BULGARIA
Of all the places on that made it onto my summer travel list, Bulgaria was very much the least expected. When the invite to the Black Sea coast arrived for the (absolutely awesome) wedding of a friend, I immediately started looking at flights- but I figured that the few days I’d spend there wouldn’t be particularly wildlife filled. The towns would be too developed and beaches would be too crowded for there to be enough sights to carve a blog post from, I thought- but I’m glad to say I was seriously, seriously wrong.
As soon as I woke up on our first morning in the cobbled town of Sozopol to the chatter of swallows on the cables outside of our hotel room, I knew it was going to be my kind of place. And when we walked down to the harbour in the morning to find three dice snakes hunting in the harbour’s shallows, striking out at the tiny shoals of fish- that’s when I knew this place was pretty special.
But it was Poda, a reserve halfway between Burgas and Sozopol, that completely blew me away. 10 minutes after pulling into the centre and grabbing some binoculars on the way up to the roof, we’d seen pygmy cormorants, marsh harriers, hobbies, squacco and purple herons, and clouds of swallows scything through the air on top of the reedbeds hoovering up insects. There were huge flocks of migrating Dalmatian pelicans, and tiny terrapins that quickly dropped into the undergrowth if they spotted you before you spotted them. There was a beach with little terns, electricity pylons stacked with cormorants, and a generous sprinkling of vivid red dragonflies lining the paths. The icing on the spectacular cake was a white-tailed sea eagle, which soared right up to one of the pilots, scattering the cormorants as it landed. Sadly, I didn’t have a lens long enough to capture all the magic this time- so you’ll have to be content with these photos of the handsome yellow-legged gulls, and my hirundine sunrise companions. At least until I’ve managed to make my way back there, because this most special of places definitely deserves a repeat visit.
