02/07/2010

Peter Ferrera from USA came to Bulgaria on a 6-day tailor-made birding tour (from the 6th to 11th June), targeting about 10 species of birds, including the Wallcreeper, Rosy Starling, Paddyfield Warbler, Semi-collared Flycatcher, Pied Wheatear, Bearded Reedling, Black Woodpecker, Eagle Owl, Corncrake and Rock Partridge. We were incredibly lucky to get clear and memorable views of all of them and take good record shots of most of the targets.

The Rock Partridge observation was among the most exiting ones. We missed this bird in the Central Balkan Mnts, so we changed the location and were very lucky to see it in the Western Balkan Mnts. We had two singing males – one of them singing for nearly 5 min at about 40 meters away and another one singing for 15 min at about 120 meters from us.

It was a great success for Peter to photograph the Bearded Reedling at Shabla Lakes. This has always been his dream …

The Wallcrepers in Trigrad gorge in the Western Rhodopes (http://www.neophron.com/keyareas-rhodopes.htm) also left us breathless, as it happens every time we visit this spectacular site. Two male Wallcreepers were chasing each other most of the time, while we were there.

Peter was very exited by the opportunities to enjoy and photograph the Black-headed Bunting, Ortolan Bunting, Eastern Bonelli’s Warbler, Eastern Orphean Warbler, Red-rumped Swallow.

News provided by Dimiter Georgiev and Simeon Gigov, guides on this tour