News, Early autumn migration tour

20.09.2010

Early autumn migration tour

The tour ended up with 170 bird species as well as 32 species of butterflies!

Early autumn migration tour
White pelicans over
Atanasovsko lake (Lake A).

I had the pleasure to guide a birding tour for a private group during the first week of September, focused on the autumn migration along the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, in particular the Burgas wetlands. It was a one base holiday, on relaxing pace, friendly atmosphere and of course British humor. A wonderful week! 

Despite the relaxing pace we managed to see a total of 168 bird species, plus 2 heard. The checklist attached gives you all the details of what we saw (not all the species were seen by all the participants). The migration was a bit slow in general, but we had excellent moments with 80 + Marsh Sandpipers in a day (my favorite birding experience during the tour, in fact I have never seen a bigger number in a day! ), including a compact group of 37 birds together, 4,000 + White Storks, 1,000 + White Pelicans, 25 Stone Curlews, 150 Glossy Ibises, 50 + Purple Herons, as well as single birds such a Thrush Nightingale, Red-breasted Flycatcher, Terek Sandpiper, 4 Broad-billed Sandpipers, Arctic Skua, Montagu’s Harrier and Levant Sparrowhawk. Local breeders also did very well, including White-backed Woodpecker, about 10 Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers, Hawfinch, Sombre Tit, White-tailed Sea Eagle and many more.

Despite late in the season, we have reached 32 species of butterflies, including fresh Map Butterflies, both Swallowtails, Grecian and Small Coppers and Spotted Fritillaries. Rarities included Lattice Brown, Woodland and Balkan Grayling!

The full checklist can be found here.