Saturday, 13 May 2023

The Black Sea Pop Up Obs Project Update

I did a little bit of work on the Kamen Bryag plot while in Bulgaria but due to time constraints I was unable to strim the meadow but will be interesting what comes up anyway as there was already a bit of plant diversity in the meadow including Blue Gromwell, White Bedstraw, Spotted Bur-clover, French vetch, Vetch, Cut-leaved Cranesbill, Small Bugloss, Yellow Avens and Blue hound's-tongue (according to PlantNet). 

The moth trapping wasn't particularly successful due to the weather but added a few new species of moths and butterflies to the project list, now on 113 species for the site. I-Naturalist Project HERE

Ebird Hotspot for Kamen Bryag, now on 148 species HERE

Really should set up a botany project too and maybe a herp one too and can spot record anything else.

The big news is that we now have electricity and should have water on site by May hopefully. The plan for this year includes a moth recording focused visit in July and in September we should be carrying out more extensive conservation work and also recording and will be joined by Arjun Dutta who is doing his Cambridge Geography degree dissertation on the project and hopefully other friends too. Now we have electricity on site we will be able to camp there.  So an exciting year ahead. 

Background on this project HERE and few social media posts from this recent trip below. 

There's a new information board up at Cape Kaliakra showing the extent of the important habitats and the protected zones in the area. Kamen Bryag is within the Natura 2000 special protection area boundary. This is the main recording area of our project but we also venture out to Shabla Tsula and Shabla Lakes and Durankulak  for more extensive wetland habitats and Balchik (for raptor migration) which are all within 30-45 minutes drive of our project base.  

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