As standard I started the day off at Cape Kaliakra- the Pallas's Warbler was in the same place as yesterday but otherwise there are just less and less birds each day now with 54 species of 612 individuals HERE .
I had quite a long work list for when I was out here but that has gone out the window due to the quality of birding. I've done a bit of shopping to equip the caravan on the project plot but I was supposed to install services into the caravan and also do the haycut on the meadow. Therefore as it was pretty quiet I decided to do something. All my Bulgarian tools packed up or fell apart while I was doing the meadow so I tried using a Scythe (called a Koca in Bulgarian and not a Koza which is a Goat and at one point people thought I was trying to buy a Goat which infact is probably what I need!). Anyway I've no idea how you are supposed to Scythe (I presumed it would be in all our genes) and my 'catherine wheel' method didn't help either so basically I gave up and went birding again.
That was handy as I found a nice 'Caspain Stonechat' by Yalata and also had a couple of late Bee-eaters go over. Ebird list HERE.
Then sadly it was time to go back to the airport. What a great little trip.
Final trip report HERE. So many highlights- the Rustic Bunting, Pallas's Warbler and Caspian Stonechat were the star birds but having Quails, Corncrakes, Short-eared and Long-eared Owls flushing at my feet while a river of tens of thousands of birds were going overhead is hard to beat, the male Pallid Harrier mowing through 50,000 Barn Swallows and having a fall of passerines so intense that a Robin landed on my head is probably a better experience than finding any rarity. On top of that there was the raptor passage including what has now been confirmed by Dick Forsman as a good-as-it-gets Greater Spotted Eagle, the flock of Common Cranes (not common here), the out of place Treecreeper on the Cape and the cracking alpestris Ring Ouzel. There are so few birders out here and the scale is so big that there's so much more to discover here. I think's it time to organise a migration camp for next year now we've got the plot better established and also got a better understanding on the best winds and conditions for visible migration. This whole trip was basically a weather twitch- love it when a plan comes together.
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