Romania with Naturetrek - Part 3, The Danube Delta

An early start saw us leave Zarnesti, heading for Tulcea a port on the Danube, where our House Boat for four nights and the gateway into the Delta awaited.

The journey was a very long one so 4 stops were built in, the whole journey including the stops was over 10 hours, in a not so comfortable 18 seater minibus with a large crack in the front windscreen! A few minus points again for Naturetrek!

Our first stop was for a short walk to stretch our legs up a woodland track, where we saw our first Collared Flycatcher,

 Also seen was our first Firecrest, although sadly we didn't see its crest!
So a nice little stop before continuing,  a later stop for the loo and a coffee (of course!) gave me a couple of photo opportunities at the services, this Crested Lark pose nicely,

 as did a Jackdaw,

we also saw Whinchat and Kestrel here.

Our lunch stop saw us at a lake/reed bed. We stopped for about 30-40 minutes, although the weather had turned a bit windy and rain looked immanent. We saw plenty here, although as I was eating lunch and the birds were a bit far for the dull weather, I didn't take many photos. We did however see; Spoonbill, Little Egret, Great Egret, Coot, Whiskered Tern, Squacco Heron, Purple Heron, Black-headed Gull, Mute Swan, Yellow Wagtail, Cuckoo, Grey Heron, Lapwing, House Martin, Corn Bunting, Wood Sandpiper, Night Heron, Collared Dove, Glossy Ibis, Mallard, Swallow, Little Bittern and the star of the show Great Reed Warbler.

We eventually arrived at our very nice house boat, about 6pm, time for a shower and change before dinner. Then early to bed for an early start the next day. We were on the Danube and its Delta for three full days, so I will condense the three days into one series of photos to highlight what we saw. The way it worked was that twice a day we would embark onto a small boat and cruise the channels and waterways of the Delta then find the House Boat, that had been towed somewhere else for us to meet it for lunch, then later to have dinner and overnight. The whole experience was fantastic, we didn't want it to end.

But what about the birds, where do you begin......................
Kingfishers,

 Common Tern,

 Pygmy Cormorant,

 European Roller,

 Little Egret,

 Collared Flycatcher,

 Cuckoo,

 Hobby,

 Night Heron,

 Black Tern,

 Caspian Gull,

 Roller,

 Our House Boat and Tug,

 White Pelican,

 Wood Sandpiper,

 Glossy Ibis,

 Ruff,

 More Ruff!

 Bearded Tit,

 Red-footed Falcon,

 Marsh Frog,

 Ferruginous Duck,

 Garganey,

 Black-winged Stilt,

 White Pelican,

 Ruff on fly by,

 Glossy Ibis,

 Purple Heron,

 Barn Swallow,

 Black Tern,

 Grey-headed Woodpecker,

 Penduline Tit (and nest)

 Cormorant,

 Red-necked Grebe,

 Great-crested Grebe,

 Pochard,

 Squacco Heron,

 Hoopoe,

 White Stork,

 Frog!

 Corn Bunting,

 White-tailed Eagle,

 Red-footed Falcon,

Montagu's Harrier.

I could have gone on and on adding photos, but that would get a bit dull! If you have the staying power you can go to, All the wildlife photos from Romania

But there is a part 4 to come so you might want to wait!

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.

Romania with Naturetrek - Part 1

We have just returned from a 10 day trip with Naturetrek to Romania. For us this was a full on experience, this is only the second time we have gone for a dedicated wildlife trip, the other being to the Shetlands four years ago with Shetland Wildlife (and David Lindo). This was a reasonably relaxed trip and very enjoyable especially with David's style of guiding. (ie we are on holiday!)

This wasn't quite the case with Naturetrek! First we had a new tour leader, that is it was his first time leading a trip, in fact his first trip quiding at all. Having said that Justin was a good bloke, although he did forget at times he should be guiding and not on holiday himself. Thankfully our local guide, Florin, (we wanted to call him Two Bob) with us for the whole trip was brilliant.He certainly made life easier for Justin.

Anyway, no birding the first day as we weren't meeting the group until 18:30 (we had come direct from Birmingham rather than with the group from Heathrow) So we had an enjoyable couple of hours having a late lunch and a couple of local beers at the airport.

Day two was an eye opener. We departed from the guest house at 9am to climb a bloody mountain! The Naturetrek description of the trip was 'easy'. This first morning was tough, it was hot, steep and rocky, we were told it was a 3km there and back walk, it turned out to be 7km! This put us to say the least in a bad mood and wondered what the rest of this 'easy' trip held for us. It was made worse by the fact we didn't see a lot. What we did see in the distance were;
Yellowhammer, Common Crossbill, Tree Pipit, a very distant Black Redstart, Common Buzzard, Kestrel, Barn Swallow, Jay, Raven, Woodpigeon, Magpie, Hooded Crow, Starling, White Wagtail, Lesser Whitethroat and a Nutcracker.

The Nutcracker was certainly the highlight. But it was a very brief sighting,

I've had to pull in and lighten this photo up quite a bit as from our viewpoint, it was distant and silhouetted.
This photo gives and idea of the start of the walk, we came up from the road below,

we climbed up for a long time after this. Thankfully though not quite this high as in the picture below. That's the town of Zarnesti in the distance, where we were based for 3 nights.

The Tree Pipit did show quite well on the climb,

as did the Lesser Whitethroat, again in a bad position to photograph.

An additional item of interest on the long way down was an Eastern Green Lizard;

After a very long morning we returned to the guest house for lunch, after which we had half an hour before setting out again and heading for Bran (The home of Dracula!)
The castle;

No sign of vampires though.
The afternoon added, Linnet, Great Tit, Red-backed Shrike, Hobby, Honey Buzzard, Marsh Harrier, White Stork, Common Swift, Collared Dove (in abundance) and Grey Wagtail. No photographs of this lot as the weather was turning a bit inclement and all the birds were a long way away.

So back to the guest house to freshen up, have a beer and a surprisingly good dinner.

Now comes the other Naturetrek bit that we can't get our heads around. After dinner while still at the table out come the checklists! (Provided by Naturetrek to everybody)
Firstly I have to say Tina and myself have our own set of rules.. ie it only counts if we both see it, also we are terrible with bird song, we have tried many times to get to know the calls, but apart from the obvious, we can't distinguish the birds at all. So we don't count heard either, because we don't know what we are hearing, even when pointed out. This applies especially in woodland with many birds calling at the same time. Both Florin and Justin, would fire off in quick succession, that's a Goldcrest, that's a Whitethroat, Firecrest, Tree Pipit etc We honestly didn't know which was which!

So when it came to the checklist, it didn't matter who had seen it or heard it it was added to the list even if it was only one of us! We keep our own list, I note down as we go along, so we didn't really partake in the nonsense, so according to Naturetrek figures we saw about 30 less species than the rest by the end of the holiday.

In fact a couple of years back we were on holiday (birding by ourseleves) on Lesvos and saw a Naturetrek group doing the checklist thing in a Taverna, we said at the time shoot us if we ever do that!

Now on the plus said once we decided how we were going to approach the holiday and do things our way, it was fine, we explained it to Justin and Florin and they accepted our approach. So despite everything I have said we had a really good time.