BORISOVA GRADINA PARK - SOFIA AIRPORT - ALEKO AREA, VITOSHA MOUNTAINS
WEATHER: cloudy with sunny spells, cold in the mountains
After driving from Northern Greece last night we were embedded in a nice Hotel in the centre of Sofia, Bulgaria this morning. The hotel was right outside the entrance to a huge Woodland Park called the Borisova Gradina Park.
At 7am Guy and myself went for a birding stroll in the park, it was fairly quiet and we never saw anything that could not be found in any UK woodland, a bit disappointing really. We saw Robin, Song Thrush, Chaffinch, Great Tit, Jay, Wood Pigeon, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Green Woodpecker, Eurasian Nuthatch and a couple I’ve probably forgotten.
The view of the park from the window on the 14th Floor in central Sofia
After breakfast we returned to our rooms on the 14th Floor and watched Alpine Swifts at eye-level, that made up for the lack of birds during the woodland walk.
We were collected from the hotel just after 1pm by Dancho, our Bulgarian Bird Guide. We drove to the airport to pick up some of the group, namely Gary and Rosemary. After collecting them we drove to a car-rental site to collect a second bus. Whilst wating for the second bus we noted quite a few species from the car park. Rook, Jackdaw, Common Kestrel, European Bee-eater, Cuckoo (heard), Nightingale (heard), Common Whitethroat, Goldfinch and a couple of others.
We then drove to our hotel in the Vitosha Mountain near the Aleko Ski Resort, after settling into our rooms we went out for a walk around 5pm. It was quite cold but not windy and we enjoyed some great birding. At nearly 5,000ft above sea-level the air was quite thin too.
Vitosha Mountains - looks cold and bleak, but the area was full of birds
a fabulous picture of the Ring Ouzel - taken by Rosemary Aitken
We couldn’t believe how close we could get to Ring Ouzels, they were extremely tame and very obliging. We then bumped into some smaller birds, Goldcrest, Firecrest, Coal Tit and Eurasian Treecreeper. A Mistle Thrush sang in the distance, a Song Thrush and a Blackbird dashed across the track, we saw numerous Chaffinches and a couple of Chiffchaffs.
this is a subspecies of the Ring Ouzel - Turdus alpestris - shows a lot of pale scaling on the underside, found in Central and Southern Europe.
Then a Grey Wagtail flushed from a roadside stream and we had our first sighting of Spotted Nutcracker, wowza! Over the next 30 minutes we saw several of them flyover us.
Spotted Nutcracker - we saw several of these enigmatic 'corvids' and one of them finally perched
Our next biggie was a Willow Tit, it was calling from roadside bushes and eventually showed very well. Greenfinches flew over and Wood Pigeons were common. A Nutcracker then landed in view for the first time and soon afterwards Rosemay found a much closer one. This Nutcracker was sitting in a tree in the garden of the hotel and a Ring Ouzel dropped into the grass, also in the garden. We filled our boots with them and Rosemary filled her memory card with dozens of pictures.
Willow Tit
We went indoors for a lovely dinner and I then drove back to the airport to meet the rest of the group, and Dancho with the second bus. Shall I tell the arriving group what they have just missed???