Today's main focus were dragonflies, with several potential new species for us in Bulgaria on the cards. We planned an early start but woke to overcast and rainy conditions, so it wasn't until 9:15am that we left Melnik. After 35 minutes we arrived at the first site, a small reservoir surrounded by reeds, where we've seen a good range of species over the years. There've been recent reports of Violet Dropwing here, a species that only colonised Bulgaria in the last 5 years, but we didn't come across any in previous visits.

Today we missed out once again, although we later realised that we ought to have walked the whole circumference of the reservoir. The reason we didn't is there was a lot to see and photograph at the near side, in particular a Bladetail, another recent coloniser in Bulgaria (about 10 years now). This was just our second ever. It was quite skittish and went missing for periods, but in general stayed quite loyal to a particular area, landing regularly on pieces of vegetation. Otherwise we saw 5+ Black Pennant, lots of Broad Scarlet, 7+ White-tailed Skimmer, lots of Southern Skimmer, a few Black-tailed Skimmer, a Blue Emperor and some Common Bluetails.

The other highlight here was a Lesser Fiery Copper, a species that's not supposed to be particularly rare but one we come across infrequently. I only managed a poor record shot before losing sight of it. Birds included a Short-toed Eagle, Woodchat Shrike, Crested Lark, and a couple of juvenile (Black-headed) Yellow Wagtails in the reeds.

We left at 12:00pm, as we still had several more places we wanted to check out during the day. Next up was a new site for us, where the target dragonfly was Banded Darter, one of my most wanted species. The little stream where we were expecting them held nothing but Beautiful Demoiselles, but to our surprise, on the walk back to the car we spotted a female in a dry area of vegetation. I managed a few photos before it flew into an inaccessible location, but encouraged by our success we searched more widely, managing before long to find an immature male. They really are delicate creatures; certainly no other dragonflies quite like them. Nearby I also photographed an impressive Mammoth Wasp (Megascolia maculata).

Driving on a short way, we visited another new site for us, a small village from which a tack goes down to a river. This is the site where Bulgaria's first Yellow-spotted Emerald was found a few years ago, and perhaps still the only site it's been found. We weren't particular hopeful of success, deciding to go more than anything to find some shade by the river to have lunch and escape the heat for a bit. There was indeed no sign of any emeralds, the only dragonflies being a Balkan Goldenring, Small Pincertail and Black-tailed Skimmer. Butterflies were a bit more interesting, with singles of Adonis Blue, Long-tailed Blue, Lang's Short-tailed Blue, Anomalous Blue and Oriental Marbled Skipper along the track. Along the river there were 2 Grey Wagtail, and lots of Red-rumped Swallow drinking.

Our final stop of the day was to look for Grass Jewel at the place we'd found them two years earlier. There have only ever been a few records in Bulgaria, all from this site, including a few last year. We actually checked it out again last year, but had been unsuccessful. Once again there was no sign again this year, possibly because we were a bit too late in the year — everything was very dry, including the foodplant which had completely gone over.

The other classic butterfly species here is Mediterranean Skipper, and we were very successful with these, seeing at least five. In theory there are also the very similar looking Pygmy Skipper here, an even rarer species in Bulgaria. We'd only ever had definite Mediterranean before, and despite seeing so many today we still couldn't eek out a Pygmy. Other butterflies included a Southern White Admiral that posed well, another Long-tailed Blue, Adonis Blue, Little Tiger Blue, Lesser Spotted Fritillary, and an Oriental Marbled Skipper. There were also a couple of interesting moths, both new to us — 3 Eilicrinia trinotata, a nice Geometrid, and the Crambid Aporodes floralis. After an hour on site we left at 4:30pm, ending a successful day.