BULGARIA - 9 DAY TOUR - DAY 1 - MAY 6TH 2014

LONDON TO SOFIA – TRANSFER TO YOGADINA WITH A STOP FOR LUNCH NEAR  PAZARDZIK

I met my new group at Gatwick at ‘silly o’clock’ to catch the early flight to Sofia, the flight was on time although I missed most it as I was in the land of nod.

We arrived early and our guide and transport arrived to collect us soon afterwards. It was quite a shock to my system when I stepped off the plane, I had been used to 28C over the last few days, so 10C overcast with light rain woke me up with a jerk.

My group of twelve members of Oxford RSPB were eager to get out there and start birding so we set off straight away. About 2 hours into our journey we stopped to buy a picnic lunch, so far we had listed several nice species including; Montagu's Harrier, Long-legged Buzzard, Hoopoe and lots of White Storks.

ALL PHOTOS SHOWN TODAY WERE TAKEN BY IORDAN HRISTOV OUR GUIDE

everyone's favourite today - Black Headed Bunting

 

 

 

Our lunch stop was amazing we hardly had time to eat! Birds were everywhere, we amassed quite an impressive list in a short time. Calendar, Crested and Skylarks, Tree and Spanish Sparrows, Woodchat, Red-backed and Lesser Grey Shrike, Northern Wheatear, Whinchat, Turtle Dove, Common Cuckoo and most people's favourite was the Black Headed Bunting.

White Storks are very common here

A few raptors appeared, Common Kestrel, Long-legged Buzzard and to our great delight we found two Levant Sparrowhawks.  We saw them just as we drove from the shop after buying our picnic on the edge of town, one of them sat put in the open for us,  smashing bird.

 

European Bee-eaters

The rest of the afternoon was spent travelling down to the Western Rhodopes Mountains, we followed the route of the river Vacha where a dam produces a huge system of lakes. We headed toward the Trigrad Gorge which will be our destination tomorrow, we turned off just after Devin and followed a second gorge up to a picturesque village called Yogadina, our hotel was there. We listed several more species along the way including Dipper, Grey Wagtail, Hooded Crow and Yellow-legged Gull.

one of several Long-legged Buzzards seen today

 

We ate a lovely early dinner at 6:30am, most of us had been up most of last night so an early one now was needed.