Bulgaria, September 2025, Day Three

As usual we started off at the plot doing the moths and then after that we went on an Eagle Owl hunt. Dimiter and his group went to Balchik and we went to Bolata Gorge. Dimiter found two birds at his site so after a quick search of Bolata we went over to Balchik to twitch one of his birds. 

As we were in Balchik we decided to do an hour or so at the raptor viewpoint despite the unfavourable wind. Not a lot was going on - a couple of Lesser Spotted Eagles, a Short-toed Eagle and a couple of Montagu's Harriers were the highlights.

We then stopped off for a proper coffee at Kavarna (and picked up Pallid Swift) and then visited a staging site for Stone Curlews- 16 of them in a flock! 

After a break during the heat of the day we spent the evening around the village and the wood. The rather strong wind did us a favour and concentrated birds on the south side of the wood. We had a surprising five species of woodpecker in the wood- Lesser, Middle and Great Spotted, Green and Syrian. Also good numbers of Red breasted Flys, a few Spotted Flys and a nice showy juv Hobby with a juv Montagu's Harrier hawking over the nearby fields. Full list HERE

Live trip report HERE - just over 100 species yet which indicates how slow going it is- although a bad few days here are still pretty darn good!

Middle Spotted Woodpecker (above and below)- a first for the project Ebird hotspot

Stone Curlew

Whinchat- one of two near the wood, surprisingly the first ones of the trip.

Juv Night Heron at Bolata

The daily Red-breasted Fly pic- they are literally everywhere as usual

Willow Warbler- a few around and finally had our first Chiffchaff of the trip

Spot the Eagle Owl 

Bulgaria September 2025, Day Two

Yesterday we started off doing the moths and then headed to Cape Kaliakra HERE where we met up with Dimiter and his group. On the way to Kamen Bryag we stopped off at Sveti Nikola  HERE to look for the resident Laughing Doves and then spent the evening at Kamen Bryag doing the village and Steppe HERE.

Highlights today included a Laughing Dove at the grain store (finally caught up with these birds), a Wood Warbler in our neighbours garden, a couple of Levant Sparrowhawks, Montagu's Harrier on the village steppe and about 30 Red-backed Shrike in the village. Wood Warbler was new for our project Ebird hotspot HERE

At mid-day we met up with the rather lovely Alex who we are buying a caravan off to sort out the logistics of that. She showed us a secret way down to the beach down the cliffs nearby too which was handy. 

There's a moderate north east wind blowing which is never great for migration out here (westerlies are better). Apparantely the wind has been persistent for weeks and it's been dry too resulting in not a great autumn migration round here this year so far. 

Laughing Dove at Sveti Nikola grain store. Only took us a year to see one of these resident breeding birds.

Pied Wheatear at the Cape- quite a pale one, maybe a juvenile male. One for the Cape Kaliakra Pied Wheatear collection HERE

Hobby at the Cape

Red-breasted Flycatchers are prominent but haven't seen a single Ficedula flycatcher and just a few Spot Flys. Also no Whinchats and just a few Redstarts. Overall it's pretty quiet- we only had 28 species on Cape Kaliakra which I think has to be a record low.

Lesser Whitethroat is the most prominent warbler at the moment with a few Blackcaps and Whitethroats and very few Willow Warblers and not a single Chiffchaff yet

Syrian Woodpecker- we've got Syrian, Great and Lesser Spot and Green in the village

The moth traps (MV and the Lepiled) have been pretty busy. A couple of highlights include this unidentified rather distinctive moth (above) and what looks something along the lines of Gold-banded Etiella Moth (below). Will sort out the identifications properly on the I-Nat project HERE 

The new local spot down the cliffs to the beach 

Bulgaria, September 2025, Day One

Kojak and I are back in Bulgaria dealing with dodgy car hire companies and enjoying Eastern flyway migration.

We started the day off at Cape Kaliakra HERE and then did a bit on the project plot HERE and then in the evening we did Shabla Tusla HERE. Highlights including five Montagu's Harriers, hundreds of Bee-eaters, Levant Sparrowhawk, Sardinian Warbler, Pied Wheatears and a nice flock of 20 Turtle Doves on the wires just outside the village. 

Got both the MV light and the Lepiled up at the wildlife plot tonight so interested to see what moths we get in the morning. 

We have a meeting with Alex tomorrow to sort out the purchase and installation of our plot accommadation- a nice little caravan that we will do a nice makeover on. 

As usual good to be back. Background to this project HERE. 

Juvenile Bee-eater. We had about 85 at the Cape and over 60 around the village plus birds on wires between the sites we visited too 

Juvenile Montagu's Harrier- stunner! Also had a single male bird flying around the Cape

Juvenile Levant Sparrowhawk 

Juvenile Red-backed Shrike- about 10 of these at the Cape this morning 

Juvenile Bee-eater and Red-backed Shrike (above) and adult Bee-eater (below)

Turtle Doves on the wires

Juvenile Pied Wheatear

We spent some of the afternoon finishing off the wildlife pond and topping up the water levels. There has been a drought here this summer and our pond had almost evaporated. Water levels were very low at Shabla Tsula lake too with the waders concentrated in damp mud at the far end of the salt lake

A bit of a kick

An Atlantic storm went through yesterday and seems to have whipped up things a bit round here. At Selsey Bill this morning there was a Long-tailed Skua, a few Arctic Skuas, a Sooty and two Mediterranean Shearwaters- I managed to connect with the Sooty which is a Peninsula tick- now on 194 locally and 175 for the year. The Peninsula year list is now on a record breaking 207 with Bart, the top local lister, having seen 198 of them which is pretty incredible. 

After the Bill I joined Ian and Andrew at Church Norton where we had a Osprey and three Spoonbill and there were also three Spotted Flycatchers behind the hide.  

All of todays news from the Peninsula as usual on the blog: HERE

Spoonbill

Osprey

Juv Arctic Skua (above and below)

Spotted Flycatchers

This rather lanky Knot got us scratching our heads for a bit this morning 

Convolvulus Hawkmoths

Another day stuck in the family-industrial-military complex today but luckily there was a bit more action in the moth trap this morning with 3 Convolvulus Hawkmoths- the first this year. Holly found the first one last night feeding on the Nicotiana which we planted especially for this species, so great to see the plan worked. There were 10 at Portland the same night so some kind of regional influx. 

Supporting cast included 4 Scarce Bordered Straw, Dark Sword Grass, Small Mottled Willow, Delicate, Rush Veneers, Portand Ribbon Waves, Olive-tree Pearl, Corn Borers, Four-spotted Footmans, Kent Black Arches, Angle Shades and another Ni-moth (the third this year).  

Following some recent dissection results and recent records the garden moth list is now on 619 and the year list on 539. 

Schools are back next week and I'm off to Bulgaria with Kojak to carry on with our project out there.

Day in the field

Despite having a lot of work to do,  I needed to get a proper local birding session in, as it's been far too long- so I decided that being irresponsible was necessary and headed off into the field. I started off at Mill Lane Marsh and then walked from Halsey Farm to Pagham Spit and back. An impressive 86 species of over 1200 individuals in 3 hour 45 minutes, Ebird list HERE.

Highlights included a juv Black Tern and two Little Terns, two Spotted Redshank, Greenshank and Green Sandpipers, adult male Redstart, five Wheatears, Hobby and Peregrine and a bit of a mid-autumn feel with 4 Wigeon and a Pintail. 

Sandwich Terns, Common Tern and juv Black Tern (all above) 

Juv Little Tern

Adult Spotted Redshank

Wigeon- from what I can work out this is an adult female based on the covert pattern (see below, from Reber). The greater covert tips look like C/D which is either adult female or juvenile male but there doesn't appear to be enough white in the median and lesser coverts for a male. The rusty tinge to the head and upperparts also supports a bright adult female.    

Male eclipse Pintail 

Juv Cattle Egret

The head-started Curlew complete with project bling

Juv Black-tailed Godwit

First-winter Willow Warbler

First-winter Wheatear

More Sandwich Terns and a Common Tern 

Awesome duo- Clifden Nonpariel and Striped Hawkmoth

Doesn't get much better than these two in the same trap. 

Also 2 Scarce-bordered Straws, 7 Rush Veneer, 3 Rusty-dots, Olive-tree Pearl, Dark Sword Grass, 2 Four-spotted Footman and 7 Portland Ribbon wave last night.