Bourgas Lakes

One day out of mine and Paul Bowden's week long tour of eastern Bulgaria was allocated to a visit to the Bourgas Lakes.


Like Srebarna they are often on the itinerary of birding tours. While both Lake Srebarna and the Bourgas Lakes are wetlands their bird life is substantially different.


Lake Srebarna is visited by some more northerly species but the Bourgas Lakes are close to the sea and coastal birds are seen. They are also on a major passage route called Via Pontica making viewing especially interesting during the passage seasons.


We visited two of the Bourgas Lakes. The first was Pomorie. It is north of Bourgas and is essentially a salt pan with salinity similar or even higher than the sea. 


The second lake we visited was Lake Mandra. This is south of Bourgas. Although it is separated from the sea by only sand banks in places, it is less saline than the sea and attracts both coastal and fresh water species.

black winged stilt at Pomorie

We visited Pomorie in late morning and again in the evening on the way back. We saw Lake Mandra in the afternoon.

Before I continue please don't expect me to write-up  every bird seen at Bourgas (just as I haven't on the other blogs on our week's tour). I aim to give a flavour. For those keen on more detail, a trip report itemising all species seen will follow later.

Looking into Pomorie wetlands

There is no doubt Pomorie is a good place to see coastal birds. 

sandwich tern at Pomorie

Since Pomorie is a coastal site it was no surprise that most of the terns were sterna rather than marsh terns.  The largest group were clearly sandwich tern and it looks like it was a breeding colony. The Collins guide map only has this place as a passage venue for this bird which looks incorrect.

mostly black headed gull

There were plenty of yellow legged gull and black headed gull as expected. A close look at the groups of black headed gull disclosed that there were also a small number of Mediterranean gull and at least a dozen or more little gull. The presence of a little gull was one of the many indications we had there that the passage had already reached this far south for some northern breeding sea birds and waders.

one of the curlew sandpiper at Pomorie

A classic example of a passage bird from the north is curlew sandpiper. At first we saw three of these birds which breed in Arctic Siberia. All had mostly chocolate-coloured summer plumage beginning to moult. Then we saw a much larger number so they weren't a fluke!

two wood sandpiper and a little stint 

All the other main sandpipers (except marsh sandpiper) were seen - green sandpiper, common sandpiper and wood sandpiper. There were arguably more of the latter. There were one or two little stint already on passage and still in essentially summer plumage. The one above is in deeper water than usual for a little stint but is clearly not a sanderling based on size comparison with the wood sandpiper alone. Sanderling is about the same size as wood sandpiper but  little stint is much smaller.

another wood sandpiper at Pomorie

There were also plenty of tringa waders - greenshank and redshank. The latter are not necessarily passage birds.  I even used to see them breeding as far south as Benghazi in Libya! We didn't see any spotted redshank. Presumably it was just a little early for them.

ruff, reeves and one redshank

A large number of both male and female ruff were on passage. Some of the males hadn't completely lost their summer ruffs.

avocet and black winged stilt

We saw both avocet and its cousin the black winged stilt. Silts certainly breed locally and it is possible avocet does too. We saw two or three occasions where there appeared to be clashes between these two birds for reasons we didn't understand.

common shelduck

The only duck on these saline pans at this time were common shelduck.

yellow wagtail

Finally concerning Pomorie, I was surprised that feldegg yellow wagtail could tolerate such salty conditions but there were several in places. I assume the salinity isn't uniform because reeds were growing in the same areas.

The second area visited was Lake Mandra. We viewed this lake by walking out along the walk leading from the Poda Information Centre. The centre was very informative about the birds and wildlife of the area. It was however extremely difficult to find! 

cormorant nests

One of the most obvious sights as soon as you leave the Centre is the very large number of cormorant and pygmy cormorant. The cormorant seem very fond of using electricity pylons for colonial nesting sites. One series of pylons which runs straight through the reserve has no  electricity wires. I wonder if they were put up specifically for the cormorants. More likely they re-routed the pylons and left the ones in place with no electricity!

yellow legged gull under a cormorant colony

Under one such pylon we saw a yellow legged gull waiting for at least an hour for some nefarious opportunity.

The walk has two bird hides. One is a little rickety but also provides the better views! 

Near the second hide we were told we were likely to see a collection of different water species. Our informant from the information centre was right.

several species including spoonbill

Although facing into the sun we could see cormorant, spoonbill, little egret and various waders including greenshank.  I wonder what the attraction of that particular spot is given how large the whole reserve is? 

On the left of the Poda Information Centre's walk is the lake but on the right hand side is the sea. The sea shore hosts many different birds from the lake.

As I turned to face the sea from the path I was met by a little ringed plover only a few feet away. 

little ringed plover

Certainly more tame than many I have come across before. Perhaps it was one of the local breeders.

oystercatcher, northern lapwing and sandpipers

There was a mixed group of oystercatcher and northern lapwing foraging on the sea shore. Moving in and out of the group were different sandpipers and  little ringed plover. 

Even with our short stop at Lake Mandra I well believe the fact that more species have been observed here than at the other lakes. Its well worth a much longer visit when I get time. All our trips during the birding tour week were day trips so time spent at places as far away as Lake Mandra were necessarily short.

Lake Mandra has other biodiversity too. Paul has an interest in butterflies, moths, dragonflies and damselflies as well as birds. I joined in the fun and photographed a scarlet darter below.

scarlet darter at Bourgas

This has reminded me I took a picture of a butterfly at Lake Srebarna I identified as a health fritillary which I am belatedly adding into this blog. I could get into this!

heath fritillary at Srebarna

In the next blog I will write about some of the shorter trips we made in my more immediate area. Two sets of eyes are better than one and I saw significantly more than I had managed alone.

Spoonbill steal the show at Wadi Kaam

The dynamic trio of Ibrahim, Andy and Helen visited Wadi Kaam - 130 kilometres east of Tripoli) again last Saturday. I really wish I had been with them.  They met a flock of about 30 spoonbill!


I've checked the four UN winter wetland count surveys that I have copies of and they have never reported the bird there.

close up of some of the spoonbill at Wadi Kaam by Ibrahim Madi

The flock is the average size of those who migrate and I suspect strongly that they are nearly ready to do this.

distance shot showing most of the flock by Ibrahim Madi

I featured spoonbill in my blog of September 23rd. I wrote then that about one in three of central and eastern Europe's spoonbills probably winter in Libya. Though most migratory information is of Dutch birds which mostly winter in Morocco.

Grey heron were present at Wadi Kaam too.

kingfisher at Wadi Kaam by Ibrahim Madi

Some other winter visitors are still around including the kingfisher above and the meadow pipit below.

meadow pipit at Wadi Kaam by Ibrahim Madi

Ibrahim is proving that he is a mean photographer since he got his new camera. Stonechat are common birds but very difficult to photograph because of their small size. This picture is also on the Libyan Bird Watching facebook page.

stonechat by Ibrahim Madi

Spring is starting to arrive at least if the number of barn swallow in northern Libya are taken into consideration. Simultaneously we me seeing many in Cyrenica, plenty were seen in and near Wadi Kaam.

barn swallow near Wadi Kaam in early February by Ibrahim Madi

There is a large breeding population at the Roman ruins at Leptis Magna (close to Wadi Kaam) which leave at the end of October and return in early February. This is not up to Benghazi standards when plenty over-winter but it is very short time to be away compared with most European venues.

common redstart at Leptis Magna by Ibrahim Madi

And to confirm that the passage has begun Ibrahim, Andy and Helen noticed the above common redstart at Leptis Magna.

Passage here we come.

Far out at Farwa

Last Friday, I visited Farwa. Farwa is in the far north west corner of Libya on the border with Tunisia. It's special. The island offers a very big lagoon with 90% protection from the sea. The lagoon is never deeper than one metre and its very,very big. It doesn't get polluted because it is connected to the sea at two narrow points north and south of the island. Curlews, spoonbill and a very large variety of other waders love it in winter. Whatever the height of their legs there is a space for a wading bird at Farwa.

But that isn't all. Inland and south of Farwa is a saltpan called Boukamesh. In winter this can be enormous (it goes into Tunisia) when full. And when it has water, hundreds of Flamingo move down from Jerba to their preferred winter holiday resort. Beware though, if it hasn't rained heavily the saltpan will be empty. Sadly it was virtually totally so on Friday! However as slight compensation two flamingos were seen at Farwa lagoon (see photo at the top).

That still isn't all. As well as a lagoon, island, and sporadically flooded saltpan, there is prime coastal garrigue and some maquis. In fact with the sand flats next to the saltpan the majority of the habitats of Libya are present in one place.

Twice now when we have visited Farwa we have not been able to avoid the temptation to stop at the Zuwarah- Al Mantoub saltpan which is en route. It can be seen from the main road. As we drove passed we saw that there were the usual large number of gulls. We reversed immediately. Closer inspection shown although a majority were Black Backed Gulls and Lesser Black Headed there were a few YellowLegged and Mediterranean Gulls. The prize sighting were three Caspian Terns among them. Below left you can see Martin and Ibrahim working out how to get a decent photograph of them. We got a bit of a hazy one in the end (see right below). The Caspian Tern is the one with the red bill.





These Caspian Terns could easily be the laziest ones in the world. The most southerly breeding colony is at Farwa. If these are from there they have flown 30 kilometres this winter. Most of their cousins fly from the Baltic or Caspian to the sub Sahara. This is roughly 100 times as far!

When we finally arrived at Farwa we chose to go to the salt pan first. To our collective embarrassment we were fooled by a mirage (honestly) to think there was plenty of water in it. We detoured to the south bank of it to get better light only to find the saltpan was nearly empty. Not only the saltpan has been affected by the abnormally very warm and dry winter. Even the almond trees are in blossom 6 weeks early.

Obviously a local farmer thought they would be more birds near the salt pan then we found. See his scarecrow below. But has nobody told him there are no crows in Libya?

As already mentioned the Farwa area is not short of birding options. You can lose on the saltpan swing and win on the lagoon and heathland roundabouts. We won on both roundabouts.

The heathland between the saltpan and the coast varies between almost desert (near the saltpan) though semi-desert to garrigue and even a few trees all in the space of 5 miles. We saw a desert wheatear, a flock of babblers (see one below left) and a Sardinian Warbler (the blurred picture below left) and many singular Stonechats (see the rather nice right photo ).

My favourite sighting in this area though was a mixed flock of local Goldfinches with immigrant Greenfinches (see below).

The Greenfinches scared more easily than the goldfinches. When I approached too close the flock separated by species! The Greenfinches flew straight to a tree which conveniently had few leaves.

On finally leaving the hinterland we had far too little time left for the coastal lagoon. On the fields next to it was a Kestral at rest (below left). But the lagoon did not disappoint. There were Spoonbill shifting the waters, dozens of Curlew in the water, and many other types of waders. See Turnstones and friends busily eating (below right).

And finally there is a blow up of the first photo of this blog showing the flamingos so large you might just be able to recognise them rather than take my word for it.