Romania with Naturetrek - Part 2

So Day 3 too us to the Piatra Craiului National Park, we started with a drive up a gorge, finally stopping and walking the rest of the way, this was a gentle climb up, where we saw many Grey Wagtail,

our first ever Wood Warbler, that proved to difficult to photograph, and great views of Fire Salamander.

The gorge was stunning,

with everyone searching for Wallcreeper, which we eventually found, sorry again no photos, as it moved around so much and stayed fairly high on the rock faces, but we had great views through the binoculars.
Up on a distant ridge a couple of Chamois were spotted,

even with the big lens they are still dots, but we had good views through Justin's scope.
There were also some fairly gigantic snails about.

High above the gorge, both Common and Honey Buzzard were seen, then on the way back a Dipper showed nicely.

So back to the guest house for lunch, before heading out again for a long afternoon/evening. We started by heading for some open countryside, with plenty of Stork nests around,

At this point we saw our first ever Lesser-spotted Eagle, it flew around us, but never too near.

Unmistakable Eagle wings!
From here we turned up a track going for what seemed an endless walk in scorching sun, with very little shade, little was seen, although we were looking for Golden Oriole, but none showed. We did see our first Black Woodpecker. We couldn't believe the size as it flew by then disappeared into a copse. With the scopes we tracked it down and I took a somewhat dubious photograph.

We stayed on the track until about 6pm, then it was to find some Brown Bears.......
We met a ranger who escorted us to a raised woodland hide over looking a forest clearing. The ranger put food out for the bears and charge 25 Euro a head, but it was worth it.
We saw three bears, a Red Fox and Ravens over the two and a half hours,

A great end to a very long and tiring day.