Never Stop Birding: The Saga of a Bulgarian Mega

Part One: The Discovery

A couple days ago I decided to visit the Ethnographic Museum in the Old Town of Plovdiv, Bulgaria. It was right around the corner from my hostel, located in a beautiful building, and just generally seemed like a pleasant way to spend an evening. When I was finished seeing the museum, I decided to rest for a bit in the garden. The day was a warm one, the sun was going down, and I wanted to take a second to take in my surroundings. However, within minutes of sitting down on a bench, my rest was interrupted by a bird call which I did not recognize. From somewhere in the tree directly behind me was coming a slurred, repeated “dewee” note. Since I’m still trying to learn European birds, I was tempted to dismiss it as something common, but decided to check it out just in case.

What I found in that tree was a small, very active bird with a bit of marking on the face and that reminded me a lot of a kinglet. Since I didn’t have my binoculars with me, I couldn’t get all that good of a look, and the bird quickly flew up and out of the garden. With what field marks I had noticed and particularly with that strange call in mind, I consulted the Collins Guide App and, having eliminated the crests due to voice, quickly opened up the warblers.

One warbler in particular stood out from the rest: yellow-browed warbler. What visual clues I had seen matched and the call sounded spot on. A yellow-browed would be very rare in Bulgaria with only 4 previous records so, elated, I dashed to my hostel to get binoculars, a camera, and sound recording gear; posted on the Birding Bulgaria Facebook group; and set out to try to refind the bird.

Unfortunately, despite looking all across the Old Town, I could not locate it again before it went dark. I resolved myself to look for the bird at dawn and, via my Facebook post, made plans to meet up with local birder Georgi Gerdzhikov who would join me for the hunt.

Part Two: The Hunt

The next morning I woke up, hurriedly dressed, and, with the sun shining its first rays onto the world, stepped outside the hostel. I froze instantly. I had heard it. The bird was close! Just around the corner! I rushed over, and, as I rounded the corner, found a very happy Georgi already on the bird and photographing it. Over the next half hour we watched the warbler bounce back and forth between the garden of the ethnographic museum and the trees across the street. Relieved that I could finally document it, I snapped photos and made recordings to my heart’s content. It was an extremely hyperactive little thing, constantly on the move and keeping up a stream of call notes.

Extremely pleased, I returned to my hostel for breakfast and to process and upload photos and recordings.

Part Three: The Revelation

Not long after I posted photos and audio to Facebook, it was pointed out in the comments that the bird didn’t actually seem to be a yellow-browed at all. In fact, both audio and the photos showed it being the similar, but substantially rarer Hume’s warbler! Researching this identification, I saw what people meant: the bird lacked much contrast in the supercilium or the underparts, had dark legs and only one visible wing bar, and the spectrograms on closer inspection matched the call of Hume’s. I was a little sheepish that my Western Palearctic birding knowledge wasn’t sharp enough yet to have properly identified it at first, but that shame was vastly eclipsed by excitement at having found something even rarer!! The one downside was that, as Hume’s is the Central Asian counterpart of the Siberian-breeding yellow-browed, it was no longer a lifer for me as I’d seen them in Kyrgyzstan.

It was later confirmed that this represents the first record of Hume’s warbler for Bulgaria and, accordingly, people have been flowing in from across the country to see it. The bird has remained extremely cooperative, sticking to a small area of the Old Town and lots of birders have been able to see it. At one point it even showed up in the garden of my hostel which was kind of neat.

Most importantly, this bird is a great example of why you should always be aware of your surroundings. I hadn’t been looking for birds of any kind, and yet found one of my rarest self-found vagrants to date. It also shows the importance of curiosity in birding and particularly in rarity finding. I didn’t recognize a call and so sought out the bird (even without binoculars). Had I not, I would have missed out on a great sighting.

Recordings of the Hume’s:
https://www.xeno-canto.org/401452
https://www.xeno-canto.org/401453