Barred Warblers in Romania.

Barred Warbler is a very difficult bird to see, although it is a large warbler it is frequently skulking and shy and can be very frustrating to pin down. We had tried using Dimiter’s expert local knowledge to see one and we had a few brief glimpses of birds from a few sites that he knew, but because their breeding had finished they weren’t showing very much. We were in the last site that he knew birds had been seen and we could see two birds just flitting around the bushes but it didn’t look like there was any chance of a decent sighting. It was again blisteringly hot as we sat in the jeep using it as a hide and we were seriously thinking of giving it up as a bad job, but Dimiter, who was very dogged in his approach to seeing birds just wanted to give it a bit more time. We could see a bird low down in some dense bushes and then surprisingly it popped out briefly into view and I had about ten seconds to take a few shots, it wasn’t much time but at least we had a half decent view of a bird. Goodness only knows if we will ever see another so it was good to get at least a record shot.



A very distinctive bright golden yellow eye!