We spent the last couple of days in Shipka, where my brother lives where he runs the Balkan Ecology Project HERE. Kojak and I spent yesterday doing the Monastery first thing, then the birding road, then we went over to Sheynovo lake (and got interrupted by a huge storm) and spent the evening on the east plot sides. We recorded over 70 bird species in the area HERE and HERE with the highlight being a shocking Saker Falcon, presumably a bird from the reintroduction project in Bulgaria where five breeding territories have been established by released birds by a Partnership of the Green Balkans and the Stara Zagora Raptor Rehabilitation Centre. Other highlights included an adult and first-summer male Montagu's Harrier, Long-legged Buzzards, Honey Buzzard, Black-crowned Night Herons at the lake, Wryneck and good numbers of Ortolans and Isabelline Wheatears on the Steppe with Tawny Pipit, Quail and great to see the Sousliks doing well in this isolated fragment of Steppe habitat.
Today Kojak and I headed up to the Shipka Pass Peak and found some mountain butterfly species such as Clouded Apollo, Woodland Ringlet, Weaver's Fritillary and Scarce and European Swallowtails and a couple of Narrow-bordered Bee Hawkmoths.
In the afternoon we stopped briefly in some butterfly habitat near Kran and then headed over to Harmanli, our stop over for the night ahead of meeting Nikolay to target some butterfly specialities tomorrow morning.
