Eurotrip 2019- Days One to Four

Currently at the Magus Hotel in Romania following four days on the road. We're heading to the Black Sea via Transylvania and have been trying to do five to six hours a day drive. So far we've over-nighted south of Cologne, Germany, south of Linz, Austria and in Budapest, Hungary. We've got two nights in this part of Romania where we will be visiting Little Oak colleagues before heading to Transylvania for three nights before heading to our main destination on the Black Sea coast, Bulgaria for two to three weeks before slowly heading home via the Balkan Ecology Project. If all goes to plan we will back in the crack in October. 

I've had the heath light trap on when it hasn't been raining and done a bit of birding on the campsites in the morning but the emphasis has been on getting to Romania before doing any focused birding and mothing (as the Capitalists have destroyed western Europe anyway)- so just wanted to get to the other side of the old Iron Curtain as soon as possible. 

Here's a few pictures from the pickings over the last four days. 

Adult Kittiwake over the Channel. A moulting adult. Interesting random black spots on the primary coverts. 

Juvenile/first-winter Yellow-legged Gull over the Channel 

Following last week's black-billed Common Tern in Kent, I had a closer looking at adult moulting Common Terns (above and two images below) over the Channel. It's an interesting progression into winter plumage including  the formation of a black bill, pale forehead, dark carpal bars, presumably a suspended primary moult and what looks like a darkening of some adult wing feathers including the secondaries and primary coverts ahead of replacement to fresh pale ones. 

Hawfinch in the Cologne campsite. An interesting site next to a lake- had Common Sandpiper by the lake. Unfortunately there was torrential rain so couldn't get the moth trap out in Germany. Not really seen much from the road- a flock of White Storks in Germany and increasing number of roadside Common Buzzard and Marsh Harrier as we went into Eastern Hungary. 

Four-spotted Footman out of the Budapest moth trap. First time I've stayed in a campsite actually inside the city- only six miles from Buda Castle and all the main sites. Amazing to drive through Budapest having visited there as a tourist years ago. 

Had this in the Budapest moth trap- still working on it. Nutmeg (cheers Stewart). 

Had a load of these weevils in the Austria stop off. Clearly using the attraction of the light trap as a means to get their ends away. 

An interesting stop at Amital Camp, south of Linz, Austria. It was like a kibbutz attached to an old country house with a colony of log cabins and camping area with really good community facilities all set at the foot hills of the Alps. The site was surrounded in seemingly endless corn fields and agricultural land that seems to extend along the entire foothill of the Alps. Anyway the small site was the only substantial tree cover for miles around forming a mini-migrant trap. I had Spotted Flycatchers, Lesser Whitethroats, Chiffchaffs, Blackcaps and flocking Swallows. The moth trap had Pale and Iron Prominent and a few common European species. 

All three of us just living in the van at the moment and storing the main camping gear in a pop up tent while in transit. That's saving us hotel bills on the last three nights but we couldn't find a camping site in this part of Romania so we're in a hotel which is actually handy as there's a heat wave here and its actually quite nice getting some air con and a bit of space to recompose. Holly built Jacob a bed (below) for the campervan but he's still been getting in with us at night as he keeps waking up with all the strange sounds. 

Was happy to do a road trip rather than fly as flying is under the environmentalists spot light at the moment. I'm still trying to get to the bottom of the environmental accounting on flying. Here's a bit of discussion on facebook (click F symbol).