Bulgaria Day 1

I signed up for thje "Flowers and Butterflies of Bulgaria" with Greenwings, looking to relive some of the excitement of last year's holiday in Sri Lanka with less strain and travel.  I knew that I would keep up with the flowers even less than in the UK but that interesting bird and insect sightings would also follow.

Short-tailed blue

After arriving at Sofia airport we stopped off at a nearby river and meadow in sunny weather and the sightings began immediately as clouded yellow and marbled white were quickly seen and were to remain a feature at virtually every location.  Lesser fiery copper and scarce swallowtail soon followed as did short-tailed blue and pearly heath.  These were all first sightings for me but somehow I was most pleased with the blue, which does occur rarely in the UK - irrational, I know.

Nearer the river we heard a nightingale and a green woodpecker, got a good view of an essex skipper (the one I didn't find at Birkdale Forest last year) and our guide Simeon captured a banded demoiselle damselfly in his butterfly net.  Unlike Sri Lanka, it is allowed in Bulgaria to net butterflies. We also had much more freedom to stray from the established paths.

Amongst other butterfly species to turn up at this location were comma, ringlet, meadow brown and common blue.

Banded Demoiselle

Large Skipper

Pearly Heath

Our next stop was at an area of upland heath meadow surrounding a quarry and the commonest species was the rosy starlings that whizzed around all over the place.  They didn't seem quite as pink as the one I saw in Sri Lanka last year but this may have been explained by seasonal differences in colouration and the bright sunlight.

Adonis blue at rest

This was the only time we saw a bee hawk moth, an impressive imitation indeed and I was very pleased to see the adonis blue in flight, as I had heard how beautiful it is.

Other butterflies I saw were the nyobe and spotted fritillaries, great banded grayling, bath white, small heath and small skipper.  More adventurous members of the party got some good bird sightings but easier was the bee eater on the telegraph wires directly next to the road.

We also had some dragonfly sightings including common darter and broad bodied chaser as well as a huge unidentified wasp.

After that we headed off on a rather long and windy journey to our first base at Tehsel in the Western Rhodopes.

Saturday 30th June

Baby blue tits

I got a couple of hurried shots of two baby blue tits on the feeders as mentioned in the last entry, though on several occasions there have been as many as five or six.  Since then I have been on a wildlife holiday in Bulgaria and am still mulling my way through the several hundred photographs I took over the seven days (watch this space - entries coming soon).

On my return I was surprised to find that the peanut feeder was not completely empty.  I also re-encountered the speckled wood butterfly when two members of the species pursued each other in a tight circle for a good ninety seconds as they passed through the garden.  Presumably it was a courtship routine.

Tuesday 19th June

Speckled Wood

A brown butterfly finally turned up in the garden.  I got a distance shot of it with wings closed and reckoned it was probably the by now frequently sighted speckled wood, an impression deepened when one turned up and displayed on the garden furniture (left).

Blue tits must have fledged very well this year as they are turning up in groups on the feeders, distinctive in their light yellow plumage and as yet light head markings. Remarkably, this seems to have lessened the visits of the greedy jackdaws.



Yesterday I went on an extended walk in Chopwell Woods, when the speckled wood was again much in evidence and I reckoned I saw 15 - 20 over the 3.5 hour period.  I also got good views of a jay and a buzzard, as well as saw a small number of spotted orchids and,

Comma

somewhat to my surprise, what turned out to be a mayfly.

But the best was saved for near the end when I saw this comma butterfly warming itself on a stone, certainly the first one that I've seen since I was a boy.  They had been reported at Mabie Forest but I never managed to see one on my visits there.  I knew they were more common in North East England as people I have met  reported seeing them in their gardens - but a personal landmark nevertheless. I was pleased I waited for the sun to come out again when it disappeared for a while.

Meanwhile the bumblebee of the week has definitely been the tree bumblebee, which has been turning up in the garden in some numbers though the photo is also of one I found in Chopwell Woods as it at least managed to stay still for a while.

Mayfly

Tree Bumblebee

Monday 11th June

Female nuthatch

Of course the day after I complained about the jackdaws yobbish behaviour putting off other birds, a nuthatch turned up on the peanut feeder for the first time, a female.  It hasn't stopped me cutting down on the bird food over the past couple of days, though partly because I've been out most of the time.

I did a bike ride along cycle track 10 to Stamfordham and enjoyed the flatter landscape in the area.  There were some flowers just past Seaton Burn that I at first thought were orchids and haven't managed to identify, again lots of skylarks singing and most pleasingly a male redstart that appeared in some oaks just west of Stamfordham. Plus some sort of maple I wasn't totally sure about.

I held off reporting this as I knew that the Prudhoe U3A Nature Watch trip to Hawthorn Dene near Easington was coming off today, a venue that is known to be rich in wildlife because of the magnesian limestone geology (dolomite).

This inevitably lead to a profundity of less common flowers being seen and frankly I really did find it more or less impossible to keep up with the sightings.  We certainly saw some bee orchids and some mouse-ear hawkweed but eventually all the new names just swamped me. I stuck to what I know more - butterflies and birds.

And there was indeed a fair bit to occupy the attention in those areas.  Having not yet seen a blue this year, it was pleasing to see at least twenty common blues at different times and get a decent picture.  I saw my first small heath of the year and managed to get a picture of a dingy skipper (though it was very dingy) as well as a chimney sweeper moth.  I don't think I've seen as much flower meadow in one place for a long time.

Common blue

Chimney sweeper

Dingy dingy skipper

Ogling female kestrel

We did actually manage to get a glimpse of a skylark and an excellent view of a female kestrel, which some people thought was eyeing us up so it could move in to hunt in the same area once we passed on.  I was particularly pleased to see a whitethroat passing through.  There were also sand martins, a few swallows and pipits, a fulmar and a reed bunting.

The general consensus was the area will produce even more sightings in a couple of weeks in view of the delayed summer.

Maybe I will return.

Monday 4th June

I did finally get out to the Spetchells again last Monday, but only in the evening after the sun finally came out around teatime.  This was after some debate about going after green hairstreaks at Dipton Woods near Corbridge but that will probably need to wait 'til next year now.

Female red-tailed bumble bee

At Spetchells the mining bees were not much in action so presumably they retire early.  I did manage to see three each of speckled wood and dingy skipper as well as a common carpet moth and another single skipper - presumably a large skipper but I would have like a photo as not entirely convinced.

I also checked out a couple of trees I couldn't immediately identify - and still can't... and finally caught up with the female red-tailed bumble bee.

Since then the weather has been unreliable and not much has happened.  I am beginning to worry that the jackdaws are dominating so much in the garden that the more interesting smaller birds are becoming reluctant to visit.

It has struck me meanwhile that the dingy skipper was a first sighting.

Saturday 26th May

There has been an outbreak of gang warfare in the garden between the jackdaws and the pigeons.  I was surprised to see that it was the pigeons who seemd the more aggressive.  Maybe it was a case of size matters.

Wednesday was forecast to be sunny so I rode up the Tyne valley some way past Bywell in the hope of spotting some butterflies.  But it was one of those days when the forecast couldn't have been more wrong.  It was overcast the whole time and not a single butterfly to be seen.  In fact the most interesting thing I did see was possibly this farmer's field full of blue flowers.  I'm not sure what they were or what they were grown for but it did strike me as kind of odd.

There were quite a few skylarks singing high up in the gloom and it took me most of the day before I saw one.  On the way back along the Tyne, there was an area on the edge of the Spetchells near Prudhoe where trees have been cleared to allow sand martins to nest and there were a few flying about.

By coincidence, the next U3A Naturewatch walk on Friday was to the Spetchells, and this time the forecast was spot on - very gloomy and so I gave up hopes again of any butterfly spotting.  One orange tip did turn up just as we set off, but that was it.

Apart from sighting a kestrel above the river, we were soon into flower-spotting. Once again I was straight out of my depth but I did manage to identify a few items as below:

Germander Speedwell

Orchid

Bird's foot Trefoil

There was a bit of argument about the orchid as it might have been an early purple or a marsh orchid. Obviously I couldn't possibly comment. It does seem that there is some hybridisation anyway.

What interested me more was the amount of mining bees that were around in spite of cooling temperatures and a shower.  There were holes all over the place in some parts. All of a sudden a moth turned up and landed on the chalk.  At first I thought it was a common carpet, but further research proved it was a treble-bar. Quite pleased to have worked this out as I don't normally do moths.

Buffish Mining Bee

Treble-bar

Saturday 19th May

A farly quiet week.  On Tuesday I took another run down the Derwent Valley but didn't see anything more exciting than the odd orange tip and specled wood.  I dropped in at the Thornley Woods hide the day after to check their sightings book but it seems that nothing more exotic than a nuthatch has been spotted so far in May.

On Thursday evening I walked along the river at West Wylam to try and identify an old fishing spot I used to visit 35 years ago.  The topography of the bankside has changed vastly including the addition of a tarmac cycle track but eventually I think I did nail it. On the way home a fox ambled casually across the road between Greenside and High Spen.

It can be amazing how long or how little time it can take to see something interesting.  On the Friday, with just 10 minutes to spare before catching a train at Prudhoe,  I took a quick walk on the river bank and saw a well-formed female orange tip settled on some greenery.  I got the camera out but it was then briefly disturbed by a male before returning so that, for once, I got the shot I wanted.

Female orange tip

Note of course the lack of any orange on the upper wings.

In the garden, the sparrows have come alive to the fact there is free food is on offer, but have not visited in the same numbers as these jackdaws.

Jackdaws

I realised after seeing them that I did not know the collective noun for a group of jackdaws.  Apparently there are in fact two - a clattering of jackdaws or a train of jackdaws.  Based on the behaviour they have exhibited so far, I would suggest that "clattering" seems more appropriate.