The Players - 11 members of Burbage birders + Malcolm (Green Marsh Shank) Almey. All of mixed ability and that' means Good birders, Birders, and those who struggle with the big and small end of a pair of binoculars!
Mladen Vasilev joined us for the first day as our local guide. I would recommend him to any party birding this coast. He gave us plenty of help identifying the many raptors as they passed along the Via Pontica flyway plus some excellent advice and locations for the week. You can contact him at neophrontours@gmail.com
The Location - We had B&B at The Hotel Marina Palace in Old Nessebar. A very modern, very clean hotel in a super location overlooking the old town. The holiday was packaged by Balkan Holidays from the East Midlands to Burgas direct.
Our evening meals were at the Romantica restaurant in Old Nessebar. You pay a little more but it's excellent in every way.
The roads - Burgas and south , these are not too bad . Burgas and north, there is a hint of tarmac around the potholes so driving demands quite a bit of concentration to avoid giving your passengers a headache when their heads hit the roof.
The Maps & Guides - We used three maps. Bulgaria Black Sea Coast, rip & Waterproof by Reise from Maps.Com. Burgas and the Black Sea Coast both by Freytag & Berndt from Amazon. Some trip reports were useful and Dave's Where to Watch Birds series on Bulgaria is a bit out of date but still very good. A tip is don't bother with road numbers we hardly found any. Remember or jot down both the names of the place where you want to go and sit a good map reader next to you it's easier.
The Transport - Oh dear, anybody hiring in Bulgaria should spend some time examining the transport before they drive. Remember under Bulgarian Law the driver is responsible for its condition. The Mercedes 9 seater arrived with the front wheel bearing on the verge of collapse and 2 rear tyres to die for! The bearing was rectified the same day and the tyres we did ourselves to avoid wasting valuable birding time. The Corsa arrived without headlights and once again we fixed these ourselves. Good job I was in the motor trade!
The Money - Currency is the Lev/Leva and is exchanged at the hotels or approved banks. Don't change on the streets you will lose if you do. We got 2:33 leva £ in 2010. Oh yes the smaller denomination is called a "stinky" and you can imagine the comments that created all week , A pint of their own beer ( not bad ) was 2:50 leva in the hotel and a really good two course evening meal with drinks came to 16 Leva.
The Birds - Exceptional and plenty of them including Dalmatian Pelican, Marsh Warbler, Lesser Spotted Eagle, Long Legged Buzzard, Slender Billed Gull and Eastern Olivaceous Warbler and as I write this one has just arrived in Wells Woods. GO FOR IT!
Plastic Bottles - The one problem we didn't expect was the difficulty taking photos without a plastic bottle or can being in it somewhere. The main areas of water around the towns are full of them. But I was assured that great efforts had and will be made over the next couple of years to clear the existing waste and install a major re-cycling project for the area. Remember Bulgaria has suffered the ravages of recession and under investment in recent years but now seems to be on the up at last.
Monday
An early morning walk around the hotel and beach produced a very surprised Quail, 10 White Storks, Red Breasted Flycatcher, Yellow Wag, Sandwich Terns, Caspian Gull's galore and one Whinchat. Breakfast produced eggs, sausage, beans (these created a theme that ran through the week or ran through something) tomatoes and a large selection of cold offerings.
Mladen joined us at 09:00 and decided to cover the Burgas lakes and raptor migration for the day. An educated choice showing the crowd the magnificent lakes that surround Burgas and the Poda Reserve at lake Mandra.
On a fine day the raptor movement starts about 10:30 and by 12:30 vanish into the cloud as the thermals get higher. Predominately the movement contained Lesser Spotted Eagles with a sprinkling of Black Kite, Long Legged Buzzard, Short Toed Eagle, Steppe Buzzard and Levant Sparrowhawk.
The early afternoon was spent around the Reserve at Poda that produced Marsh Sandpiper, Kingfisher and a very confiding Short Toed Eagle carrying (yes you guessed it) a snake. The day ended at a location around Lake Mandra where the group located Little Crake, Yellow Wagtail (ssp dombowski), an all too brief view of Roller plus a solo Osprey heading for the Turkish border. Our day with Mladen passed all too quickly and ended with a de-briefing at the downstairs hotel bar thanking him for his excellent company and the useful tips for the rest of our stay.
Tuesday
Our first day on our own so we decided to keep fairly local to see how our dodgy transport performed. Surprisingly it worked well dodging the potholes on our way to Pojoy Woods situated along the road from Sunny Beach to Pojoy.
The woods are a sheer delight with woodpeckers and flycatchers everywhere. It wasn't long before we found Great Spotted, Lesser Spotted and Green Woodpeckers. Red Breasted and Semi-collared flycatchers, Goldie's, Chaffinches, Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff. Overhead a lone Marsh Harrier gave us a brief flypast followed by 60 + White Storks heading for there feeding grounds on Atanasovsko Lake. We decided to return later in the week and explore much more of these fabulous woods.
The late afternoon was spent exploring a woodland path in the hills above Sunny Beach that a couple of our group visited in 2007. The path produced some great birds including Sombre Tit, Cirl Bunting, Coal Tit, Blue Tit, Reed Bunting and flock of 25 + Yellowhammer and Sparrow hawk.
The day concluded once again with a de-brief but this time at the Sky Bar on the roof of the Marina Palace Hotel. Geoff Busby and Carol Rees have taken pity on the lone Malcolm Almey and become his friends. Carol say's Geoff will send him an invoice from his Rent-A-Friend company later.
Wednesday
At a lively evening meal the night before I offered the ladies a shopping day in Burgas as a break from Birding but surprisingly they only wanted the morning. Funny how the heat can affect you!
The rest including our other driver Brian Pollard, remember the Corsa with no lights, Geoff, David Carman Malcolm and myself headed for Lake Burgas with a promise to collect the shoppers at 13:00hrs. We covered the whole of Lake Burgas and the surrounding fields collecting White and Dalmatian Pelicans in good numbers, big flocks of White Storks, White, Whiskered and Black Terns, "Frudge", Gadwall, Pintail, Shoveler and Little Bittern. Skylark, Golden Plover, Red Backed Shrike, and by the way these are everywhere, Blackcap, Common Kestrel, Meadow Pipit and Linnet.
After collecting the shoppers on-time we headed for the Ramsar site of Pomorie lake and salt pans. A visit to this reserve is a must on any trip to the Black Sea Coast. There is a newly opened visitor centre with facilities and a large viewing platform that affords panoramic viewing over the lake and the surrounding area. We collected Broad Billed, Green, Curlew and Common Sandpipers. Greenshank, Little Stints and Dunlin. Sandwich, Little, Whiskered, White Winged and Black Terns. 70+ Black-necked Grebe and Yellow Wag's (flava). The reserve can be little difficult to find but when you enter Pomorie keep looking to your left and locate the new sports stadium and floodlights. Head for this and the signs for the Salt Museum. Pass in front of the stadium entrance and the reserve is at the end of the road.
Once again the lively de-brief took place in the outside bar. Is this now becoming a habit? Hope So!
Dalmatian Pelican Over Bourgas Lake
Thursday
This is our day to travel north heading for the river resort of Kamcia with a plan to end the day at Emine Point on the return. Kamcia is a river/beach site that is obviously a tourist attraction for the Varna area however out of season it is a delightful location with excellent woods on both sides of the main road. We saw White-backed, Lesser Spotted, Middle Spotted and Great Spotted Woodpeckers, Short-toed Treecreepers and Sparrow hawk in the Woods. Red-rumped Swallow's, Great White Egret's, Kentish Plover, Red Backed Shrike, Little Ringed Plover and Reed Bunting around the river / beach area . After lunch and coffee at a floating cafe on the river we headed for Emine Point. But whatever you do don't worry about the price in the cafe's my coffee was 70 stinkies, 30p a cup !!
Travelling along the road to Emine we realised perhaps this wasn't such a good idea after all . The road for the last 3 miles was almost impassable with very large sections of loose rocks mud and potholes. It really became a challenge to get to the Point and consumed much more of our time than we expected. This included time for Brian Pollard to change into a clean pair of underpants uttering a promise never to return. However if you’re are up for the challenge the lighthouse and surrounding area at Emine is superb. We had 15+ Red Backed Shrike, Black Redstart, Northern Wheatear, a very confiding Hobby with lots of Meadow pipits and a lone Tawny Pipit. The evening de-brief was postponed to the following evening owing to our late return and Brian's disgusting underpants!
Red-breasted Flycatcher in Pojoy
Friday
The early walk today produced an upset Malcolm pointing to two Hawfinches that had just deposed a Starling flock from the top of his tree! Now I know he’s not all the ticket.
To console Malcolm I decided to travel to a coastal point a couple of miles down the road. It definitely looked like it might be OK but seemed very quiet. We did however collect Crested Larks, Slender-billed Gull and Spanish Sparrow for our trouble.
Our plan today is to travel south calling at the Ropotama River Reserve, the extensive marsh reserve at Djuni and finally the salt pans at Pomorie situated by the main road from Burgas to Varna. The river and reserve at Ropotama is not worth it. Most of the reserve has no access with fences surrounding all the main areas but the marsh and dunes at Djuni are a must.
The dunes gave us Crested Lark, Short Toed Lark and the marsh supplied Marsh Harrier, Marsh, Eastern Olivaceous, Willow, Chiffchaff and Great Reed Warblers. Be warned you will now need to head for the sign-posted Djuni as the main road is now a by-pass and the old main road is now a dead end. It took us an hour to find that out so any small contributions will be accepted!
The salt pans by the roadside at Pomorie will need extra care when parking or crossing the road to them . Bulgarian drivers will have you if they can so be careful. The pans contained Loads of Little Stint, Curlew Sand's, Dunlin, Black Wit's and Ringed Plover's with the odd Knot for good measure. We also had a visit and display from an energetic Levant Sparrow hawk.
De-brief tonight was round the Restaurant table. Probably not a good idea with the drinks around but we got through it to conclude another superb day’s birding.
One of the offending Hawfinches.
Saturday
Our last day and the 9 seater Mercedes is now becoming very delicate. So perhaps it's a good job I decided to give the team a choice either come with me to the woods at Pojoy and Pomorie Lake or discover all the shops and museums in the Old Town of Nessebar and the resort of nearby Sunny Beach. They all had a great day with stories of the little train along the prom not stopping at the place where they wanted it too and a great day's birding at Pojoy Woods and Pomorie Lake that included our first Syrian Woodpecker, Woodchat Shrike and a rumour of Terek Sandpiper at Pomorie. Needless to say our last evening meal was a lively one and if anyone can remember it can you please let me know.
We collected in a week 139 species and I'm not going to bore you with a complete list. A big thanks for being such a fun group.
Useful Tip
If you want to bird the whole of Bulgaria consider a three centre holiday. One in the mountains south of Sofia, one in Nessebar and one north of Varna. This will cover all the best sites on offer including Cape Kaliakra, Sabla Lake, Dourankoulak Lake and The Sakar Mountains. Otherwise just do what we did book a package and enjoy your first visit to this super country.
Black Tern at Burgas.