Suddenly they are all here

Apologies for the lateness of this blog. Google blogger made some emergency maintenance on their worldwide system which took all day and which lost my draft. Can't complain really since the service is free!


I was really keen to blog quickly as well. This is because I was excited at what I saw when I walked from my village of Klimentovo to the next one of General Kandardjievo yesterday. I also walked back! a total of 9 kilometres. The weather was fine, the light was excellent for spotting birds, for their activity and for photos, and what's more I got some much needed exercise. 


You may recall in a previous blog that I was surprised to see woodchat shrike but hadn't seen red-backed shrike or lesser grey shrike which are supposed to be more common in my area.

red backed shrike seen near General Kandardjievo

Well that soon changed as on my journey I saw both red-backed shrike and lesser grey shrike. These were my first sightings this summer of both birds.

lesser grey shrike near General Kanardjievo

Not to be out done I also saw another pair of woodchat shrike although the photo below was taken two days before in another area some 30 kilometres west of my village near a private lake. It's fairly obvious to me that the bird is a lot more common in my general area than the maps in major bird books give credit.

woodchat shrike taken two days earlier near Vaglen

Of course many of the birds I had seen before on this walk were still about. The noise of the local corn bunting and skylark was almost deafening. Barn swallow and swift were darting all around. House sparrow and great tit were in the trees which form an avenue along the road. Nightingale and ortolan bunting were in the small woodland  on the edge of General Kandardjievo village. Jay and magpie were in another woodland on the edge of my own village.


However it was two waves of migrants which caught my eye. I was really pleased to see six roller on wires and on trees slowly drifting north. These were my first roller of the summer too.

roller near General Kandardjievo

It seems that Thursday 12th May was the day when suddenly most of the summer birds were back.

two roller near General Kandardjievo

There were also more bee-eater. I saw two waves resting on the avenue of trees along the road once on my way out and another flock on my way back hours later.

this tree held about 12 bee-eaters (not all on camera)

As far as possible I try to vary the birds I show each time I blog. I have shown whitethroat before but the light was so good yesterday I got a better snaps. One is shown below.

whitethroat in small wood on the edge of General Kanardjievo

There is good news about the weather forecast. It looks like the bad weather is now behind us -all the better for birding.

Do swallows make a summer?

I'm trying to blog every two days or so. This is not as obsessive as when I was in Libya when it was everyday!  I like to think it is a realistic target. 

However so far, it has proved difficult to achieve a blog every other day simply because the weather and light have been the poorest in a generation this spring in Bulgaria.

On Sunday and Monday it was wet and the light was very poor. Luckily today has been sunny and I have finally got enough good photos to blog! 

barn swallow next to my house this morning

While I was waiting for a lift to go out into the countryside today, I saw the barn swallow (above) resting on a wire next to my pool. When the pool is open during the summer there is a constant stream of barn swallow skimming the water. Some of them have started skimming over the pool cover which contains a little water.

another shot of barn swallow next to pool

Many of the barn swallow which skim over my water live in a donkey's stable about 100 metres down the road from me.

donkey's stable which houses many barn swallow 

In the picture above you can see a door next to a wheelbarrow. This is where the donkey lives along with many barn swallow. I haven't been inside the stable but there is heavy traffic of barn swallow flying in and out all day. I wonder how many years they have nested there?

male eastern stonechat at Rogachevo very near the Black sea

Despite the bad weather I did venture out on Sunday and Monday.  I visited the site  (a vineyard) at near-by Rogachevo.  You may recall from previous blogs that I am fighting a one man battle to prove that the eastern stonechat possibly of the sub species variegatus not only passes through coastal eastern Bulgaria but also possibly breeds here. The bird I had previously seen a week ago and suggested was variegatus was still there. It is looking increasing like it is not a passage bird. It was also with a female this time. You can see I have very good pictures (even though the birds were very wet due to the weather). Judge for yourself whether they look like nominate stonechat or variegatus (see Collins second edition page 293).

female eastern stonechat at Rogachevo on the black sea coast

It was so wet that I saw a northern wheatear on a tree. This is quite unusual.

northern wheatear up a tree

I am afraid the poor weather and predominately northerly winds have proved too much for some birds. I saw this exhausted turtle dove with no sign of physical injury also near Rogachevo. It has been battling northerly winds for too long and I suspect it died soon after this photo was taken.

exhausted turtle dove

This is pretty depressing note to end on. I just hope the weather stays as good as it has been today and we can look forward a summer of good birding.

Have the bee-eaters returned?

I have been waiting for the local bee-eater to return. I thought they had two days ago when a flock of about 20 birds descended on a wood I was visiting at the time. They stopped there all the time I was there. At one time there were 17 birds on a single tree.


However I haven't seen them locally in the 36 hours since and I now wonder if like the previous two flocks they are just passage birds.

bee-eater, Klimentovo near Varna

Near-by I also saw two woodchat shrike. This is an uncommon bird around here. I am surprised that my first summer shrike was woodchat shrike rather than lesser grey shrike or red-backed shrike which are much more common.

female woodchat shrike

Often a female woodchat shrike has a yellower head than the male but not this one. It was equally as orange brown as the male in the pair.

male woodchat shrike

The only easy way I could distinguish between the sexes of these two was that the male has a much stronger black mask over the top of the beck.

spotted flycatcher

I increased my sightings of flycatcher species locally from one to three. In an earlier blog I showed a pied flycatcher on passage. In the last two days I have seen plenty of spotted flycatcher and a couple of semi-collared flycatcher too.  Its a confusing time at the moment with some passage birds mingled in with local breeders. This is true for these flycatchers although I must say the semi-collared flycatchers at least looked very comfortable. 

semi-collared flycatcher

Comparing the semi-collared flycatcher with the pied flycatcher I saw a week or two ago, there is the big white spot above the beck (rather than two small ones) , the collar! and more white on the wing. 

a new shot of a golden oriole

I can confirm the golden oriole which I featured in the last blog are here to stay. They were in pretty much the same place as a few days ago.

One topic I haven't yet give much coverage of locally is bird of prey activity. There is plenty of it. Excluding passage birds, above the skies just south of the village you can see common buzzard, sparrowhawk, and kestrel. I have also seen a pair of eagles. A silhouette of one of them is shown below. I have never pretended to be very good with the ID of eagles. It is my biggest birding weakness. I can manage short toed eagle and bonelli's eagle as I had experience of them in Libya.

 first shot of eagle

Three eagle species visit this area in the summer. My very hesitant guess is that the birds were lesser spotted eagle. I hope they are summer residents and I'll get more chance for a closer and longer look.

second silhouette of an eagle

Of course my village is on a major passage route too but these birds weren't in any hurry to travel north. One passage bird I did have seen in the past two days over-head was osprey. You have to remember we are only 4 kilometres from the coast as the crow flies.

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Golden Orioles join the other summer visitors

Wednesday was a miserable cool and drizzly day here. The drizzle relented briefly in the afternoon so I decided to  take advantage of the lull in the worst of the weather. I set out from my house south and west of the village. The Klimentovo- Albena valley which I blogged about last time runs north east so this area  held the prospect of being different.

golden oriole near Klimentovo,Varna

I was trying without success to take photos of the flock of tree pipit which according to Collins guide could only be on passage. I also missed out on capturing (photographically) another blackcap when I heard the sound of a more exotic summer visitor. There were loud squawking noises which sounded more like Africa than a wet spring day in Bulgaria. It was two male golden oriole communicating. They were so easy to track (but very wary) with loud noises and their bright colour!  Nice to see them back.

tawny pipit

I have seen a few tawny pipit locally this spring. This one was very well behaved. He allowed me close access and when I get this close normally my camera can produce good things. I am really pleased with this photo.

Spanish sparrow

This blog is only about summer visitors. Above is another summer visitor I saw. It was (and still is) the first Spanish sparrow I have seen locally this spring. Two things are surprising. First, he was alone and second he looked like he had been in a war. I think things have been tough for many migrants this spring in eastern Europe with the cold temperatures (in stark contrast to western Europe by the way).

local nightingale

The final picture is of a local nightingale. Their sounds are everywhere but they only rarely show themselves. Many people make the mistake of looking high in the trees for them but in my experience they are often found one or two metres off the ground. This was certainly the case with this one.

The weather looks better today. I think I'll go birding.