Eurotrip 2019- Days six to nine, Romania

Currently in Mangalia, Southern Romania on the Black Sea Coast. We were supposed to arrive in Bulgaria today but the border police turned us away as they wanted the original of the VC5 document for the campervan and told us to turn round and go back to England to get it. Instead Steve is going to send it in the post to Dimiter (in Bulgaria) and in the meantime we will hire a car to cross the border and come back and get the campervan when the document arrives. Annoyingly our final destination is only 30 mins the other side of the border so nine days to get here and failed at the last small hurdle! We've been through Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Romania and last year add to that Slovenia, Croatia, Switzerland and nobody has asked us for that document apart from the Bulgarians! 

Anyway the last few days have been busy and this impromptu break gives me a chance to start catching up and actually got a decent internet connection in this hotel in Mangalia. 

So on Thursday we drove (a long and slow drive) from Miki and George's to Bran in Transylvania and we've had the last three nights at the Ilaria Pension, where I managed to get the moth trap out and did a bit of birding around the guesthouse. Ebird list here . Seen a few things from the road including Lesser Spotted Eagle, Roller, Calandra Lark, Marsh Harrier and White Storks but overall been pretty struck by the lack of birds. Presumably they are all concentrating on the migration flyways which is what we are heading for. 

 Black Redstart- the ubiquitous Continental bird. There were about six around the guesthouse and also Common Redstart, Spotted Flycatcher, Pied Flycatcher and lots of Chiffchaffs including some interesting contrasty birds (below) 

 Sparrowhawk amongst the local House Martins 

 Best bird from the guesthouse was this very high Nutcracker 

 Convolvulus Hawk-moth. There were two of these on the Nicotiana in the guesthouse garden at dusk and luckily I found one roosting on the side of the house in the morning 

 Female Four-spotted Footman (male in post below). This really is a big Footman. 

 Beautiful Brocade 

 Small Waved Umber 

 Double Line 

 Orange Swift 

 Good old Dewick's Plusia 

 Still working on these next ones- cant find them in the BWP GB and Ireland book so presumably something more local.  Closest I could get on this was a worn Scarce Bordered Straw. 

Closest I can get on this is Blair's Mocha which appears very variable and is the only thing I can see in the ballpark area with two eyes in the centre of the fore-wing? 

Diasemia reticularis (thanks Martin!)

Ammoconia caecimacula? 

 The Ilaria Guesthouse 

 Bran Castle- widely known as Dracula's Castle but apparently Vlad the Impaler (the real life character who inspired the legend of Dracula) never lived or visited here and its just a big tourist scam- so at least there is some truth in the blood sucking legend 

So we visited another tourist trap too- Dino Park in Rasnov. It was actually for Jacob's benefit as he is totally obsessed with Dinosaurs. It was a very informative and scientific too (once you get out of the honey pot shops and play area) 

and now we are stuck here- Mangalia. Its like Benidorm on the Black Sea. However had a large passage of Little Gulls go past the hotel window and there were plenty of gulls on the beach which I will check out tomorrow morning before we attempt our escape from here.