BWT Travel Guide

ROMANIA
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ROMANIA
ROMANIA
It’s a case of ‘the birds and the bears’ in this rich and varied
eastern European wildlife haven
WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHS: MIKE WEEDON
E
uropean birdwatching trips are
not really supposed to be like
this. One day, you are watching
a Ural Owl and Chamois in the
morning, a dozen close-up Brown Bears
in the evening. And a couple of days later
drifting along by a floating Whiskered
Tern colony, with White and Dalmatian
Pelicans overhead, enjoying more
Squacco Herons than you can imagine.
And, moored up at night, the frog and
toad chorus is so loud that you can barely
dream, let alone sleep.
But Romania presents a different kind
of European birding, offering several
different worlds within its borders.
I was there in June, accompanying a
group from the Ramblers Worldwide
Holidays. The trip was split between
exploring the Carpathians and Dracula
country in Transylvania; the steppe; and
five nights sleeping on a ‘floating hotel’
in the mind-blowing Danube Delta.
The bears were the highlight of the
first couple of days of the trip, in the
Carpathians. We visited a little hide and
watched the
glorious mammals
emerging from the
forest to come to
biscuit bait. Brown
Bears are nervous
and sensitive to
each other’s
positions and
movements.
A sneaky Fox,
which came in to
pinch some biscuits,
set the younger
bears and females
on edge. But not as
Male Brown Bear
much as the appearance of a big brute of
a male, massive and muscular, and
already mostly in his short summer coat.
One of the females flirted with him,
outrageously, leading him into the forest.
But the highlights, for me, of the whole
bear-watching experience included
hearing the blood-curdling, instinctjarring
roars of nearby bears in the
forest. That and the all-too-brief
appearance of a mother with two tiny
cubs which almost looked like they
wanted to come and explore in the back
of our (open-doored) hide.
Delta drifting
The core of the whole trip was cruising
the myriad water ways of the Danube
Delta. There are 3,446 square km of this
incredible delta system in Romania.
Channels take you through subtly
different vegetation systems and forest
types. There are vast floating reedbeds,
damp forests, dunes, lagoons, and richly
vegetated banks. And there are masses of
birds, everywhere!
The excitement started when we first
boarded our floating hotel at Tulcea, the
gateway to the delta. House Sparrows, of
all the exotic birds you could choose,
were sweeping majestically over the
water by our boat and catching giant
yellow Tisza Mayflies (Europe’s biggest
mayfly). We even got excited by our first
passing Whiskered Terns. I say ‘even’ not
because Whiskered Terns are anything
other than fantastic birds, but because we
were to see thousands of them over the
next few days in
the delta. I love
Whiskered Terns,
but they are so
common there
that, when a
couple of (for us,
more familiar)
Black Terns
White Pelicans are
more numerous than
Dalmatian Pelicans in
the Danube Delta
joined one feeding flock, these grabbed
all the attention.
The Danube Delta is a massive source
of food for a great variety of birds. There
are feeding herons everywhere, with
different tracts attracting Night Herons,
Squacco Herons, Purple Herons and Little
and Great White Egrets, Pygmy
Cormorants and Cormorants, and of
course White, and a lesser number of,
Dalmatian Pelicans.
But above the water, there were great
riches, too. Never have I known such
numbers of Cuckoos. There is a constant
accompaniment of the males’ song and
occasional females’ ‘bubbling’ calls.
There are Icterine and Eastern
Olivaceous Warblers warbling, Golden
The landscape
of the
Carpathians is
truly beautiful
18 World Birding 2016