For the photographers in the group today may have been a little disappointing but if you simply like watching birds it was terrific. The hidden valley just outside of Krumovgrad was excellent during our visit last week and today it was just as good. We left the hotel at 7am and drove the short distance to the valley, after a couple of kilometres we got off the bus and walked for an hour. Birds were everywhere and the air was filled with a wonderful cacophony of bird song, Common Cuckoo, Hoopoe, Golden Oriole, Black Headed Bunting, Common Whitethroat and lots of Nightingales filled the air with song and our telescopes with vibrant colour. Lesser Grey Shrikes were everywhere, they performed their flight display looking like miniature nightjars.
As the air warmed up so did the butterflies and they had a tremendous choice of wild flowers to visit, the verges and hedgerows were a mass of colour.
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| two pictures of Chequered Blue - a new species for my Bulgarian list |
As we walked further down the track so more birds appeared, we saw a Rufous-morph Common Cuckoo as we did last week also Roller, Barred Warbler, Olivaceous Warbler, Bee-eater, both White and Black Storks, Grey Heron, Green Woodpecker and we heard a Wryneck calling.
On the hillside we saw this Chukar which called all the time we were there and higher up we found Hobby, Common Kestrel, Honey Buzzard and a few Griffon Vultures were perched on the ridge. more butterflies were on show, the lovely Eastern Festoon shown below was very common as was Black-veined White, Knapweed Fritillary and Queen of Spain Fritillary.
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| Eastern Festoon |
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| two views of Knapweed Frtillary |
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| The underside of Queen of Spain Fritillary |
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| I think these are white poppies |
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| our view of the river from the road along the valley |
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| Black-eared Wheatear |
After our superb visit to the wonderful valley we drove to Madzharovo which took about an hour, we stopped just before the town to look for birds on a high pinnacle of rock. it was a little windy and quite chilly, thick black clouds were amassing our the ridge. We saw a couple of Hawfinches, a Cirl Bunting and a Golden Eagle drifted over very high up.
At Madzharovo we ate a lovely lunch sitting out on the terrace at the Vulture centre, the rain had passed just before we arrived and the sun was now out for the rest of the day.
Next we drove through the town of Madzharovo onto a track which took us into a wooded valley overlooking the river. We searched for Bonelli's Warbler which was located within minutes, we also saw Cirl Bunting, Great Spotted Woodpecker and our first Booted Eagle.
For the last two hours of our birding day we visited the 'crater' area near the town, we were surrounded by high pinnacles and cliffs whilst we walked on a flat plain covered in scrub and open woodland. We found many species, Woodchat and Red-backed Shrike were numerous and in the woodland we found Long-tailed Tit, Hawfinch, Subalpine Warbler, Greenfinch, Chaffinch and Common Whitethroat.
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| a profusion of colour on the hillside in the 'crater' |
As we continued down the road the high peaks towered above us, both Griffon and Egyptian Vultures circled above us, as did Common Buzzard, Raven, Black Stork, Peregrine Falcon and Common Kestrel.
Soon are target species gave themselves up one by one, Blue Rock Thrush came first followed by Rock Bunting and then we saw a distant Ortolan Bunting, this bird was hard to see until it flew right down the cliff face and perched very close to us. You couldn't dream of such a sighting, just look at the pictures below to see how close the bird was.
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| the very obliging Ortolan Bunting |
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