Nine days birdwatching trip with RSPB Oxford around Bulgaria just finished

A group from RSPB Oxford just finished its birdwatching holiday around Bulgaria. We travelled together for 1830 km around the country to enjoy some of our best birds. The bird of the trip for most of the participants was the Wallcreeper. Many of us enjoyed the numerous Marsh Terns which you could see all at once. Having Black, White winged and Whiskered Terns in the scope at a time was rather common. Other highlights of the trip were the great variety and numbers of common birds. Cuckoos, nightingales, Golden Orioles, Red-backed Shrikes and Corn Buntings were everywhere in big numbers. We enjoyed the rufous morph of the cuckoo and a total of 16 species of raptors. Some of the rare birds we saw included two Eastern Imperial Eagles, White – tailed Eagle, Levant Sparrowhawk, Masked Shrike, Semi-collared Flycatcher, Olive-tree Warbler, White and Dalmatian Pelicans.

We ended up with a total of 202 species for the trip. It isn’t too bad having in mind that not everyone could get on a bird.

Black-headed Bunting, copyright Iordan Hristov

the group

the group

Long-legged Buzzard, copyright Iordan Hristov

If you want to join me on a trip next year just drop me a line at biomonitoring [at] gmail [.] com

BirdID trip in Bulgaria 2014: day 5, April 28th

We woke up in the middle of oak woodland with slight rain. Everybody in the group was keen to walk around the new type of habitat so the rain didn’t scare the participants. Even more, some of them had already walked before the time for our meeting and had already seen a Lesser spotted Woodpecker and a Cirl Bunting. After a bite of lovely chocolate we headed towards the woods.

It wasn’t even a 100 m from the hotel when a Middle spotted Woodpecker turned up right next to his Lesser brother. The first came pretty close and everyone enjoyed it. Another 100 m further away we heard a familiar call. Black Woodpecker’s head popped up from a nesting hole. In a couple of minutes the bird took off for everyone’s joy of seeing the whole bird. People in the group really wanted to see it. Another 50 m away a Woodlark called, then the highlight and main reason for selecting this place: a Semi-collared flycatcher! Lovely male was nicely singing.

The walk in the woodland continued with more rain, more Semi-collared Flycatcatchers, Hoopoe, Wood Warbler, Short-toed Treecreeper, an early family of Long-tailed Tits and a couple of Hawfinches. A Grey-headed, Great spotted and Green Woodpecker made it a total of 6 woodpecker species that we had for about an hour and a half before breakfast.

After breakfast it was time to change the habitat. It was time for some waterbirds and we drove to Bourgas. It seems that everyone enjoyed this change. We stopped by a wetland and everyone started shouting out different species names. Some of the highlights were Teminck’s Stint, Glossy Ibis, Purple Heron, White-tailed Eagle, more than 20 Red-footed Falcons, Marsh Sandpiper, Ferruginous Duck, Garganey, White Pelicans, Red-crested Pochard, at least 5 Broad-billed Sandpipers, etc. It was a day of about 120 species which takes us to nearly 190 species for the trip so far. Nor too bad is it?

The sound of falling snowflakes

Peace! Quietness! Wilderness! That's what my weekend trip was about.

After a lazy morning the road took us to a photography hide where I wanted to put some bait for Common Buzzards Buteo buteo. Some snow just fell down and it's finally time to attract these lovely birds to the feeding site at the photography hide. I intend to come back in a couple of days to give them a try. Let me keep my fingers crossed for some luck. Ideally a Red fox or Golden Jackal may also turn up.Will let you know in a couple of days.

Around the hide we did see a buzzard, a male and female Hen Harriers, a  Common Kestrel, couple of Magpies and over a hundred Fieldfares and Yellowhammers. Left some seeds for them in frond of the hide. See what happens. Looking forward to the photography session in a couple of days.

After the hide the road took us to the high mountains not far from Sofia. Lovely conifer area at the beginning of the trail and alpine cliffs in avalanch zone at its end. We arrived fairly late in the afternoon buy there was still enough light. Skiers were already coming down from the mountains after course for mountain guiding. Finally it was peaceful.No people. No sounds of cars, coaches and heavy traffic or any sort of noise. It was only us and ..... the snowflakes. Listening them falling down was a miracle. Soooo quiet... Sooo 'neat' superb relaxation :)

In an hour trekking we arrived at altitude of  1960 m a.s.l. Had a lovely tea from mountain herbs and a brief chat with the new house keepers of the chalet and started descending. The new managers of the chalet have come only 10 days ago and were still surpring themselves by the falling avalanches in the area. They were about to undertake some serious reconstruction works on the chalet. See what happens. Looking forward to seeing the changes and even helping these people promoting the place for hiking and birdwatching.
We descended in dusk and off we went. The way home was a bit risky because of the snow, low temperatures and slippery road. Anyway we finally got home after a lovely day in nature.

Waders photography in Bulgaria

This time I happened to be on the coast in the right time. I really needed to spend some time off from work,  photographing birds and get some break from the daily activities. For a couple of days I had to conduct a course on bird id with local students. After that was my time. I had two days to spend waiting for my girlfriend to come and there I go. For these two days I only managed to get three photography sessions but I am quite pleased with the results. Lots of waders around and finally managed to get a few shots of Redshank, Dunlin, Curlew Sandpiper, Little Stint, Wood Sandpiper, Greenshank, Little-ringed and Ringed Plovers to name but a few. One of the rarest birds I managed to photograph is the Broad-billed Sandpiper but my favourite of all are the photos of Common Snipe. These lovely birds were really tame pretending I was not there. They landed only about 1,5 m from me and stayed there for a couple of minutes. What a superb little creature. I had never had such an experience. Wanted to absorb and memorize every single feather of their plumage. Really stunning.

Here I will start with a few images. More are coming soon but it will take me some time to go over the 50 GB of photos.

Common Snipe photography

Common Snipe photography

Curlew Sandpiper photography

Little Ringed Plover photography

Redshank photography in Bulgaria

Dunlin photography in Bulgaria

The sunset in the protected area is just fantastic. The pylons are not very natural but birds love them for nesting.

Poda Nature Reserve © Iordan Hristov

Birdwatching in Bulgaria trip reports May 2013

This spring was a rather busy season. I had a couple of birdwatching groups with guests from Norway, Britain, Poland and Germany. After some time here are the trip reports for two of the groups that I co-lead together with a colleague and a friend of mine.

Birdwatching in Bulgaria Trip report 1 (download the report here) - May 13-21st 2013 images from the trip

Birdwatching in Bulgaria Trip report 2 (download the report here) - May 22-30th 2013 images from the trip: post 1, post 2, post 3

If interested in birdwatching or bird photography opportunities in Bulgaria I am happy to help. Feel free to drop me a line at biomonitoring [.] ltd [@] gmail [.] com

New trip to Western Boarder areas: Radomir- Lobosh reservoir

After three exhausting birdwatching trips for the whole of May it was time to finally spend some time with friends. We decided to do a trip to the Western Boarder area of Bulgaria not far from Sofia. I have wanted to do this trip many times and here it is. We took the early morning train at 8.00 a.m. and in about an hour we were already enjoying the beauties of our lovely countryside.

© Iordan Hristov

I was tempted to take my DSLR camera but after the month of carrying the heavy staff, I decided to only take my pocket camera for documentary shots. I didn't quite know where exactly I was going so didn't want to carry too much staff since it was a hiking trip :)

So we started off from a town called Radomir, walked past Priboy, Potsyrnenci and reached a village called Kalishte. Gorgeous mountain meadows were full with butterflies. Birds were actively singing.

Black-veined White © Iordan Hristov

Around the train station in Radomir we found a few interesting birds including Marsh Warbler, Barred Warbler, a colony of Sand Martins, a pair of Black Redstart and many others. Other interesting birds during the trip were a single Short-toed Eagle, a couple of Bee-eaters and Great Reed Warbler. Although the trip wasn't planned as a purely birdwatching trip, the rich and diverse countryside resulted in nearly 60 bird species seen or heard.

Here is a full list of birds seen during the trip:
1. Mallard
2. Common Quail
3. White Stork
4. Short-toed Eagle
5. Common Buzzard
6. Kestrel
7. Yellow-legged Gull
8. Feral Pigeon
9. Collared Dove
10. Turtle Dove
11. Common Cuckoo
12. Little Owl
13. Common Swift
14. Alpine Swift
15. European Bee-eater
16. Great-spotted Woodpecker
17. Syrian Woodpecker
18. Wryneck
19. Skylark
20. Woodlark
21. Sand Martin
22. Barn Swallow
23. Red-rumped Swallow
24. House Martin
25. White Wagtail
26. Yellow Wagtail (black-headed)
27. Robin
28. Nightingale
29. Black Redstart
30. Whinchat
31. Stonechat
32. Song Thrush
33. Blackbird
34. Barred Warbler
35. Blackcap
36. Whitethroat
37. Lesser Whitethroat
38. Great Reed Warbler
39. Marsh Warbler
40. Great Tit
41. Sombre Tit
42. Long-tailed Tit
43. Wood Nuthatch
44. Red-backed Shrike
45. Woodchat Shrike
46. Magpie
47. Jay
48. Raven
49. Starling
50. Golden Oriole
51. House Sparrow
52. Tree Sparrow
53. Spanish Sparrow
54. Linnet
55. Goldfinch
56. Greenfinch
57. Ortolan Bunting
58. Black-headed Bunting
59. Corn Bunting

New birding trip around Bulgaria: 22-30.05.2013

A second trip around Bulgaria commenced a couple of days ago. Pretty busy in the early morning starts and late evenings. Will be adding a few images from the trip now and then.

In the mean time, have a look at my images from last week where I also want to add a few more images.

Here is the first and one of my most favourite for the moment.

Barn Swallow photography © Iordan Hristov 

© Iordan Hristov 

Masked Shrike photography © Iordan Hristov

Turtle Dove photography © Iordan Hristov 

Collared Pratincole © Iordan Hristov 

Night Heron © Iordan Hristov 

Squacco Heron photography © Iordan Hristov 

Cormorant photography © Iordan Hristov 

Dalmatian Pelican photography © Iordan Hristov 

Hunting Dalmatian Pelicans © Iordan Hristov 

House Sparrow © Iordan Hristov 

 Marsh Warbler photography © Iordan Hristov 

Roller photography © Iordan Hristov 

Rose-colored Starling photography © Iordan Hristov 

Bottle-nosed Dolphin © Iordan Hristov 

Bottle-nosed Dolphin © Iordan Hristov 

Ring Ouzel photography © Iordan Hristov 

Wren photography © Iordan Hristov 

More are coming soon...
In the meantime, have a look at the final list of birds we saw during the trip. A fantastic list of 189 bird species for 9 day period in May 2013:

	English name	Scientific name
1	Black-throated Diver	Gavia arctica
2	Little Grebe	Tachybaptus ruficollis
3	Great Crested Grebe	Podiceps cristatus
4	White Pelican	Pelecanus onocrotalus
5	Dalmatian Pelican	Pelecanus crispus
6	Cormorant	Phalacrocorax carbo
7	Shag	Phalacrocorax aristotelis
8	Pygmy Cormorant	Phalacrocorax pygmeus
9	Grey Heron	Ardea cinerea
10	Purple Heron	Ardea purpurea
11	Great White Egret	Egretta alba
12	Little Egret	Egretta garzetta
13	Squacco Heron	Ardeola ralloides
14	Night Heron	Nycticorax nycticorax
15	Little Bittern	Ixobrychus minutus
16	Black Stork	Ciconia nigra
17	White Stork	Ciconia ciconia
18	Glossy Ibis	Plegadis falcinellus
19	Spoonbill	Platalea leucorodia
20	Mute Swan	Cygnus olor
21	Shelduck	Tadorna tadorna
22	Gadwall	Anas strepera
23	Mallard	Anas platyrhynchos
24	Garganey	Anas querquedula
25	Shoveler	Anas clypeata
26	Pochard	Aythya ferina
27	Ferruginous Duck	Aythya nyroca
28	Honey Buzzard	Pernis apivorus
29	White-tailed Eagle	Haliaeetus albicilla
30	Griffon Vulture	Gyps fulvus
31	Egyptian Vulture	Neophron percnopterus
32	Short-toed Eagle	Circaetus gallicus
33	Montagu's Harrier	Circus pygargus
34	Marsh Harrier	Circus aeruginosus
35	Sparrowhawk	Accipiter nisus
36	Buzzard	Buteo buteo
37	Steppe Buzzard	Buteo vulpinus
38	Long-legged Buzzard	Buteo rufinus
39	Lesser Spotted Eagle	Aquila pomarina
40	Imperial Eagle	Aquila heliaca
41	Golden Eagle	Aquila chrysaetos
42	Booted Eagle	Hieraaetus pennatus
43	Kestrel	Falco tinnunculus
44	Red-footed Falcon	Falco vespertinus
45	Hobby	Falco subbuteo
46	Eleonora's Falcon	Falco eleonorae
47	Peregrine	Falco peregrinus
48	Chukar	Alectoris chukar
49	Partridge	Perdix perdix
50	Quail	Coturnix coturnix
51	Pheasant	Phasianus colchicus
52	Moorhen	Gallinula chloropus
53	Coot	Fulica atra
54	Oystercatcher	Haematopus ostralegus
55	Black-winged Stilt	Himantopus himantopus
56	Avocet	Recurvirostra avosetta
57	Stone Curlew	Burhinus oedicnemus
58	Collared Pratincole	Glareola pratincola
59	Lapwing	Vanellus vanellus
60	Grey Plover	Pluvialis squatarola
61	Ringed Plover	Charadrius hiaticula
62	Little Ringed Plover	Charadrius dubius
63	Kentish Plover	Charadrius alexandrinus
64	Wood Sandpiper	Tringa glareola
65	Little Stint	Calidris minuta
66	Mediterranean Gull	Larus melanocephalus
67	Black-headed Gull	Larus ridibundus
68	Little Gull	Larus minutus
69	Whiskered Tern	Chlidonias hybridus
70	Gull-billed Tern	Gelochelidon nilotica
71	Caspian Tern	Sterna caspia
72	Common Tern	Sterna hirundo
73	Little Tern	Sterna albifrons
74	Sandwich Tern	Sterna sandvicensis
75	Yellow-legged Gull	Larus  michahellis
76	Feral Pigeon	Columba livia
77	Stock Dove	Columba oenas
78	Wood Pigeon	Columba palumbus
79	Turtle Dove	Streptopelia turtur
80	Collared Dove	Streptopelia decaocto
81	Cuckoo	Cuculus canorus
82	Scops Owl	Otus scops
83	Eagle Owl	Bubo bubo
84	Little Owl	Athene noctua
85	Alpine Swift	Tachymarptis melba
86	Pallid Swift	Apus pallidus
87	Common Swift	Apus apus
88	Bee-eater	Merops apiaster
89	Roller	Coracias garrulus
90	Hoopoe	Upupa epops
91	Wryneck	Jynx torquilla
92	Lesser Spotted Woodpecker	Dendrocopos minor
93	Middle Spotted Woodpecker	Dendrocopos medius
94	Syrian Woodpecker	Dendrocopos syriacus
95	Great Spotted Woodpecker	Dendrocopos major
96	Green Woodpecker	Picus viridis
97	Calandra Lark	Melanocorypha calandra
98	Short-toed Lark	Calandrella brachydactyla
99	Crested Lark	Galerida cristata
100	Woodlark	Lullula arborea
101	Skylark	Alauda arvensis
102	Sand Martin	Riparia riparia
103	Crag Martin	Hirundo rupestris
104	Swallow	Hirundo rustica
105	Red-rumped Swallow	Hirundo daurica
106	House Martin	Delichon urbica
107	Yellow Wagtail	Motacilla flava
108	Grey Wagtail	Motacilla cinerea
109	Tawny Pipit	Anthus campestris
110	Tree Pipit	Anthus trivialis
111	Water Pipit	Anthus spinoletta
112	Pied/White Wagtail	Motacilla alba
113	Red-backed Shrike	Lanius collurio
114	Lesser Grey Shrike	Lanius minor
115	Woodchat Shrike	Lanius senator
116	Masked Shrike	Lanius nubicus
117	Dipper	Cinclus cinclus
118	Wren	Troglodytes troglodytes
119	Dunnock	Prunella modularis
120	Robin	Erithacus rubecula
121	Nightingale	Luscinia megarhynchos
122	Black Redstart	Phoenicurus ochruros
123	Redstart	Phoenicurus phoenicurus
124	Whinchat	Saxicola rubetra
125	Stonechat	Saxicola torquata rubicola
126	Northern Wheatear	Oenanthe oenanthe
127	Black-eared Wheatear	Oenanthe hispanica
128	Isabelline Wheatear	Oenanthe isabellina
129	Pied Wheatear	Oenanthe pleschanka
130	Blue Rock Thrush	Monticola solitarius
131	Ring Ouzel	Turdus torquatus
132	Blackbird	Turdus merula
133	Song Thrush	Turdus philomelos
134	Mistle Thrush	Turdus viscivorus
135	Cetti's Warbler	Cettia cetti
136	Savi's Warbler	Locustella luscinioides
137	Paddyfield Warbler	Acrocephalus agricola
138	Marsh Warbler	Acrocephalus palustris
139	Great Reed Warbler	Acrocephalus arundinaceus
140	Eastern Olivaceous Warbler	Hippolais pallida
141	Olive-tree Warbler	Hippolais olivetorum
142	Chiffchaff	Phylloscopus collybita
143	Eastern Bonelli's Warbler	Phylloscopus bonelli
144	Blackcap	Sylvia atricapilla
145	Whitethroat	Sylvia communis
146	Lesser Whitethroat	Sylvia curruca
147	Barred Warbler	Sylvia nisoria
148	Eastern Orphean Warbler	Sylvia crassirostris
149	Subalpine Warbler	Sylvia cantillans
150	Goldcrest	Regulus regulus
151	Spotted Flycatcher	Muscicapa striata
152	Semi-collared Flycatcher	Ficedula semitorquata
153	Long-tailed Tit	Aegithalos caudatus
154	Penduline Tit	Remiz pendulinus
155	Marsh Tit	Parus palustris
156	Sombre Tit	Parus lugubris
157	Coal Tit	Parus ater
158	Great Tit	Parus major
159	Blue Tit	Parus caeruleus
160	Nuthatch	Sitta europaea
161	Wallcreeper	Tichodroma muraria
162	Treecreeper	Certhia familiaris
163	Short-toed Treecreeper	Certhia brachydactyla
164	Corn Bunting	Miliaria calandra
165	Yellowhammer	Emberiza citrinella
166	Rock Bunting	Emberiza cia
167	Ortolan Bunting	Emberiza hortulana
168	Cirl Bunting	Emberiza cirlus
169	Black-headed Bunting	Emberiza melanocephala
170	Reed Bunting	Emberiza schoeniclus
171	Chaffinch	Fringilla coelebs
172	Serin	Serinus serinus
173	Greenfinch	Carduelis chloris
174	Goldfinch	Carduelis carduelis
175	Linnet	Carduelis cannabina
176	Crossbill	Loxia curvirostra
177	Bullfinch	Pyrrhula pyrrhula
178	Hawfinch	Coccothraustes coccothraustes
179	House Sparrow	Passer domesticus
180	Spanish Sparrow	Passer hispaniolensis
181	Tree Sparrow	Passer montanus
182	Rose-coloured Starling	Sturnus roseus
183	Starling	Sturnus vulgaris
184	Golden Oriole	Oriolus oriolus
185	Jay	Garrulus glandarius
186	Magpie	Pica pica
187	Jackdaw	Corvus monedula
188	Raven	Corvus corax
189	Hooded Crow	Corvus cornix