Finding Birds in Northern Greece
I'm old enough to remember being given sites for good birds abroad with a nod and 'Keep it under your hat'. Early guides were criticised for allowing all and sundry to invade favourite sites and disturb rare birds. When drafting the Birdwatcher's Code in the early Eighties, I added "Behave abroad as you do at home", knowing that the pressures of limited time and budget can lead to less than adequate care for the Code's first point: "The welfare of the bird always comes first."
That still applies, but the worry over secrecy has long gone, with guides mapping rare bird nests and giving an abundance of detail on exactly where to go. Better everyone knows than a secret site being destroyed.
Having not been to northern Greece for a while, I'm pleasantly surprised that Dave Gosney's guide tells me that most sites remain and many are improved — despite the many problems, especially drainage on a vast scale, described more fully in the Crossbill Guide.
The two overlap a little, but Gosney's little paperback book covers the narrow belt of Greece from the magnificent Prespa lakes on the Albanian border to the remnant Evros Delta on the Turkish border; the glossy full-colour Crossbill Guide has a broader scope, including landscape, history and other wildlife, and extends much farther north to Bulgaria.
Site guides can just list certainties, underplaying the attractions of the lesser sites, or offer a longer list of possibilities that can be grossly misleading. The Crossbill Guide has useful lists of expectations and good detail based on long walks and mountain hikes, while the Gosney book brings in detail from past visits — by Dave and others, mostly very recent — which read more like brief trip reports. Sometimes, Dave tells us what might be expected but that he failed to see — but after all, I often have a 'blank' day in my local New Forest. It adds a welcome sense of reality and manages expectations — you have to go and see for yourself!
This area of south-eastern Europe remains vitally important for birds and wonderful for any naturalist and traveller with an eye for landscape, history and culture, and these guides are exceedingly helpful. To get a real flavour of the place, buy the Gosney DVD, too.
 Finding Birds in Northern Greece |  Eastern Rhodopes: Nestos, Evros and Dadia - Bulgaria and Greece |
