Bulgaria & Romania

We recently returned from leading an Avian Adventures tour in Bulgaria and Romania where Dimiter Georgiev of Neophron Tours was our local driver/guide.  We took a British Airways flight from Heathrow Terminal 5 to Sofia and then spent three nights at Kraimorie and three nights at Kavarna before crossing into Romania for some birding around the Danube Delta and then a return flight from Bucharest.

Red-backed Shrike - seen everywhere we went

Kraimorie was a convenient base for two days birding around the Burgas Lakes.  We divided our time in that area mostly between Lakes Vaya, Mandrensko, Atanasovsko & Pomorie and Poroy Reservoir.  From Kavarna, we visited Durankulak Lake and Shabla Tuzla Lake, Cape Kaliakra and areas of nearby steppe grassland.

Not surprisingly, we saw an impressive variety of wetland birds that included Great White & Dalmatian Pelicans, Ferruginous Duck, Pygmy Cormorant, Squacco Heron, White Stork, Gull-billed, Caspian & Whiskered Terns, Slender-billed & Caspian Gulls, Kentish Plover and Broad-billed Sandpiper.  The downside was that water levels were generally low and as a result birds were mostly further away than we would have liked.  Certainly, opportunities for photography were very few.

Broad-billed Sandpiper

We also managed to see a good variety of raptors including Lesser Spotted, Short-toed, Booted & Eastern Imperial Eagles, Hobbys, Common & Long-legged Buzzards, Marsh Harrier, Eurasian & Levant Sparrowhawks and Red-footed Falcon.  Mostly, however, these were in quite small numbers and we missed out on any raptor migration ‘spectacle’ that we might have wished for.

 Levant Sparrowhawk - a 'lifer' for both of us

Lesser Spotted Eagle

September is probably not the best time of year to see woodpeckers but June’s particular interest was satisfied by the Black, Syrian & Middle Spotted varieties that we don’t get to see very often.  Other highlights were Sombre Tit, Yelkouan Shearwater, Corncrake, European Rollers, European Bee-eaters, Eurasian Eagle Owl, Red-breasted Flycatcher and, a sign of the times – European Turtle Dove.  It was also good to see so many Red-backed Shrikes almost everywhere we went.

Early one morning we visited a ringing camp and got to see several birds in the hand, notably Marsh, European Reed & Great Reed Warblers, Spanish Sparrow and Red-backed Shrike.  However, few birds had been trapped and migration generally was probably affected by the weather, which for most of the week was unseasonably warm with temperatures often exceeding 30°C.

 Spanish Sparrow

Red-backed Shrike

Although the week was mostly spent in Bulgaria, for the last day and a half we crossed into Romania with an overnight stay at Sinoe.  This gave us an opportunity to sample just a very small part of Europe’s largest wetland, the Danube Delta.  Undoubtedly the highlights here were the Red-footed Falcons.  We were pleased enough to see at least 50 or so late in the afternoon of our arrival and then the following morning in a different area there were at least 250.

Red-footed Falcons

As with all tours that are aimed at seeing birds on migration there is a certain amount of luck involved with both the timing and the weather.  Certainly, the cloudless skies and high temperatures during our week didn’t enhance our birding experience.  Low water levels were also far from ideal.  Nevertheless we did manage to see more than 150 bird species and everyone had at least one or two ‘lifers’.  It's a tour we will look forward to repeating.

 Simultaneously looking for crakes and raptors!

 Now looking out over the Black Sea for shearwaters

 Cape Kaliakra - we've never seen so many wind turbines

 Ruddy Turnstone

 European Paper Wasps (Polistes dominula) - we think

 Northern Wheatear

Cardinal butterfly

Red-footed Falcon(s)

In May this year we saw Red-footed Falcons in both the Algarve and the Baixo Alentejo, birds that were part of an unprecedented influx of this species into Portugal.  We reported here on the first ones that we saw near Faro after a tip-off from Thijs Valkenburg.

It was difficult when the birds were so mobile to know for sure how many of them there might have been in total.  One estimate put the number at more than 100.  Previously there had been only a handful of accepted records in Portugal so this was quite an event.

Castro Verde, Portugal; May 2015

Red-footed Falcons winter in southern Africa and migrate north to breed in eastern Europe, west and central Asia.  Clearly something went seriously wrong this year during their northward journey as exceptional numbers were also seen in France, Switzerland, Spain and several other countries; some birds even reached the Canary Islands.

 In the UK it’s not unusual for a few overshooting birds to be seen in the spring, to the point that the species is no longer officially a rarity.  With so many birds occurring this year in central Europe an influx into the UK was perhaps to have been expected but in the event it didn’t happen.  However, there have been a few birds including one, a first-summer male, that was first reported on 9th July at Chatterley Whitfield in Staffordshire.

Chatterley Whitfield; July 2015

And Chatterley Whitfield is where we went this morning!  It’s only 25 miles away, the sun made a rare appearance and there was the promise of another local ‘rarity’, a Black Restart.  It was more than we could resist!

With the falcon having been present in more or less the same spot for three weeks we were surprised when we arrived to find so many people there watching and photographing it.  It seemed amazingly unconcerned by the presence of these people and completely undisturbed by cars passing within just a few feet as it perched on roadside posts and power cables.

Chatterley Whitfield; July 2015

Apparently during the early part of its stay some birders provided locusts for it to eat resulting not just in a lot of controversy and debate about whether this was acceptable/advisable but also in an array of notices advising against such practices.  If the motive was to entice the bird nearer for the purposes of photography, then based on today’s performance it was totally unnecessary.

 Police protection for the Red-footed Falcon!

This is only the fourth record of Red-footed Falcon in Staffordshire and the eighth in the West Midland Bird Club recording area.

The Black Redstart appeared to be a juvenile, perhaps one that has been bred locally.  

What a great day!

It’s been baking hot here these past few days; August weather in the first half of May!  In spite of this we have enjoyed some really good birding.  As well as visiting Castro Marim and keeping an eye on the local Bee-eaters in Tavira, we’ve spent quite a bit of time in the Serra do Caldeirão, the hills north-west of here.   We have also made several visits to the Castro Verde area where the temperatures have generally been even higher than on the coast.  Early starts have been essential and we have been on the road before 6.00am almost every day.  

Yesterday morning we were out with UK birders, Dave & Simon  We considered another trip to the Baixo Alentejo to look for a Rufous-tailed Scrub-robin and perhaps a White-rumped Swift but the prospect of again being out all day in such heat wasn’t attractive.  Instead we decided to stay near the coast and head for Quinta do Lago where our main targets were to be Black-headed Weaver and Iberian Green Woodpecker with Purple Swamp-hen and Little Bittern on the list of birds that would also be nice to see.  We thought that later in the morning we might go to the saltpans near Olhão in the hope of finding a Caspian Tern.  That would have to be around 11.30am to coincide with high tide.

By 8.00am the job at Quinta do Lago was done and just as we were wondering what to do and where to go next we received a message from Thijs Valkenburg.  It was to say that he had just found a female Red-footed Falcon, a rarity here in Portugal.  He was at the waste water treatment ponds (ETAR in Portuguese) between Olhão and Faro, not too far away from where we were.  He had just made our decision for us.  We jumped in the car and off we went.

When we reached the ETAR, Thijs was just leaving.  He told us his story about the falcon and off we went to look for it.  He mentioned also having seen some migrant Common Redstarts, which we should look out for.  There were lots of other birds to see including a Spotted Flycatcher, several Mediterranean Gulls, about half a dozen Red-crested Pochards, a few Collared Pratincoles and about 20 Spoonbills but sure enough it wasn’t long before a Red-footed Falcon came into view.  However, this Red-footed Falcon was a male!  It was soon joined by a female and we watched the two of them feeding above the ETAR and neighbouring areas for quite some time.  

We phoned Thijs to let him know that there were now two falcons but that was just the start!  Minutes later a bird flew over that we quickly identified as a Western Reef Egret.  It was heading towards Olhão; we made another call to Thijs who by now was already on his way back to join us.

Before long, the egret re-appeared.  First it flew off to the west towards Faro but then it came back and landed and for a while we were able to watch it on the edge of one of the ponds.  However, all the time it looked distinctly unhappy, nervous and unsettled and after a few minutes it again flew off and out of sight.  By now we had noticed that each time it flew it was accompanied by what we at first thought was a Little Egret but which we now start to think may well have been a white-morph individual of its own species, another Western Reef Egret.

We now turned our attention to finding the Common Redstarts that Thijs had seen earlier.  He pointed us in the right direction and we began working our way along a line of conifers where we soon began to see not just Redstarts but both Spotted & Pied Flycatchers, a Garden Warbler, a Tree Pipit and, most exciting of all, a Wood Warbler, a real rarity here in Portugal!

Eventually we dragged ourselves away from the ETAR and reverted to our original plan; we headed down the road to the nearby saltpans to look for a Caspian Tern.  Alas, we were unsuccessful, possibly because we were now much too late, having missed the high tide period when birds regularly roost here.  However, there was still plenty to see including a few Oystercatchers, small numbers of Dunlin, Sanderling, Curlew Sandpipers and Black-tailed Godwits, a Stone-curlew and about 50 Spoonbills so it wasn’t exactly a wasted journey!

From there we headed to Praia do Barril where the isolated stand of trees near the beach can sometimes act as a migrant trap and which seemed worth a look on a day when birds had obviously been on the move.  We were obviously now much later in the day than was ideal but we weren’t disappointed.  We managed to find a Spotted Flycatcher, a Common Redstart and a Melodious Warbler and perhaps more surprisingly a roosting Black-crowned Night-Heron.

After ice creams and drinks in Santa Luzia, we finished the day’s birding around Tavira where a Spotted Redshank was one of 20 wader species that we saw during the day.  The species total for the day was 92 and three of those (Red-footed Falcon, Western Reef Egret and Wood Warbler) were ones that we hadn’t seen before in Portugal.  What a great day indeed!

It isn’t often that we don’t have with us a camera of some sort to record the unusual but unfortunately this was one of those days!  Thanks, then to Thijs Valkenburg for the use of his images of the three rarities.  Thanks also for the very timely message that took us to the ETAR in the first place.   

We learned later that there has been a remarkable influx of Red-footed Falcons into Portugal involving perhaps as many as 40 birds, most of them further north.