A 12-day bird photography tour providing excellent conditions to take pictures of colourful and attractive European birds, like the European Roller, European Bee-eater, Wallcreeper, Black-headed Bunting, Red-backed Shrike, Semi-collared Flycatcher, Pied Wheatear, Penduline Tit, Eurasian Golden Oriole and many others.

This tour includes 4 different regions in Bulgaria – the Black Sea coast, the Sakar Hills, the Eastern Rhodope Mountains and the Western Rhodope Mountains. We take photos from fixed hides, as well as from various tent-hides and vehicles. On this tour we visit colorful meadows, sand dunes and shrub habitats, which are full of flowers, butterflies and other wildlife, giving you an opportunity for enjoyable macro-photography.

We usually start this 12-day tour from the Northern Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, where we visit the area of the coastal lakes of Durankulak and Shabla, Cape Kaliakra and some nice wetlands around Varna. The main species of birds, on which we focus are the Pygmy Cormorant, Garganey, Ferruginous Duck, Paddyfield Warbler, Savi’s Warbler, Black-headed Bunting, Penduline Tit, Pied Wheatear, Calandra Lark, Eurasian Golden Oriole.

While in this area, we visit some of our well selected sites for European Roller and European Bee-eater photography, where we always take stunning images of these beautiful birds.

On the way south we make a few stops at the oak forests of the Eastern Balkan Range to photograph the Middle-spotted and Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers, Semi-collared Flycatcher, Short-toed Treecreeper.

Our next stop is the Bourgas wetlands, where we have excellent opportunities for photographing White Pelicans, Squacco, Night and Purple Herons and a variety of waders, like the Black-winged Stilt, Kentish Plover, Marsh Sandpiper.

The Sakar Hills is another site, which is included in this tour. There we usually take very good flight shots of the Eastern Imperial Eagle and Long-legged Buzzard, feeding on the Souslik colonies in the area. Variety of passerines can be photographed here, including the Black-headed Bunting, Red-backed and Woodchat shrikes, Isabelline Wheatear and with a little bit of luck we can take excellent photos of the Masked Shrike and Ortolan Bunting.

Then we move on to the Eastern Rhodope Mountains. There we make use of our special hides for photographing Black, Griffon and Egyptian vultures feeding on the carcass. There are good chances of photographing other birds of prey coming to the carcass, like the White-tailed Eagle and Black Kite. We also survey the cliff formations in the area for Western Rock Nuthatch and Rock Bunting. We can put tent-hides along the Arda river where there are excellent chances of photographing feeding Black Storks.

Finally we travel to the Western Rhodopes, crossing lots of picturesque and scenic areas, and we stay in the area of the Trigrad Gorge – probably the most reliable place in Europe to photograph the Wallcreeper. We spend a couple of days exploring the area. There we can also expect to photograph other attractive birds like the White-throated Dipper, Firecrest and Goldcrest, Crested Tit, Willow Tit, etc.

The tour can be extended to the mountains around Sofia, where we have a good experience with the Spotted Nutcracker, Ring Ouzel and Water Pipit photography.

Based on the 12-day itinerary presented here we can propose any itinerary for bird photography in Bulgaria, depending on your target species and the time you are ready to spend.