Sofia to Western Rhodopes Mountains with stops at Pazardzik and at Yagodina.
The group of 9 birders/photographers arrived from Belgium late last night and stayed in a hotel in Sofia with me. Our Bulgarian guide Dancho collected us at 10am with a nice big bus and a driver called Martin (the same driver as last week). Some of the group had been out for a pre-breakfast walk to Grobishta Park and saw Great Spotted Woodpeckers feeding young at a nest hole. They also saw Spotted Flycatcher, Eurasian Nuthatch and we saw both Alpine Swift and Common Swift from outside the hotel whilst we were waiting for the bus to arrive.
The weather was a little brighter than yesterday but it was still overcast and a little chilly. We drove out of the city and headed South West towards Plovdiv before turning off to Pazardzik. We saw a few birds along the way but not many, Common Buzzard, White Stork, Red-backed Shrike and a few Corn Buntings. After buying our picnic lunch in town we drove to an old quarry to eat, the sky was even brighter now and the temperature was rising. On the edge of town we stopped to look for Levant's Sparrowhawk which we had seen during last week's tour, sure enough the bird was there and we found the nest, a male bird flew into a nearby tree carrying its lunch, we got great views of it feeding, what a super start to our birding tour.
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| Levant's Sparrowhawk - note the black eye (click on the image for a full sized picture) |
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| another view showing the black wing tips |
Our lunch stop lasted two hours, it was fantastic, birds were everywhere, calling, singing and displaying it was hard to know where to look for the best. Our group were mainly interested in photography so people shot off in all directions, this meant that we spent more time looking at the birds on show and not searching for as many as we could find which made my job much easier.
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| Stone Curlew sitting on eggs - digi-scoped from a long way off, no disturbance of the bird |
One special sighting was of Common Quail, several were calling and one or two were showing in the grass not far from the track. We also had superb views of European Roller, Common Kestrel, Black-headed Bunting, Lesser Grey Shrike, Hoopoe, Red-backed Shrike, Spanish Sparrow, Tree Sparrow, Stone Curlew, Little Owl, Northern Wheatear, Yellow Wagtail
(Feldegg), Long-legged Buzzard, Crested Lark, Skylark and Calandra Lark. I think you'll agree that's not a bad list for our first outing of the trip.
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| one of the Common Quail calling in the grass near the bus |
Our next stop was just a few clicks along the road, we stopped on the brow of a hill to look at a Bee-eater colony, as it happened the birds were not at home but a few flew over just thesame. We also found Common Cuckoo, Common Whitethroat and Common Stonechat. Lots of White Storks fed in the grass nearby and both Black Stork and Black Kite flew over. A couple of butterflies were now on the wing and many flowers opened up in the afternoon sunlight, a Stock Dove flew by, it was our first sighting this year.
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| blue flowers - without a field guide that's all I can call them |
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| Eastern Dappled White |
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| Queen of Spain Fritillary |
We then then drove down a very long and winding road passed a huge dam and a long lake into the Western Rhodopes. It took a couple of hours to get the Buiovo Gorge which led to the village of Yagodina where we were staying for the night.
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| Grey Wagtail |
The sky cleared and we had lovely sunshine for the last couple of hours of daylight. We stopped in the gorge and got out to look for Dipper which soon showed up for us, we also found the traditional species that goes with the Dipper, the Grey Wagtail.
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| a view from along the gorge |
We finally made it Yagodina at 6pm. with plenty of time for our 8pm dinner. From my balcony I scoped a nesting pair of Sombre Tits, they were feeding young hidden in hole in a lamp-post outside the hotel.
Dinner was very nice, we had fish, it was followed by a evening of local entertainment, we had women singers and dancers from the village dressed in traditional clothing, they wailed at us for a while before I made excuses and came here to write this blog, good night.
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