This morning was our last at the first accommodation of the trip, and we would be spending the day travelling further west in the Eastern Rodopi to the town of Krumovgrad. On the way we had a few stops planned, with a focus largely on searching for some of the region's dragonfly specialities. First up though was another early morning walk out from the village and along the river, hoping to re-find the Masked Shrike from two days ago. We were in luck today, and without much difficulty came across 3 Masked Shrike, a pair and then a lone male on the way back. We were treated to some good prolonged views, but none of the photos I took were quite of the quality I was hoping for. In any case, a real bonus to see these here, as it’s not an easy bird to find in the Eastern Rodopi, and it meant we would be under less pressure later in the trip when visiting a more traditional site for the species. Certainly one of my favourite birds.

Birdlife in general was very active during our morning walk, and as well as the shrikes we enjoyed singing Golden Orioles, Nightingales, Turtle Doves and Blackcaps, and saw Spanish Sparrow, Black-headed Bunting and Red-backed Shrike. Overhead there were 3 Black Kite, several Hooded Crows and a nice low Honey Buzzard. Once it warmed up we saw a few butterflies, the most notable being a second Grecian Copper of the trip - a worn individual. Moths included a familiar sight in Willow Beauty and then less familiar in a Pale Shoulder and Orache Moth - two rare migrants back home in Kent. The Orache was actually sitting on the side of our hire car, but flew off as I tried to move it. We were also surprised to find a Bulgarian Emerald, one of the day’s main targets, and one for which we had specific sites planned later in the day. I spent a bit of time attempting to photograph it in flight, without any success, before we decided we needed to drive on to give enough time for the next sites. This proved to be a bad decision, as we never saw the species again!

After finishing packing and beginning the drive to the next site, it was coming up to midday. Our first stop was at an abandoned (dry) swimming pool, which acts as a bit of trap for reptiles and amphibians. We spent an hour flipping stones and rubbish in and around the area, and were a bit disappointed to end with just a Caspian Whip-snake, Agile Frog and 20+ Marsh Frog. The snake was too quick for us and went un-photographed.

At 1:00pm we arrived at the next site, a famous one for its dragonflies, supposedly holding several of our targets such as Turkish Goldenring, Bulgarian Emerald, Eastern Spectre and Blue-eye. It was however very disappointing, and while it is a nice site that we stayed at for most of the afternoon, it held very few dragonflies - just Blue Featherlegs, Beautiful Demoiselles, a few Dainty Bluet, 3 Common Clubtail, a Broad-bodied Chaser and a Green-eyed Hawker. The best find here was another Grecian Copper, and this time I was able to get a few photos, albeit a faded specimen in harsh light. Other butterflies noted included Scarce Swallowtail, Eastern Festoon, Queen of Spain Fritillary, Knapweed Fritillary and Silver-studded Blue. The most notable birds were singles of Grey Wagtail and White Wagtail, our first Cirl Bunting of the trip, and a Booted Eagle overhead.

Our next site was another one for dragonflies, and was a little more productive than the last. It was another interesting location, with a micro-reservoir (that was mostly dried out but still held a small amount of water), and nearby a small stream. Getting to these first required a 10 minute walk along a track. Along here our most interesting find was a group of puddling blues that included 6 Amanda’s Blue, all very fresh, and 4 Mazarine Blue. At the micro-reservoir, the main feature were a good number of both Robust Spreadwing and Migrant Spreadwing. Amongst them were also a few Azure Bluet, Small Bluetail and Broad-bodied Chaser. The nearby stream looked to be perfect habitat for Eastern Spectre, as they like these small shaded streams. I found a suitable waiting spot and sat for a while, before long being joined by at least 5 Eastern Spectre shooting up and down the stream in front of me. As it was now quite late in the evening, hardly any light was penetrating the surrounding encompassing trees, so I was forced to use low shutter speeds and extremely high ISOs (12,8000), not the ideal setting to photograph a fast moving insect in flight! In any case, the biggest challenge was actually focusing correctly at all; the only way is to manually focus in advance and I get lucky. I got a couple of very poor results. In this area I also found our first 2 Large Red Damselfly of the trip.

Just as we were about to leave, while getting a few final photos of the spreadwings, I suddenly spotted a small insect roosting on one of the grasses by the meadow. I knew immediately what it was but couldn’t believe my luck - a clearwing moth. And not just any clearwing moth, arguably Bulgaria’s most attractive one: Pyropteron minianiformis, a real stunner with its flash of orange on each wing. As it seems unlikely I have such an encounter again, I decided to make the most of it photographically and gently move the moth onto several other perches to obtain a little variety of images. What had been a somewhat frustrating day had been turned around - this find certainly went down as one of the top few highlights of the entire trip. We also saw a Red Fox just as we returned to the car.

It was quite late now but we made a couple more random stops during the remaining part of the journey - first for a Hermann’s Tortoise on the road, and further on at an abandoned quarry where we heard and then saw 2 Woodlark, a new bird for the trip. These would surprisingly turn out to be the only ones seen for the entire 6 weeks.