Birding in Ancient Bulgaria 5/3/2025-5/19/2025

Our Birding in Ancient Bulgaria tour began with an extra, optional morning of birding, as all of us had arrived safely on May 3. We met our local guide Minko Madzharov this morning and set off with him as our driver guide at 09:00, after breakfast. For our trip we had a Ford Transit van with three rows of seats and plenty of luggage space. We spent the morning in the area of Aldomirovsko Marsh northwest of Sofia. This dried out marshy area was very productive despite the reed bed being partly burnt. We also watched the fields, hedgerows, and the low bush-covered hillsides nearby. There we encountered the first of many White Storks for the trip and found an amazing nine species of raptors including good views of several Montagu’s Harrier, Western Marsh Harrier, Short-toed Eagle, and even Red-footed Falcon. We became acquainted with several species that were to become familiar daily seen or heard birds of the entire trip: Common Woodpigeon, Common Cuckoo, Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo was our first tautonym of the trip), Barn Swallow, and Western House Martin. After a local lunch at the Green World Restaurant (where we encountered our first European Goldfinch) we drove back to our hotel in Sofia.

Western Marsh Harrier © Art Cimento

After a relaxing post-lunch break, we set off in the late afternoon for the official start of our tour. We took a short walking tour of downtown Sofia, seeing the classical architecture, passing the cathedral and various government buildings, and viewing some of the underground remains of the Roman city Serdika, discovered when the city’s subway system was being built. We also added Alpine and Common swifts to our avian list, along with Common Starling and Eurasian Blackbird. Our afternoon's excursion ended with our welcome dinner consisting of traditional Bulgarian dishes at a characterful downtown restaurant (Pod Lipite) after which we returned to our hotel.

Please contact the VENT office for a copy of Mark and Mayumi’s full report with photos.

A complete list of the birds recorded on the trip can be found at:

https://ebird.org/tripreport/360615