When in Rome....ania

After months of planning what to pack and one epic day of packing we were ready to set off. I had some great new packing cubes from Annette and bought some for Jolyne as well! We each had a carry on sized roller bag and backpack - Mike packed even less! We had 2 weeks of clothing for birding in hot weather, walking many cities, the chance of rain, and potential cold weather in the Alps.

After boarding our plane in Atlanta it experienced a power box outage, so we spent some time in no AC on the runway before being deplaned. While being fixed we spent a few hours in Atlanta, causing us to miss our connection in Amsterdam. It wasn't all bad though - we had a nice lunch in Amsterdam and shopped their wonderful airport stores admiring the gruyere, pickles, tulips, etc. 

Unfortunately I had some epic food poisoning (contracted in OKC pre-trip) when we boarded our 9 hour flight to Amsterdam. Luckily Jolyne was there to help me out and we made out just fine. As you can see I was fully recovered by Amsterdam after sleeping on the plane and felt fine the rest of the trip!

Oversized Dutch chairs!

Romania was the first destination of our exciting European vacation. A country recovering from the atrocities of the 20th century in Eastern Europe, it is full of history but on the doorstep of rebirth. I'm sure Romania looks much different now than it did even ten years ago and will hopefully continue to recover. Though part of the European Union the country has its own currency. Residents of Romania are not free to travel, but this is apparently changing some. Many Romanians have never been out of the country, which is smaller than the size of Colorado. Our guide told us that he and some colleagues were invited to a conference in the Ukraine, but couldn't get the appropriate visas to attend. He had never been to the Ukraine or Moldova, countries literally on the other side of the Danube which he works on daily. 
After a long flight across the Atlantic and most of Europe we landed in Bucharest around midnight local time (4:00 p.m. central time) Saturday night, having left OKC Friday afternoon. We ended up spending a night in a hotel and the next morning secured our rental car to head towards the Black Sea. To me, and I'm sure many students around the world, the Black Sea always seemed like almost a fictional place. You learn about this iconic inland water body in history and geography and maybe even science classes, so it was incredible that we were actually GOING there. We made a leisurely drive up the coast of the sea and along some lakes in the area. After dipping our toes in the Black Sea we stopped for a traditional country lunch along Lake Babadag.

Our hotel breakfast buffet - where I ate my weight in poppy seeds! Among the options for a Romanian hotel breakfast was whipped eggplant salad.

The Black Sea has a bottom layer that does not mix with the top layer receiving oxygen. There are two distinct layers to the sea without the circulation of most bodies of water, thus a lot of shipwrecks and other debris are thought to be at the bottom of the sea, well preserved in the anoxic environment. 

Jolyne and I weren't having great luck with ordering - they were out of everything we tried for! We ended up with some grilled fish and fried potato balls. Mike opted for the recommended fish soup. The cucumber salad was really good - we went on cucumber/pickle overload because they were so great in the area! The local beer was Silva and all the varieties we tried were really good.

We hit the Danube Delta, a grand biosphere, as fall migration was coming to an end. Tulcea (pronounced toll-cha) is a small city of about 72,000 nestled on the Danube river and the Delta that spills into the Black Sea.

The Danube Delta is a really amazing area biologically speaking. Deltas are so full of nutrients and unique ecosystems and this is a major European river spilling into an inland sea, so it was really cool as a biologist to be able to explore this area. We hired a great tour company that took us on a boating tour complete with a captain and amazing guide, Florin. We departed at 9:00 on one of the company's boats. Upon setting out, the Danube was engulfed in a thick fog - not great for birding, but really beautiful. Luckily the fog lifted as we snaked our way into the side creeks along the birding route. The temperature had been projected at about 90 F, so we were anxious to see what our boat looked like and what the conditions would turn out to be. We had a nice sun shade and with the movement on the water the temperature and infamous mosquitoes were never an issue! 

The first bird I saw was a kingfisher. We have three kingfisher species in the US that I've seen and the European variety is similar in shape and size, though much more colorfully iridescent. 

We saw a lot of juvenile night herons, though no adults!

We also saw a number of white tailed eagles, the same genus as our bald eagle.

Hooded crows were a new one for me - and easy to ID!

Black headed gull in winter plumage

My first ever lapwing!

I was excited for the chance to see so many new species in a day. As a birder you never know what surprise or exciting species you might encounter on a regular birding adventure, but with a trip like this you're guaranteed excitement because almost all the birds are new to you!

We have many birding inside jokes from years and years of birding trips - most of these jokes are about me seeing a rare bird and no one else seeing it (or believing me). I don't mean that I'm an exceptional birder and have a better eye or more patience than anyone else - that's definitely not the case. I would describe my birding as always hoping to see the most rare things possible and believing they're a rarity until being proven they're common. This, I'm told, is not a good outlook for birders. I'm also told I shouldn't wear bright girly colors in the field, but you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes. I think my hope for a rarity has served me pretty well and I believe myself an optimist. A few years ago in south Texas I was walking a little ahead of the group and thought I saw a pyrrhuloxia - very similar to a common Northern cardinal, but much more rare. By the time I had alerted my dad, the only other experienced birder in the group, the bird had flown away. No one believed me. A few days later in the trip I had to make a bathroom break and left the group. When I left the bathroom I was the first to see a whole group of pyrrhuloxia. This time luckily I was able to get the attention of the park naturalist to back up my claims and then the flock stayed around long enough for our whole birding group to see. My dad had to admit I succeeded that time, but I still don't think he believes the initial sighting a few days prior. We saw more pyrrhuloxia on that trip than any other birding excursion. 
I tend to like the birds that are either really bright and distinctive and thus can't be confused with any other bird (roseate spoonbill) or the birds that are extremely cryptic and hard to find (bitterns and pauraque). I've seen two bitterns in my life and can tell you exactly where we were and what they were doing when we saw them. I wrote a research paper on them for an ecology class, so I'm always eager for the chance to see these very secretive wading birds. I asked our guide, Florin, if he ever saw these along our birding route because the habitat is appropriate for them. He remarked that he saw 3 or 4 a year, but it might be too late in the season.  

After a very full day of birding we were returning to the main Danube. I was very pleased with the list of birds we boasted for the day and we were all pretty tired. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something on the banks - another juvenile night heron. But just behind it was a smaller, heavily streaked bird slowly inching into a bush. I told Florin I thought it could be a bittern and he motioned to the captain to turn the boat around. By the time we snuck up on the spot again it was nowhere to be seen. We went back on our way and I looked up the bittern in the book to verify what I saw and show Mike and Jolyne. I remarked "great, my dad is NEVER going to believe I saw a bittern". Just then a bittern - I'm not sure if it was the same individual or a different one - flew right in front of our boat, took a big crap in the water, and landed on the bank. It hung out in the open on the bank and allowed for pictures to be taken. My first ones are all really blurry because I think I was shaking! Mike remarked that he hadn't seen me move that fast since they announced free beer. Seeing my third bittern - and a rarity - was a great way to end our Romanian birding adventure. 

Mike and Jolyne picked up birding as we went. I know it's kind of a weird hobby to those not familiar with it and I know it can be REALLY boring (since that's how I felt the first 20 years of my life). I'm glad it was a beautiful day on a boat regardless of the species seen!



My bittern!!


The whole list for those interested:  Hooded crow Kingfisher
Great crested Grebe Mute swan Eurasian Coot Black stork Little egret Moorhen Common Teal Spotted red shank Lapwing Snipe Little grebe Hobby Wood sandpiper Western Marsh Harrier Whiskered tern White pelicans Red footed falcon Little bittern Peregrin falcon Osprey Black headed gull Great cormorant Pygmy cormorant