starlings and green parakeets all live in and around the Eternal City.

This is a short, honest guide to Rome’s natural side: the birds of its skies and villas, and the countryside of the Appia Antica, with its Roman tombs and aqueducts. Go early in the morning or towards sunset, when the light is soft and the birds are busiest.

Starlings and parakeets

Rome’s great natural spectacle comes on winter evenings, when huge flocks of starlings that winter in the city swirl in shifting clouds over the rooftops and the station at Termini before settling into the trees to roost.

All year, the screech of green rose-ringed parakeets rings through the umbrella pines of Villa Borghese and Villa Doria Pamphilj, where these birds of far warmer countries have made a home.

The Appia Antica

South-east of the walls, the regional park of the Appia Antica protects about 4,580 hectares of countryside along the ancient road. Within it, the Caffarella valley covers some 200 hectares of meadows, woods and streams, and the archaeological area of the Aqueducts, the Parco degli Acquedotti, another 240 hectares, with arches striding across open grassland.

Foxes live in these open spaces and in the city’s wooded villas, such as Villa Ada in the north; dawn and dusk are the times to see one.

On winter evenings, clouds of starlings pour across the Roman sky before they roost.

Feature: the crabs of Trajan’s Markets

Rome’s most surprising wild animals live in the middle of the ancient city. In the ruins of Trajan’s Markets, beside the Imperial Fora, live small freshwater crabs, as the city’s tourist board describes them, a few steps from the traffic of Via dei Fori Imperiali.

Did you know? The little crabs of Trajan’s Markets are descended from the river crabs that lived there in ancient Rome.

Our advice

Our advice: watch the starlings around sunset in late autumn and winter, from somewhere under cover; walk or cycle the Appia Antica on a Sunday morning, starting from one of the park’s information points. Keep your distance from wild boar and foxes, never feed them, and take your rubbish home.