After a morning in the steppe, at midday we began the three hour drive south to our next hotel, in the town of Pomorie. We had one stop planned along the way — Goritsa Forest, about two thirds of the way through the journey. While not the only site they breed, Goritsa is the most famous place for Semicollared Flycatcher in Bulgaria, a species I’d not yet seen. Unfortunately, despite a couple hours of searching a spot they’d been reported earlier in the year, we weren’t successful in locating any. I suspect the easiest time to find them would be a little earlier in the year.

However, despite no luck with the flycatchers, we didn’t come away completely empty handed. Without much searching, we found an excellent variety of herps, including 3 Meadow Lizard, just our second record, and 15+ Snake-eyed Skinks, a completely new species and my first world skink! Seeing and photographing both of these was good from a wider trip perspective too, as it meant down in the Strandzha on a later part of the trip we could focus more on the butterflies. In the forest the light was of course poor, and the skinks especially didn’t often remain still for long. Nevertheless I managed a few reasonable images.

Other species recorded were our first Smooth Snake of the trip, and nearby our first Agile Frog. Neither allowed for particularly good photos. We also came across a new moth for us in Bulgaria, albeit one we’d seen back in Kent: a favourite of mine — Dasycera oliviella (Scarce Forest Tubic).

Now based at Pomorie, the next few days would feature more Black Sea birding, starting tomorrow at Poda BSPB.