A few days in the Eastern Rhodopes (1 Viewer)

My wife received a request to provide support to some members of her church currently living in Bulgaria so I, naturally offered to go along and suggested a few days looking for butterflies at the same time.

At the suggestion of Vic Tucker, a lifelong friend we booked into the Arda hotel complex which is often used by Bulgarian tour groups.

The aim was a relaxing few days seeing what we could find locally and with the aim of putting my christmas present of a european guide to dragonflies to good use.

We were not specifically looking at birds but I thought forum members would be interested in the other local wildlife found in that area without any specific sites.

This will, therefore be a short round up of the groups of animals etc that we bumped into with a few snaps where they are not too blurry.

So general background first :

The hotel complex is on the bank of the Arda River near the village of Dolcho Cherkovnishte. Naturally this village, along with many of the roads is not on any map we could find so it took many hours and a few detours to find!

The setting is fantastic with a natural rock arch above the valley and woodland plus meadows all around.

They can be contacted via the internet bgstay.com/en-o-22245-hotel_complex_arda But take care not to mix it up with the similarly named place on the coast.

We were surprised that no one spoke English and that the only method of payment was cash but staff were always friendly and the food was good and reasonably priced.

Of course as the menu was in the CYrillic script we did use pictures and google to try and order. Even so it's best to take a relaxed attitude when your ice cream turns out to be a pancake.

I was most interested in the butterflies and hoped to see a few new species so I was happy with the profusion of plants in the hotel grounds and in nearby meadows

The only specific target species that I saw was Freyers Purple Emperor. I saw a probable in trees by the river that ran through the complex, a couple by a ford where we looked for dragonflies and one at the Madzarova Vulture centre.

The only other really wished for species was Poplar Admiral which I failed to bump into but which is almost certainly in the area somewhere.

Anyway here are a few shots of the ones that posed best for me

Eastern festoons were common but rarely perched and Southern white admiral is always a treat to see

Various fritillaries were seen including, spotted, lesser spotted, twin spot, queen of spain and silver washed. Blues were a bit of a challenge but I think mazarine was fairly common and I was happy with Amandas . I also clinched sloe and ilex hairstreaks.

I was expecting several new browns but only seemed to see meadow brown after meadow brown with just one laticed brown. It could be that some of the meadow browns were in fact dusky so I have put in a couple of pics for others to decide.

Whites all seemed to be large or green veined with just one eastern bath white all week.

A final few butterflies, those freyers purple emperors I mentioned and what I think is orbed red underwing skipper.

On the last day great banded graylings must have started emerging which suggests that the actual week makes a huge difference to what you would see.

Dragonflies were a bit disapointing. We stopped at any pools and rivers that we passed as we drove into the nearest town to replace the cash and even braved a road where even the potholes had their own potholes in the hope of species such as Balkan emerald or even Bulgarian Emerald but saw virtually none.

Damselflies were commoner with common winter and white legged being regular. One local pond held eastern willow and southern willow damsels and I think I got a single goblet marked. The demoiselles were very much more obvious however

Reptiles and frogs were fairly common with spur thighed tortoise, wall lizard and balkan green lizard seen on several days.

Moths were not, apparently attracted to the hotels few lights but a few were found in the grass including my first feathered footman and one that I think was purple tiger.

Fireflies could be found at night by walking along the road

I saw a marten of some kind cross the road a few meters from me one morning but it simply vanished into woodland. I suspect stone marten as it looked darker and "grubbier" somehow than pine marten. I also saw a distant one hunting for nests in a small tree as I walked at night but by the time I had returned with binoculars to back up my torch it was a long way off.

As I said, birds were a secondary consideration but it was terrific to be deafened by a constant chorus of nightingales, golden orioles, woodlarks, eastern olivaceous warbles, red-backed shrikes and black-headed buntings.

When I did look up on occasion there were black storks, gryphon and Egypyian vultures, various buzzards, short toed eagles etc flying over the complex itself. One odd sight was a flock of pelicans apparently hell bent on reaching Cornwall.

I would recommend the site .... especially to fluent Bulgarian speakers... or people like me who simply don't care what they end up eating and drinking !

A most interesting report, and I'm delighted you enjoyed your visit, mix-ups with palachinkas and sladoleds notwithstanding!
I have bookmarked the hotel and look forward to visiting in due course.

Chris

Gryphon is a bit of a turn up. B A nice all round selection of species.

All the best