Bulgaria Winter Birding on the Black Sea

Tuesday 1^st – Tuesday 8^th February 2011

Cost per person according to group size:

This tour is run using our unique sliding price scale, where the more people who come on a trip, the less you pay – this makes our tours truly great value as our starting price for 2/3 participants already compares favourably to that of similar trips.
Also, if you have travelled with Altiplano before, you will receive a 5% discount on the prices below.

7-8 participants - £825

5-6 participants - £845

4     participants - £856

3     participants - £1,035

2     participants - £1,098

This tour takes us to the Bulgarian Black Sea coast to explore two of the most important European wetlands for wintering geese.
Every year hundreds of thousands of wild geese, including almost the entire world population of the globally threatened Red-breasted Goose, choose the northern Bulgarian lakes of Shabla and Durankulak as their wintering grounds.

The less severe climate on the southern Bulgarian Black Sea coast allows us to enjoy wintering Dalmatian and White Pelicans together with various species of ducks, shorebirds, gulls and raptors, among others.

The numerous flocks of White-fronted Geese feature astonishing numbers of Red-breasted Geese (usually between 10,000 and 50,000).

While enjoying the Red-breasted Geese, we will also search for Lesser White-fronted Goose. Usually checking the huge flocks of

Greater White-fronted Geese is very productive and the Lesser White-fronts can usually be spotted mingling in with their larger cousins.

Offshore we can expect to see Black-throated and Red-throated Divers, Great, Black-necked, Red-necked, Slavonian and Little Grebes, Red-breasted Merganser and Greater Scaup.

White-tailed Eagle, Long-legged Buzzard, Rough-legged Buzzard, Peregrine and Merlin, as well as Great Bittern are common winter residents here.

We’ll also have a very good chance of seeing Greater Spotted Eagle, Saker and Pallas’s Gull at the lakes.

On one of the days we will also explore Cape Kaliakra , its sheer cliffs towering up to 100m. above the sea. Here we can expect to see the Mediterranean subspecies of the European Shag as well as Eagle Owl, possibly Wallcreeper, and various sea-going waterfowl.

The adjacent steppe area hosts wintering Calandra Lark, Merlin, Long-legged Buzzard. Rough-legged Buzzard, Long-eared Owl, Short-eared Owl and Syrian Woodpecker also occur commonly in the area.

The second part of the trip focuses on the wetlands around the city of Bourgas that form one of Europe’s richest bird areas. One of the biggest attractions of the Bourgas wetlands in winter are the flocks of resident Pygmy Cormorant, Dalmatian Pelican and White Pelican, together with the hundreds of White-headed Ducks that spend almost every winter on Lake Vaya. Some of the other species expected there are White-tailed Eagle, Bearded Tit, Slender-billed Gull and Mediterranean Gull.

We will also visit Poda lagoon and the Poda Visitor Centre managed by the BSPB.

Itinerary – Black Sea Winter Birding

Day 1

Arrive at Varna Airport and drive north to the town of Kavarna.

Days 2, 3 & 4

Exploring coastal Dobroudzha for Red-breasted Geese and other wintering birds.

Day 5

Drive to Bourgas with stops at the Batova and Kamchia riverine forests.

Days 6 & 7

Birding in the wetlands around Bourgas.

Day 8

Drive back north to Varna Airport birding our way through the Eastern Balkan

range before our departure flight home.