Today we were to visit a site that we've had a lot of success searching for butterflies in the past, near the village of Paril close to the Greek border. We set off from our hotel in Gotse Delchev at 7:20am, driving for just over an hour before reaching the site. The first bits of interest came from the car, five minutes before arriving; I hopped out to grab a few photos of a Hoopoe as it fed on the road, and then a short way on took a few photos of a Greenfinch as it fed on a patch of thistles, just a meter from the edge of the road.

It was quite an overcast morning, so butterfly activity was very slow to begin with. This had its advantages however, as the butterflies we did manage to find were not active, and the light was generally very good. The first good find was a roosting Meleager's Blue, a very fresh individual, but it was a while before we found much else of interest.

Eventually we came to a path that climbs fairly steeply away from the main track. We'd never checked it out before, so decided to today. This proved a good choice, with our first Lulworth Skipper for many years. I'm sure we overlook them, not tending to check out the orange skippers we see too often, but this individual reminded us that they really are distinctive. We also saw the first of 8 Large Blue throughout the walk, the most we've seen at one site in Bulgaria, a fresh Eastern Baton Blue, a Thistle Ermine (Myelois circumvoluta), the tortrix moth Thyme Marble (Celypha cespitana) and the blister beetle Mylabris fabricii.

Later on it did warm up more, especially as we retraced our steps back to the car, at about 11:00am. One of the highlights was spotting several Variable Burnet (Zygaena ephialtes), and I managed to get my first photos of the species. It is one of the less regularly seen Zygaena in Bulgaria. The best butterflies were 5 Map, at least 2 Purple Emperor, a Common Glider, and a White Admiral. All except the Map proved too difficult to photo. We also recored Purple-shot Copper, Knapweed Fritillary, lots of Eastern Rock Grayling, and the Erebid moth Euclidia triquetra.

By 1:35pm we were back to the car, ready to drive back a short way to check out a potential site for Eastern Greenish Black-tip. We only had a brief look, not least because we were most likely at the wrong time of year, and we have searched here several times previously in vain. We did see Lang's Short-tailed Blue, Swallowtail and a couple of Balkan Marbled White.

On the way back we stopped at a restaurant 'Belite Skali' for lunch. Before leaving we had a little walk along a dry stream beside the complex, which was surprisingly successful, producing a long-awaited new species for us — Provençal Short-tailed Blue! I only managed a single photo before it was off, not to be seen again. In addition we found an Anomalous Blue, and what must be the best-looking Meleager's Blue we'd ever come across, a stunning female.