One of those days that start well and then get better and better...
Despite a very civilised start time, we still managed to arrive at Cape Kaliakra before the general tourist arrival and had the place pretty much to ourselves. Amongst the interesting Byzantine ruins we had good views of three species of wheatear (Pied, Isabelline and Northern), with low flying Alpine Swifts buzzing us.
Just offshore attention first went to the birds, with good numbers of Black-throated Diver gathering together, many in smart breeding plumage, and smaller numbers of Black-necked Grebe and fly-past Yelkouan Shearwaters. We were then distracted from the birds by a small group of Harbour Porpoise (the endangered Black Sea sub-species) feeding some way offshore... and then, further out still, a pod of Bottle-nosed Dolphins moved through, heading purposefully north.
Moving back inland a bit, we had a stop on some fantastic flower-rich steppe grassland, where we soaked up the spectacle of the amazing colours of the dwarf irises (two species grow alongside each other, the pale yellow and sweetly smelling Iris suaveolens and the incredibly variable and slightly less scented Iris pumila), the dazzling yellow Adonis vernalis (photo above), the crimson Adonis flammea and the deep red Paeonia tenuifolia, a very special plant of the Pontic steppe just bursting into flower. Calandra Larks sang overhead, one or two fresh Swallowtails sheltered amongst the vegetation and a Spur-thighed Tortoise hunkered down, but the plants won the most admiration.
From the steppe, we dropped down into a wonderful hidden valley. While examining some otter spraint on the bridge at the bottom, I looked up to see an animal striding across the path a little further on... an animal with tabby stripes and a long, bushy, dark-tipped tail... rather amazingly, on my second visit to the area, my second Wild Cat! Even more amazingly, this one actually hung around long enough for everyone to get a look at him, as he paced through the vegetation, turned to look over his shoulder from a small rise and then dropped down into the reeds behind. Wow...
(what's even more amazing, only 20 minutes and less than 1km earlier, our driver had watched not one but two Wild Cats (presumably a mother and well-grown kitten) walk across the road in front of him, while we were all scrabbling about on the steppe nearby photographing the flowers! If you want to see a Wild Cat, get yourself to Bulgaria...)
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