See you there!

Join us at 7:00 this evening to see some photos, hear some stories, and learn something about what you can do–and what only the Bulgarians can do–to help preserve this country’s amazing natural richness.

Meanwhile, I’m busy, busy getting myself ready for the keynote speech this weekend at Wings over Willcox, and looking forward to birding with many old friends and new! The lecture is sold out, but no doubt more for the food that precedes it than for the wisdom to follow the banquet.

I’ve ranted before about how twenty-first-century birding is on the path to overvaluing images and undervaluing thought; it’s part of a greater anti-intellectualism, I suppose, and it’s turning birding into something I don’t recognize and don’t much like. There is a very good, if slightly miscellaneous, article by Ted Eubanks about these problems in the newest issue of Birding; the author’s call for a return to “intuitive birding” should be required reading for those who post their House Finch photos under the terse heading “Identify, please.”

I wonder what the forums would say about these two images. I know what both birds are because I watched them, listened to them, took notes on them; but as usual, my pointing the camera at them was a tardy afterthought, and the images I got show it.

I suspect that this first one, of a bird singing in a small thicket on the Black Sea coast, is probably identifiable by someone who really knows her warblers.

Or maybe not. But knowing what it is, I can convince myself that I see the long, sloping forehead, the outsized bill, and the rounded tail of a Hippolais warbler; adding in habitat and range information, I suppose we can get to Olivaceous Warbler with some confidence. And that’s exactly what the bird was, one of many we got to enjoy all across Bulgaria.

The second one is much harder. It’s the only photo I got of the only member of this otherwise common species I saw this trip, and I’m not sure that anyone could make anything out of it. The bird was hunting in an open patch of woods near a couple of buildings.

Clue number one: No, it’s not a Mexican Chickadee.

Even knowing what the bird is, I’m stumped. The exquisitely slender tarsus suggests one of the ‘booted’ families, and rules out nicely such relatively clumsy groups as finches, sparrows, and tits; its length tells us we’re not dealing with a swallow. The square tail, the slim tarsus, and the habitat might lead us to…. I’d better stop, because I can feel myself already beginning to cheat, dropping my Cartesian pose and getting all a priori here.

What do you think about this bird? It’s an easy ID in the field, but is it even possible from this image?

[Answer: it was a Common Redstart.]

That’s part of the reason that a birding visit to Europe, even a first birding visit to the continent, is so filled with déjà-vu moments. In Bulgaria this summer, time and again we ran across “familiar” birds that were in fact new to many on the bus, but whose colorful images had been impressed on memory for years.

European Bee-eaters were common enough in the appropriate habitats, at colonies in rough banks or charrupping in pairs and small flocks high overhead.

Perhaps the most abundant of European passerines, Chaffinches gave some in our party a run for their money, singing everywhere from invisible perches in mixed forests. But a few individuals were more accommodating.

Eurasian Hoopoes whooped along the roadsides every day, but for some reason I was never ready with the camera when one showed itself. Earl got great photos of this individual, but I was satisfied with a distant shot taken while I was busy enjoying Greater Short-toed Larks (much the better bird than a “mere” hoopoe!).

I’ve always been fond of Christmas cards that are “seasonally inappropriate,” with bright yellow American Goldfinches or Magnolia Warblers atop the tree. House Martins leave Europe in the winter, but they are one of the most abundant and most conspicuous of Bulgaria’s summer birds.

I’m very proud of this picture, accidental though it may have been.

The Palearctic fringillids are always good for a winter greeting. Linnets are Alison’s favorite, and every one reminded me of her excitement at seeing her first in France years ago.

The CCBC lists always tallied good numbers of European Rollers, and we did too on our Bulgarian trip. Again, though, I was always watching something rarer, like a Montagu’s Harrier, when a roller would have let me take its picture, so the best I got was this rather blurry shot. But still, blurry or not, you’ve got to admit that this is one improbably beautiful bird!

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Eurasian Thick-knee on a Christmas card, but they certainly deserve to be. We saw this species only a couple of times in Bulgaria, but each time it was worth the screeching of bus brakes.

And this picture resembles a Christmas card itself, with a bright male European Stonechat perched among the flowers. It would have been better, but I was watching a Black-eared Wheatear up the slope. (Excuses!)

As I look back through this selection of “pretty birds,” it occurs to me that all of them can be seen elsewhere in Europe, in Provence, for example. But Bulgaria has them all in an abundance I had never seen elsewhere, making every day of our trip a birder’s Christmas present.

Architecturally, much of it is about what one might expect for an eastern European capital; but there are jewels scattered about, like this nationalist revival church, one of several (including the cathedral of St. Alexander Nevsky) in the center of town.

The finer residential quarters also date from the late nineteenth century.

I was surprised to find remnants of a Bulgarian art nouveau, too, making me think for a moment I was in Prague or Budapest or Cracow; shame about the pizza banner!

Boris Park, my birding destination, is a large, slightly unkempt public garden with playgrounds and cafes just 20 minutes’ walk from Vitosha Boulevard, the city’s finest shopping street. (After my first visit, I discovered that it was a two-and-a-half hour walk if you got lost on the way home….)

Birding there was a bit of a letdown after the glories of the ten days before, but anyone visiting Sofia should check it out for common garden birds such as Eurasian Nuthatch, Blue and Great Tits, Green and Great Spotted Woodpeckers (and Syrian at the soccer stadium), European Robin, and such. I especially enjoyed the Jays; busy with their fledglings, they forgot to be sneaky and inconspicuous.

That first morning on my own I remembered a bit of advice from Gerard and set off in search of a cherry orchard. Success! Not only did I have great looks at Green Woodpeckers,

 

but a busy family of Syrian Woodpeckers gave me the ‘life views’ I’d thus far been denied. I found more Syrian Woodpeckers on my second trip to Sofia’s Boris Park, but of course Great Spotted Woodpecker was more common there, as it appears to be everywhere in Bulgaria.

I remember Roger Tory Peterson, I think in Wild America (anybody?),  waxing eloquent about the abundance and diversity of woodpeckers in central Europe. But the Balkans are even better! I missed the trip’s sole Wryneck, had only poor glimpses this time of Black, and am not certain that I ever truly heard the White-backed that others picked up; but I still came home with 6 picid species, not at all bad–particularly given Syrian and Gray-headed (or Gray-faced, depending on your checklist preferences) as long-sought lifebirds.

But seeing these cheerful chirpers in their native range is a different, altogether more enjoyable experience, and their presence brightens villages, towns, and farmland throughout Bulgaria.

The Balkans are fortunate to have another Passer sparrow, which turned out to be especially common along the eastern part of our route. Spanish Sparrows, big and dramatically marked, live in villages and farmsteads, where their high-pitched, rather metallic songs were often the most conspicuous sounds on a warm afternoon.

Several times we saw their twig nests in trees, especially ornamental Lombardy poplars, but we came to count on them most where Common House-Martins had finished their breeding season and the sparrows had moved into their fine masonry nests.

I looked for “Italian” Sparrows, hybrids between House and Spanish Sparrows, but unless they were all females, we never saw any. Neither did we encounter any apparent hybrids between House and Tree Sparrows, a phenomenon Alison is particularly good at finding: the only ones I have ever seen were single birds she showed me in France and Germany. Shoulda brought her along to Bulgaria!

Earl got some magnificent photos of this rare and very local Acrocephalus, including what is perhaps the most impressive flight shot of any bird I’ve ever seen. And I didn’t even bother trying, instead spending my time enjoying what was probably the “best” bird from a listing standpoint of the entire trip.

Mladen and Gerard had the location staked out, of course, and tensions were high as we arrived early on a foggy morning: would the birds still be singing? Would a group of 17 be able to “get on” the secretive little critters?

Much relief when we were barely off the bus and Mladen heard a Paddyfield song. But actually getting a glimpse of the birds as they moved through the phragmites was maddeningly difficult; as grateful as I would normally have been for the good looks at Common and Great Reed-Warblers, I found myself wishing that everything else but our target would just shut up and clear out for a little while.

It was becoming apparent, however, that the Paddyfield Warblers were becoming more active as the sun rose and the haze began to burn off. The group moved ahead to a slightly more open spot in the reeds, and I lagged behind, convinced that a bird in the phrags was worth… well, I don’t quite know how to end that, but my strategy worked. As soon as the sunlight hit the reeds, the warblers began to climb them to sing in the warmth, and I had beautiful views, through my scope at distances down to 25 feet or so, of birds singing and carrying food to an unseen nest. At one point, a Common Reed-Warbler intruded, perching for a moment or two in the same scope field as a Paddyfield. Now that’s how I like to see warblers!

Great Cormorants at the Poda Reserve, one of the birdiest places we visited in Bulgaria.

June 13 was an amazing day, with lifebirds everywhere I looked. One of the fine Bourgas-area lakes hosted a flock of more than 250 Great White Pelicans, magnificent birds that even at a hazy mile’s distance shone pink on the water (in fact, the bird’s common name in many languages is “pink pelican”). Even more exciting, way up there on the rarity scale, was a single Dalmatian Pelican that Mladen picked out; it fed up and down a narrow channel, generally avoiding its brighter relatives.

The day brought not just life species, but an entire life family for me. At the Poda Reserve, while we were watching such fancies as Pygmy Cormorant and Squacco Heron,

two Collared Pratincoles flew over, swallow-like shorebirds with dark underwings. On past European visits, I’d managed to miss any representative of the family Glareolidae in at least two countries, so this was a particular pleasure on a particularly pleasant day.

All those wonders and novelties notwithstanding, the most impressive sight of the entire day was the gulls and terns. Yellow-legged Gulls, of course, were common as usual, and this was the first day that we had anything approaching decent numbers of Common Black-headed Gulls (still, though, only a couple of dozen). And one of the most beautiful birds in the world gave us good scope views, too. I just can’t get enough of Mediterranean Gull, and I think the others in the group ended up agreeing with me.

Those are Sandwich Terns sharing the pilings with the gull, a few birds from a nice big colony at Aheloi. Though the season was early, there were already a few scaly-backed chicks begging, and the whole area was busy with adults courting and fishing.

As usual, all this activity attracted other larids. Common Terns most likely breed on the edge of the Sandwich colony.

Even the marsh terns joined in the frenzy on and off, and though we looked hard for a third species, we had to be content with just (just!) Black and Whiskered Terns. One of the latter spent a bit of time perched on one of the pilings, giving us the only view of a perched bird on the entire trip.

I wish I’d charged my camera batteries and taken a little more time that day!