05/11/2008

A successful photo tour in the Eastern Rhodopes 1 – 4 November 2008, led by Carlo Pinasco from Fotografia E Viaggi – Italy and Mladen Vasilev from Neophron Tours - Bulgaria From the 01st to the 11th of November Carlo Pinasco (www.fotografiaeviaggi.com), guiding three fellow photographers, visited Bulgaria for a 4-day photo trip in the Eastern Rhodopes, organized by Neophron Tours. The tour was focused on the Griffon Vulture. For that purpose we used one of our fixed hides in the Eastern Rhodopes. In the early morning on the 2nd of November everybody was in the hide waiting for the vultures to show up and start feeding on the carcass. All day long they kept soaring and landing around the hide…but not on the carcass. Finally in the late afternoon, around 3 o’clock, 65 Griffon Vultures suddenly landed on the feeding ground. The following events can not be described…you should see the pictures! We spent the next day photographing the beautiful autumn landscapes and the astonishing cliffs in the area. Then out of the blue one of the tour participants, Franco Fratini (www.francofratini.it), shows us a Wallcreeper photo on his camera display, taken on the rock near the Vulture Center (the BSPB visitor center). So, on top of our success, we got this nice bonus too. Mladen Vasilev Widlife Photography and Birdwatching Guide Neophron Tours