20 years visiting Bulgaria

It's been twenty years since I first visited Bulgaria in 2006. My brother Paul, his partner Sophie and two kids, Dylan and Archie had decided to leave the UK behind and start a new life in Shipka at the foothills of the Balkan Mountains. After a few years of finding their feet they established the Balkan Ecology Project HERE and I did my best to visit as often as I could to help out on the project and also explore Bulgaria from there.

In 2016 Paul and I purchased about 14 hectates of land in the Shipka area for the project and in 2020 I also purchased a plot on the Black Sea coast at Kamen Bryag and since then have also been visiting that area regularly to focus on migrant birds and lepidoptera of this part of the Via Pontica flyway. 

So basically Bulgaria has become a second home/holiday home over the last twenty years. In total I have visited 26 tiumes! - in July 2006 to Shipka with Kate, January 2009 to Shipka before embarking on a six week road trip to the Middle East with Paul, December 2010 to Shipka and then with Dimiter for wild geese, May 2011 with Dimiter, Darryl and Greg for a Spring tour with Neophron, June 2013 to Shipka, February 2015 with Wise Birding for Geese in Romania, July 2015 to Shipka with Maria and the girls, September 2015 for autumn birding with Dylan, April 2016 to Shipka, July 2016 to Shipka (met Anton for first time),  May 2018 with Holly and Jacob to Shipka and herping with Dylan and Anton to the Eastern Rhodopes, November 2016 with my dad to look into Black Sea purchase, August and September 2019 with Holly and Jacob on a road trip through Europe to Bulgaria, February 2020 to complete the Kamen Bryag purchase, April/May 2021 to Kamen Bryag and then herping with Dylan and Anton to Kresna, May 2022 to Kamen Bryag and herping trip to Burgas region with Dylan and Anton, July 2022 to Kamen Bryag to work on the plot with Dylan and Anton, November 2022 to Kamen Bryag for more work on the land, May 2023 to Kamen Bryag and then herping at Kresna and Baba Vangas, July 2023 to Kamen Bryag for moth recording, September 2023 with Arjun for his Cambridge University dissertation and the boys and Roger also visited as we started the pond, October 2024 with Kojak to Kamen Bryag, June 2026 with Kojak to Kamen Bryag to complete the pond, September 2026 with Kojak to Kamen Bryag, October 2026 to Kamen Bryag on my own for some epic migration and now May/June 2026 with Holly and the boys and later visiting Shipka and natural history exploring. 

Far too many highlights to even begin listing them but found several megas for Bulgaria on both the birds and moth fronts. In total I've had 306 bird species HERE (23 in Ebird Top 100) and 582 moths and butterflies HERE and most of the herps in Bulgaria plus loads more with over 700 species on I-Nat HERE which is incomplete as doesn't include botany, herps or mammals.

Still loads more to do out there. The next plans include to target the remaining Butterflies, I still need Cat Snake, to keep up the migration recording on the Black Sea Coast and hopefully find more megas for the country and to expand the land purchasing to create a new nature reserve in Kamen Bryag. 

Dylan in 2006

Me mincing in the woods

Dylan and Anton

Paul, Dylan and Archie

Dimiter, Marina and Dylan in Burgas September 2015