Eurotrip 2019- Day Eleven: Arrive on the Flyway!

We have finally reached our destination (F##k Greta Thunberg- I'm flying next time, the grief to drive here has been something else and we are £2000 down especially after not having the VC5 and had to hire another vehicle and all the additional hotels etc)  

Anyway the purpose of this trip is mainly to set up a migration recording project in this area, hopefully to buy some land and set up a small observatory and nature reserve- basically a little holiday home for a naturalist. Will see how we get on. We made an offer on some land in November but it wasn't accepted so might need to view some new plots and options. 

So we got through border control and got our vignette (road tax) and  arrived in the vicinity of Cape Kaliakra at about 2pm and after setting up base in a guesthouse at Balgarevo and getting supplies I managed a couple of hours on the edge of the village. Ebird list HERE. Basically there are birds everywhere. A very interesting west to east passage of Golden Orioles (about 25) with several coming into roost in the trees along the main road. A brisk easterly wind blowing and clear skies- this place must be dripping in birds during fall conditions because it was busy today in clear skies. Be interesting to see the daily variation over the next two weeks. 

 Adult male Eastern Black-eared or Pied Wheatear- notoriously difficult to identify. They struck me as Pieds when I first saw them but  but currently seeking opinions on social media. 

 First-winter male Eastern Black-eared or Pied Wheatear 

 Juvenile.First-winter Red-backed Shrike 

 Juvenile Levant Sparrowhawk 

 Migrating Short-toed Larks 

 One of 25+ Golden Orioles moving west to east this evening 

View over to Cape Kaliakra- the migrants are spread out right across the coastline in this region. Will be interesting to visit the Cape tomorrow to see if the density is more concentrated there. The Cape is  a very similar configuration to Spurn or Portland.

Eurotrip 2019, Day Ten - Stuck !

We spent today working out how to get across the border to Bulgaria while waiting for the VC5 document for the campervan (which has now been sent to Dimiter and should arrive in 3-4 days time). Mangalia is a nightmare place to be stuck, its a concrete jungle and didn't want to waste a week here. So we have hired a car for a few days and to get it across the border we needed a Power of Attorney over the car, full responsibility for any repairs and recovery while in Bulgaria and original copies of the insurance and registration document. After spending most of the day sorting that out we then had to leave the campervan outside the car rental place, book a guesthouse in Bulgaria (because the tent and our luggage wouldn't fit in the rental car) and then went back to our dodgy hotel in Magnalia for the night ready to attempt a border break tomorrow.

Stacks (thousands) of Little Gulls on the lakes in this area and did a bit of sea watching from the hotel window (although the hotel got complaints about surveillance equipment from the businesses opposite!). More Little Gulls at sea, Med Gulls, Sandwich and Common Terns, 2 Ruff and a Shag was the highlights. Also Hobby flying around and a few House Martins and Swallows. 

Scarce Bordered Straw moth in the hotel corridor. 

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. 

Eurotrip 2019, Day Five- Northern Romania

Today was a social/ work visit. A few of the guys that work at Little Oak come from Romania and they go back home in the summer to visit the family. As we were passing through the area they live, we stopped off to visit Miki, Florin and George. 

It was an interesting day and fascinating to see things from the other side of the coin. Back in the UK a lot of conversation (the main issue underpinning Brexit) is focused around over population, too much immigration, too much focus on economy and too much pressure on the environment and ecology.

In Romania, the conversation is almost the opposite. There is a major brain drain occurring, a de-population in some areas, few job opportunities and re-wilding occurring over large areas as farmland is abandoned. In the community/ family we visited, all the young generation work in Western Europe (France, UK , Italy and Germany) and only some parents and grand parents remain in the village. Most houses are empty and land abandoned for most of the year. 

We enjoyed a feast of local food, produced on the parents/grand parents small holdings. The land to the back of the house was producing corn, legumes, tomatoes, plums, proper free range chickens (eggs), goat and sheep (milk and mutton), pigs, turkeys, guineafowl and they also had a horse. Unfortunately it was a social so I couldn't have a proper look at the many butterflies flitting around and I only managed to see Red-backed Shrike in between eating, drinking moonshine and chatting but the habitat looked good and there was lots of re-wilded areas across the whole area. 

It was a strange contrast/ paradox , almost the eco-Marxist fantasy of the founders of Extinction Rebellion (but not vegan) but founded inadvertently from an exodus to the Capitalist west. Pure irony and does beg the question about nature conservation at the Western Palearctic level and where best to spend money and resources in preserving the ecological diversity of this biozone and where best to pursue the development of modern world eco-centric communities where in this part of the world they are naturally evolving. 

View over the Maramures region- described in the Lonely Planet as the best preserved Peasant Society in Europe. 

Miki and Florin. We had a tour of the village and the brothers described life growing up on the self sufficient small holdings. They summed up the self sustainable life as working all day from 6am to the evening, busy all day with different skilled tasks such as animal husbandry, fruit growing, farming, building and forestry and not making any money at all. The hard work was simply to feed themselves and their family. By working in Western Europe and sending money back home they can develop the small holdings (replace the old farm houses with modern houses) and plan to retire back home later. 

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). 

Counter Terrorism Report on Extinction Rebellion

Interesting report by the think tank Policy Exchange on the ideology, structures and tactics of Extinction Rebellion.
HERE

Interesting how this report describes activity such as local business, individual empowerment, local community political power, local food production, autonomy and self reliance as potential terrorism and extremist thinking.

Tyranny is creeping up on us all propelled by the polarisation and conflict between indeed some of the unreasonable/extremist elements behind XR ideology vs extremist fundamental Capitalism/ the Corpocracy-Government axis.

Climate and Ecological Emergency declared in the London Borough of Sutton

I forgot to add some links about this on this blog. An incredible achievement by Sutton Extinction Rebellion. The council tried to block the 2030 declaration for a climate and ecological emergency through recommendations in the officers report. However a local councillor (Shields/Crowley?) called for an amendment that was accepted by the committee, an amendment that called for a yes or no on the petition and a climate and ecological emergency rather than just a climate emergency. The vote carried the motion and the petition request forward so setting a zero carbon target for Sutton by 2030 and declaring a climate and ecological emergency. However the council were not expecting a rebellion agaisnt the planning officer's recommendations in the petition part of the meeting so another agenda item on the meeting was declaring a climate emergency (no mention of ecology) with a zero carbon target by 2045 which was also voted for so in effect they have set two targets a 2030 one for climate and ecology and a 2045 one. Incredible stuff and a well manoeuvred move that out flanked the planning officers. It basically means we have an undisputed ecological emergency declared to be addressed by 2030!