Bulgaria - the start

Where to start? I’ve just been on a four day trip to Bulgaria, and I’ve been blown away by both quantity and quality. Unless you’ve been there, or you birded in the UK in the late 1890’s, you will have no concept of what the birding there is like. Nightingales seemingly outnumber Robins by about 1000 to 1, Shrikes are common birds, Golden Orioles live in towns, and Bee-eaters are a familiar sight. If you step outside you are assaulted by a wave of sound – “Prruuuk” intermingles with the screams of Swifts, the chattering of Swallows, the fluting of Orioles, and Marsh Warblers add a background of seemingly everything else. If you have not been, you need to. Mind-blowing birding.

I could do a trip report I suppose, but I’ll leave that to Bradders, it’s more his thing. I’m just going to do my usual day by day roundup, and slap a load of photos up. And I mean a load. Although the trip was a birding trip, I can never resist pointing a lens at things, and when Dick’s head wasn’t in the way, or Mo’s elbow in my face (cheers guys!), I did manage to fire off a few shots, some of which please me a great deal. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn’t be doing more of this, but it seems that it’s extremely difficult to actually make a living doing so, and so for now I remain in Canary Wharf, living the dream. And to think I have more Pine Grosbeak photos as well....

This was a four day trip, although it required a day travelling – with the terribly-named Wizzair, with their fetching pinky-mauve planes. At least it wasn’t Wizz-bang-Air I suppose, and the fact that I am typing this suggests that they succeeded in their primary task which was getting me there and back in one piece. This they did, though in truth I cannot recommend them as the spacing between the seats is such that you need to amputate your legs at the knee in order to experience anything like comfort, and it’s a three hour flight. Oh hang on, this is sounding like a trip report.....

Anyway, the dream team of Mo, Dick, Bradders jr and I arrived and were met at the airport by Dancho, our amiable and knowledgeable guide/driver/translator. And beer purchaser. A word at this point to the uninitiated; Bulgarian been is extremely good, and extremely cheap. And, as we found out, extremely abundant. People with less self-control than I could have quickly and easily reached the “three sheets to the wind” stage with no visible damage to their wallets. The damage to early morning birding would have been irreparable though, so I made sure to keep within my limits. Although I am very very young, far too young to talk about ageing, I have to say that this year I have begun to notice the adverse affects of alcohol far more. It could be that I am drinking far more, but I can’t really remember. Certainly the urge to reach for the corkscrew is much higher now that I am working again. Still no varifocals though, so I can’t really complain.

Where was I? Bulgaria, and the airport? And Dancho. Yes, that’s it. Dancho was our guide, via a company called Neophron, which is the tourism arm of the BSPB. We wouldn’t usually use a guide, but they were highly recommended (and we now know why!), and Bulgaria with it’s Cyrillic alphabet seemed sufficiently foreign (for want of a better word) to warrant it. So we opted for a tour, complete with minibus, hotels, food, and Dancho. At the risk of straying into trip report territory, this cost approximately 80 quid a day. Under our own steam, we likely could have done this cheaper, but to save what? 30 quid a day, 20? Neophron made it easy, stress-free (apart from Dave’s exposure compensation issues), and without a doubt got us birds that we could not have got by ourselves, so an excellent decision.

So, dump cases at hotel, retrieve optics, go birding on the shore of the Black Sea in the remaining light, and see Bee-eaters almost immediately. Here is one. Even if you only read this blog for domestic tips and dietary information, you cannot fail to be impressed with Bee-eaters. OK, so a few of the East London massive managed to twitch one in Norfolk this weekend, and well done them, but they had to drive for hours to see a miserable-looking bird sitting on a wire, depressed at its massive screw-up and wondering where all its friends were. Meanwhile I enjoyed multiple Bee-eaters at point blank range, flying over my head calling constantly. This is what birding abroad gets you, would that I could do it more frequently!

Some time ago I set up a photo website as I realised that without one the blog might just become a series of photos. That’s probably happened anyway, but in an effort to at least retain some semblance of writing, I’m going to try and keep it on the light side (yeah right - Ed.). So if you want to see more photos of Bee-eaters, please visit Justbirdphotos.com, where I have put a selection up. There is no obligation to purchase, but if just 100,000 of you do, I can leave Canary Wharf forever. Just think how much more blogging I could do? Hopefully that’s compelling. Errr......

We also saw this.....more later.

Failure and Reflection

On Sunday, I was definitely going out birding. Definitely. After being stuck indoors all on Saturday, I was going out, end of. I woke up just before nine, and looked out of the window. A bit grey. Hmm. I was out by ten, but only as far as the car - destination Southend Pier to take lots of point blank photographs of Turnstones and stuff. By 10:30 I had got as far as Pitsea, by which time it was greyer still and raining. I abandoned the Southend Plan, and instead went shopping for outdoor gear that would be ideal in this kind of weather, and which is, as I type, still lying in a bag on my bed, as outside the rain lashes against the window and I feel nothing but happiness that I am inside, dry and warm.

I love buying outdoor stuff, I just go through periods when I have little or no inclination to go outdoors and actually use it. I'm in the middle of one right now, though the end of it is surely less than a few weeks away. Typically today has been nice and sunny again. I did look out of the window a couple of times and wish for my old life back, but then the phone rang or something and I had to get back to it. So instead of actual birding, let's just reflect on a couple of favourite moments from this past year. Yup, you got it, a filler, pure and simple. Usually I do this in one post on the cusp of the New Year; this year I may not get time, so perhaps best to spread it out a bit...

It has been a struggle to know what has been my favourite bird this year. There have been more than a few candidates: the magical moment as Bradders, Nick and I stood underneath the tangle of branches in Lower Moors looking up a Black-and-white Warbler mere feet away, it has to be said that was pretty special. We had come over for a Green Sandpiper lookalike, never dreaming that instead we would gazing at one of my favourite of all American wood warblers. Then, on the same island a few weeks later, the hectic sprint from Higgo's Project Pool to Shooters Pool, followed by twenty minutes of lapping up a Northern Waterthrush in the company of perhaps three other people. That too will live long in the memory. They might both be rare, but can they compete with rounding a corner to find a couple of guys looking over an old stone wall. What'ya looking at? Oh, just a Bee-eater. There is no such thing as just a Bee-eater. A Bee-eater!!!! And there it was, not an invisible call, not a distant flight view, not a soggy miserable-looking bird on a wire, but a glorious riot of colour sat in bright sunshine in a bare sapling about twenty feet away. A bird I had wanted to see for simply ages, falling in the best possible of circumstances. Utterly superb, but can it be trumped?

It can, by a far commoner bird, and another I had wanted to see for ages. Years, in fact. A bird which had dragged me down to Cornwall many times, but with which I had never connected. A bird which I had just seen six of, but distantly, and a bird which I thought probably only occured distantly. Then a shout from along the Lighthouse wall. "Cory's in the close Manx line!....coming over right rock....now!" And by golly it did, and by golly it was magnificent. None of this lolloping, lazy bowed-wing flight jizz, instead a Cory's that was serioulsy motoring. Dwarfing the Maxies, it absolutely sped past, leaving me and the rest of the crowd at Pendeen that day enthralled. God only knows quite how much I like sea-watching, and though I never spurn opportunities to mention Fea's Petrels, this was right up there..... but better. What a bird! What. A. Bird. In case I have not been clear, WHAT A BIRD!! If I had to vote for just one of these four top birding experiences, top moments of complete elation, I would have to hand it to that Cory's Shearwater. It, of course, has no idea quite how happy it made me, nor quite how often I think about it, wonder where in the vast ocean it now is, where it has been, and where it will go.

One of my better birding decisions...

I spent most of last week convicing Bradders that Cornwall was the place to be at the weekend. He wasn't sure. It was a long way, he said. He was perhaps up for it, but he had to be absolutely certain that it offered the best possible birding. Eventually I managed to twist his arm and he agreed that maybe, just maybe, it looked OK. I joked that maybe we should do a day-trip to Scilly. Perhaps, he said. I attempted to get Hawky along too, but a Solitary Sandpiper, eight Buff-breasted Sandpipers, a Semipalmated Sandpiper, a Lesser Yellowlegs, four Pectoral Sandpipers, a Long-billed Dowitcher, a Red-eyed Vireo, a Bee-eater, a Citrine Wagtail, and Ortolan Bunting, three Black Kites and a couple of Wrynecks wasn't quite good enough to get the juices flowing so he opted out. I can see why. Nick C needed no convincing, the possibility of about fifteen ticks and no trains swung it for him.

Stood in my kitchen at 8pm on Friday night, news of a probable Northern Waterthrush on St Mary's started to get Bradders excited.... Finally! We picked Nick up and a few [hundred] minutes later we arrived at Hayle, our luxury accomodation for what remained of the night. We did not sleep well. In fact we hardly ever do when we go down to the south-west, so we knew what to expect. We started the morning at Drift, and managed to dip one of our first targets, the Semipalmated Sandpiper. Meanwhile news came out that both the Solitary Sandpiper and the now confirmed Waterthrush were still on the island. Nothing for it, we had to go, so leaving Drift we headed for the quayside at St Mary's.

I have mixed emotions about the Scillonian III. I've been on it only once, but for fourteen hours in a force seven gale. I lost the entire contents of my stomach several time over, and was somewhat miserable. Many is the time I've been sat seawatching at Porthgwarra and seen the Scillonian go past, wallowing, rolling, pitching. Each and everytime I have thanked my lucky stars that I wasn't on it. At Penzance, a stiff breeze was blowing. Force six. Nice.

As it happened, and I have no idea why really, it was fine. In fact of all of us, it was only DB who turned a slight shade of green momentarily, and he was back to normal after a short sit-down. News of a Black-and-White Warbler at Lower Moors, exactly where we were heading, seemed to perk him up a bit for some reason. The pitching of the ship no longer had any effect after that, and the Scillies were soon visible on the horizon. We were late in due to the heavy weather, but a taxi, pre-booked in an act of genius, was waiting for us on the quay. To the Duckpond, we commanded!!

All week long, taxis have been plying the route from Hughtown to Newford Duckpond. Passengers have glanced out of the window at the Solitary Sandpiper, and been driven back to Hughtown. Not us. It wasn't there. Like the SemiP we hadn't seen, it had been parading at point blank range for all-comers, and we arrive and it does a runner. Not good. For those of you that don't know, Newford Duckpond is the size of a large bath. You can survey it in totality in about 0.2 seconds. We spent fifteen whole minutes and failed miserably.

Meanwhile the Black-and-White Warbler was still present. It would have been rude not to, so we headed for Lower Moors. Lower Moors is a tangle of dense and muddy undergrowth, with deep boggy bits for the unwary. Turned out I was unwary.....  We missed it first by about twenty minutes in one bit, by about five minutes in another, and then by a mere two in another. A hour had passed and we were no closer to seeing when a loud shout rang out. "It's here!", followed by loud clapping to direct us to the spot. I can tell you now that not one person objected in any way to this use of fieldcraft, it was absolutely the right thing to do. Bradders had found it, and we all got on it! And not only on it, it fed over our heads, climbed trunks by our ears, and hovered next to my nose. What a bloody brilliant bird, and I mean brilliant. Of all the American Wood Warblers that I would want to see in this country, only Blackburnian really gets a look-in. Other than that, Black-and-White all the way. We enjoyed magnificent views for a few minutes before it moved through into an area we truly couldn't penetrate. On cloud nine ten eleven we struggled to the exit and the light, and headed back to Newford. We could have attempted the Waterthrush, but it had been seen for thirty seconds at first light and not since, so we opted to give the Solitary Sandpiper another crack. As we headed up the road, news came through that it was back on the pond, and also that the Bee-eater had been seen. Ears open, we yomped up there hoping for a "prrrukkk" and at best distant flight views.

As it happened we never did hear it call, a real shame. Possibly it didn't call as it wasn't flying around, but was instead perched on a twig about thirty metres from the road. We rounded a corner, saw a couple of birders staring into a field, and there, by the grace of all that is good and turquoise in this world, there it was. Magnificent! Forget the fact that it isn't really rare, forget the fact that a yank mega was just down the road, with another just up the road. Trumped the lot, and I mean the lot. If I ever look sad, down in the dumps, miserable, just say "Bee-eater" to me. My countenance will change instantly, and a dreamy look will come over my face. Wow.

Reluctantly we walked the short distance to the Duckpond, but once again the Solitary Sandpiper was being, well, solitary, and despite having shown only minutes before, was once again nowhere to be seen. We devoted our remaining time to the pond, hoping it would suddenly emerge, but it didn't happen. The bird responsible in part for the trip down to the southwest, the bird we assumed would be easy, a gimme, and we never saw it. Our cab arrived and we were amongst the last people to get on the boat. I had a short kip, and woke up to find the lads seawatching. Pretty good actually, a handful of Sooties and a Grey Phal kept the interest up. Penzance YHA, and we almost too tired to celebrate our good fortune. A memorable day. Anyone moaning that they missed the Waterthrush needs a good kicking in my opinion. With under four hours on the island for day-trippers (£30 as opposed to £90 PLUS two nights accomodation) there is a limit on what you can do. Shame we didn't see the Solitary, nor have any time for the Buff-breasted Sandpipers, Dotterel, Shrikes and Wrynecks, but you can't see them all. Somebody once told me to spend time thinking about what you did see, rather than what you didn't see. Sage advice, and if you had offered me a Black-and-White Warbler and a Bee-eater on Saturday morning before I got on the boat I would have bitten your hand off in my eagerness to accept. Simply amazing to even have the chance, and I am as chuffed as they come.

Tune in later for what we did on Sunday. It's good. Very good.