Falcon Overhead

Today was highly mixed, from lots of rain through well after lunch, to a wonderful falcon and hawk watch in the late afternoon. We drove some 220 kilometers northeast along the Black Sea to our next hotel, in Kavarna, much nearer to the Romanian border.

This is a Hobby--a species of falcon, and one of about a dozen that we saw during the 90 minutes of our watch. It's a juvenile, hatched this summer in Scandinavia, and now making its first annual migration to somewhere in Africa. The most frequent species we saw was the Red-footed Falcon, one of the birds that we had specially looked forward to; we had never seen it before this trip. There were several other species as well, both falcons and other rapters (hawks). The other birders on the trip are English--much more expert than us, and they were equally enthralled. One exclaimed that he had been looking for falcons all his birding life and this was much the best falcon experience he had ever had.

This image leaves perhaps more than a bit to be desired--but the birds were mostly very high, and the few somewhat lower ones flew fast!