Bulgaria ~ May '19

This trip was from Sofia airport on Thursday 16th and back on Sunday 19th with the original plan of some alpine birding around Maljovista but the weather put pay to that, so we followed the better weather conditions and started towards the Plains and Steppe around Pazardzdik ..

Black-headed Bunting

Red-backed Shrike


Hotel for the night was Villa Santa Maria at Batak overlooking the lake with great views at sunrise 

We then drove up towards Dospat highest point at only 1,600m but finding Ring Ouzel, Firecrest and Crested Tit, back to the hotel for breakfast ..

Firecrest

Firecrest

Firecrest

Crag Martin


Aldomirvtsi Marsh and Dragoman Marsh were other locations which produced some good birding ..

Stonechat

Black-headed Bunting

Great Reed Warbler

Red-backed Shrike

Black-headed Wagtail 

Black-headed Wagtail

Stonechat

Savi's Warbler

Savi's Warbler


And Sunday morning was from a hide with Traventuria this is there link ..

Sofia bird Hide

Tree Sparrow

Sombre Tit

Tree Sparrow

Tree Sparrow

Tree Sparrow

Tree Sparrow


Due to the recent rain there was plenty of water about for drinking so we only had 4 species come in to the pool hide but this has the potential to be good but with a limited light window due to its orientation facing south ..

This trip was a month later than last year and the bird photography was a lot more difficult probably due to this ..