SUNDAY 30TH SEPT 2012 - BULGARIA RECCE TRIP DAY 3

MADZAROVO TO BOURGAS

Our third day and it was equally as good as the previous two, clear sky all day bright sunshine top temp. 28C.

We had an early breakfast and headed off easterly from the hotel. We stopped briefly at the high ridge near the river where we photographed several griffon vultures, we also saw Middle Spotted Woodpecker, Peregrine Falcon, Common Kestrel, Sombre Tit and Cirl Bunting. The next half an hour was spent driving around a large reservoir where saw many specie at the side of the road or on top of bushes: Red Backed Shrike, Corn Bunting, Cirl Bunting, Spotted Flycatcher and to my great amazement we saw a WHITE TAILED EAGLE, what a thrill my first one!!!

Over the next couple of hours we drove through lovely countryside stopped when we saw something good and often to look at soaring raptors. We found Common Buzzard, Syrian Woodpecker, Green Woodpecker, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (heard), Spanish Sparrow and Short-toed Eagle.

At a raptor watch point we found Long-legged buzzard and two IMPERIAL EAGLES, a superb find as they both showed well for about 5 minutes.

As we drove further eastward we found more and more migrants each time we stopped: Spotted Flycatchers, Lesser Whitethroat, Common Redstart, Tree Pipit and we also found Woodlark, Chaffinch, Stonechat and lots of Hawfinches.

After a lunch break we were now only 30 kilometers west of Bourgas, we began seeing more and more raptors in the sky and one particular stop produced a fantastic list of sightings. Common Buzzards (20+), Eurasian Sparrowhawk, Hobby (1), Red-footed falcon (3), Short-toed Eagle (5), Black Stork (126) and the best of the lot, LESSER SPOTTED EAGLE (250+) all of these passed over in about 45 minutes!

It took sometime to get over the excitement but we did and continued our journey into Bourgas. This large city is found on the banks of the Black Sea but it also has huge areas of salt pans, open lakes and a massive bay. The whole area is known as the Bourgas Wetlands. We checked into our hotel on the northern side of the town and quickly set off to the salt pans and raptor view point for a couple of hours birding before it went dark.

Our trip list more than doubled with the amount of sightings we had over the next couple of hours. Pied Avocet, Common Redshank, Spotted Redshank, Eurasian Curlew, Ringed Plover and Ruff were the species of wader but we also saw: Eurasian Spoonbill, Yellow-legged Gull, Black Headed Gull, Mediterranean Gull, Slender-billed Gull and Little Gull. In the bay we also found Eurasian Teal, Northern Shoveler, Pintail, Mallard, Little Egret, Grey Heron, great White Egret, Common Shelduck, Ruddy Shelduck, Great Cormorant and a huge flock of Dalmatian Pelicans.

We ended the day as the light began to fade and drove the short distance back to the hotel. We had a lovely dinner, but we retired early after another fantastic day.