More winter birds in my village

It's back to Libyan matters tomorrow but today is the third and final blog about my village birds in Bulgaria.


On my walks within my village over three days at New Year, there were plenty more birds other than the woodpeckers and finches already blogged.

Two birds were present in quite large flocks in the fields. These were starling and fieldfare.  The latter (and possibly some of the former) is a wintering bird escaping the cold further north.  

starling

The flock sizes of starling were admitted much smaller than the huge flocks in northern Libya at the moment but the birds seemed more approachable. 

fieldfare, village north of Varna

The fieldfare on the other hand were not very approachable.  They were very flighty especially when on the ground.

There were two types of tit around in the woodland. I think great tit was the more common but there were also quite a few blue tit.

blue tit, village north of Varna

The blue tit seemed to be flocking while the great tit did not. I don't know whether that tells me anything about their residency. I'll have to wait for the summer to find that out.

great tit, village north of Varna

The crow family was represented by two loud birds - jay and magpie. There was also clear evidence of last year's magpie nests.

jay, village north of Varna

There was no sign of any hooded crow or rooks (which are very common elsewhere in Bulgaria in winter).

magpie, village north of Varna

I was surprised to see two birds of prey right close to a settlement. There were three or four common buzzard and a single hen harrier (not pictured) on the edge of the village. 

It's only the number of birds of prey (along with the Syrian woodpecker - blogged a couple of days ago) which separate my birding with that which can be found in Britain at the same time of year!  

common buzzard, village north of Varna

Three other birds were seen which weren't photographed - robin, wren and blackbird.

The final picture of my Bulgarian holiday was not taken in my village nor by me but was taken by my friend Joseph Stec when we were visiting Varna city centre. 

yellow-legged gull, Varna city centre by Joseph Stec

The yellow legged gull is very tame there and it was too good an opportunity to pass up.