Bulgarian Butterflies 2026.

 Although our tour was mainly focussed on Dragonflies, the diversity and number of butterfly species was once again very impressive, and for the 2nd year we saw over 90 species of butterfly in our 9 days in the Country.

Of course, not all of them posed for the cameras, but all the guests that were into photography had a brilliant time with all the insects.

There are not many sights more impressive than seeing numbers of Black-veined Whites flying over flower meadows. In the early 20th century this was possible to see in the UK until the insect became extinct. However, plans are afoot to re-introduce the Black-veined White into a few sites in Britain.

On our first afternoon we saw plenty of these large butterflies floating over a meadow, and one of our team spotted a mating pair in a Hawthorn bush. What made this even more interesting was the pupal case next to the female. The male clearly found her before she flew and joined up with her before she could escape his advances.

Mating pair of Black-veined White with pupal case.

Black-veined White on Viper's Bugloss.

On the 2nd day we found a sparkling new Spotted Fritillary, one of my favourite butterflies in Bulgaria.

Spotted Fritillary.

As we gradually moved south through the week we came across so many species. Many have the pretext 'Eastern' here. Like the Eastern Knapweed Fritillary.

Eastern Knapweed Fritillary.

Or some had the pretext 'Balkan'.

Balkan Zephyr Blue.

Mating Clouded Yellows.

Plenty of Queen of Spain Fritillaries were seen throughout the whole tour with them being seen on 6 of the 9 days.

Queen of Spain Fritillary.

Grecian Copper.

As well as the Grecian Copper we also saw Sooty Copper, some very dark Small Copper, Scarce Copper, Purple-shot Copper, Purple-edged Copper, Lesser Fiery Copper and Balkan Copper.

Scarce Copper.

On the higher slopes where we saw the Spearhead Bluet, I spotted a stunning female Amanda's Blue. As the sun was getting lower in the sky she was opening her wings for the sun and then closing them when the sun went in. She did however, still give us a peep of her top wings.

Female Amanda's Blue.

One of the hotels that we stayed in had a magnificent wild meadow in front of it. We were only there the one night, so it was an early start looking for the special insects that were hiding in the meadow. Our only Balkan Copper of the trip was found here along with several Eastern Large Heath, Pearl-bordered Fritillaries as well as a newly minted Glanville Fritillary. It was a very special meadow and much better than the actual hotel!!

Balkan Copper.

Eastern Large Heath.

Glanville Fritillry.

We then drove to a wooded area where we had some more special sightings. The most impressive being a Poplar Admiral which unfortunately escaped my camera, but fortunately, several members of the group did get photos.

It was nice to see some other beautiful species though with Mazarine Blue, Pearly Heath, Silver-studded Blue, Chequered Skipper and Wood Whites.

Pearly Heath.

Chequered Skipper.

We then did a little birdwatching as the gorge we were in is a regular spot for seeing Wallcreeper. Although our views were not up to last year it was lovely seeing these cracking birds as they parachuted down the steep gorge.

In another area we had clouds of butterflies mud-puddling. These included several types of Skipper, Wood Whites, Scarce Swallowtail and various Blues. Nearby Hummingbird Hawk-moths were feeding on the Viper's Bugloss along with a Broad-bordered Bee Hawk-moth, Eastern Festoons and Clouded Yellows.

Eastern Festoon.

Further up the road we visited my favourite butterfly spot from last year. Unfortunately some bad weather had returned and most butterflies had gone to roost. This would have been a disaster had Dansko, our Bulgarian leader, not spotted a fantastic Yellow-banded Skipper. Possibly the highlight for me of the butterflies that we saw. A first for me as well. I took lots of photos as it roosted. Only a couple were really sharp enough to keep as the light was awful, and the rain was also falling.

Yellow-banded Skipper at roost.

We decided that on our last full day we would try to return to this very productive butterfly site, which I'm glad to say we did.

Two Cardinals were seen throughout the tour. This one was around the lake where we were watching the Black Pennant dragonflies. It was fortunately more than content nectaring on the giant thistle heads.

Cardinal.

On a much better day we then returned to the spot where we had seen the Yellow-banded Skipper.

I had only just got out of the van when I spotted a butterfly known as The Hermit. unusually it was nectaring instead of taking salts from the ground. A lovely butterfly of the Grayling family.

The Hermit.

We also had several Grayling that were taking salts from the ground. One of the problems here is that the Grayling and Delattin's Grayling are so similar that they can only be identified by examining the male genitalia, so that was not going to happen!! However, going by the fact we were in Southern Bulgaria it was most likely that these were the Delattin's, as the Grayling we know from Britain doesn't usually occur this far south.

Probable Delattin's Grayling.

We also had some Woodland and Great Banded Grayling and several types of Blue butterflies joining in.

Woodland Grayling.

Male Meleager's Blue.

Eastern Baton Blue.

Great Banded Grayling.

Anomalous Blue.

It really was as well that we did return to this wonderful site as our butterfly list grew quite a bit here.

Our last full day was also hit by some poor weather. After visiting our sites for dragonflies we headed to a site where last year we had some beautiful Large Coppers. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived here the clouds had rolled in, and although we did have a few brighter patches, these were very brief. We did see Lesser Fiery Copper, but the only other notable butterfly was a rather nice Eastern Bath White. This actually was the last photo I took on the trip as we were heading back to Sofia early the next day.

Eastern Bath White.

There are still some fantastic creatures that were photographed, although the dragonflies and butterflies were what most of us were really interested in. 

Bulgaria Dragonflies 2026

 For the 2nd year I was lucky to co-lead a tour to Bulgaria with the main aim being the dragonflies and damselflies found in the Country.

We saw far too many to post all of them here, with 50 species seen we saw nearly all our main targets, as well as over 90 species of butterflies.

The diversity in Bulgaria really puts the UK to shame, with very little use of pesticides in the countryside the insects are allowed to live as they really should be allowed to everywhere in the World. 

Over the 9 days we were in Bulgaria, we headed south from Sofia, staying in 5 hotels in different areas which allowed us to see a vast range of dragonflies. We also one day visited Lake Kerkini in northern Greece to enable us to see even more species.

One of our rarest targets was the Ornate Bluet. This small blue damselfly was seen on our first day on the way to our first hotel. Last year at this site we only saw a couple. This year we did a little better with around 6, as well as a Winter Damselfly, a species we missed last year.

Ornate Bluet.

Winter Damselfly.

At a wonderful small lake we had huge numbers of dragonflies, all the time with a backdrop of listening to Nightingales, Golden Orioles, Turtle Doves and Great Reed Warblers. There was a large number too of emerging dragonflies. I really like the shot of a newly emerged Southern Darter resting next to its excuvia.

Southern Darter just emerged.

The Small Pincertail is another favourite, despite it being quite common. The male is very bizarre looking with its 'pincer like tail' that it uses to hold the female with during mating. Who would be a female pincertail?

Male Small Pincertail.

Female Small Pincertail.

Both Banded and Beautiful Demoiselle are quite different to the same species in Britain. The Banded has a much broader band, and the Beautiful is darker. There were many of both species, flying over the water like little jewels.

Beautiful Demoiselle.

One of our main targets was the very strange Odalisque. It is Europe's only member of the Oriental Gossamerwing family. In the same spot where we found this species last year, we found around 6 this year including a pair in tandem that would have been resting during egg laying. This was the first female Odalisque I have seen.

Pair of Odalisque in tandem.

Several Dainty Bluets were seen during the trip. This one was actually by the roadside after we had stopped to see a tortoise that was crossing the road. Nature was everywhere we looked.

Male Dainty Bluet.

Mating pair of Dainty Bluet.

The mating pair of Dainty Bluets were on the side of a near dried up dew pond. Also in the foliage around the pond were several Robust Spreadwing (Scarce Emerald Damselfly), some Small Bluetail which included several 'orange' immature females and a Migrant Spreadwing.

Immature female Small Bluetail. (Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly).

Migrant Spreadwing. (Southern Emerald Damselfly).

On another lake we came across some Lesser Emperor dragonflies that kept hovering nearby. I have always had mixed success at photographing dragonflies in flight, but these dragonflies gave me several attempts, and I feel that I got my best ever shot of one. Maybe even one of my best photos.

Lesser Emperor.

Our last stop one day was at a fuel station. The van was fed with fuel, and we took advantage of the ice-creams sold in the shop. We also had a target here of both Turkish and Blue-eyed Goldenring dragonflies. However, we certainly wasn't expecting it to be very easy. We were sitting round a picnic bench munching the ice-creams when someone spotted a Blue-eyed Goldenring land on a plant just feet away from us. The dragonfly had caught a spider and was eating it. Not an easy excercise taking photos of a dragonfly with one hand holding the camera and the other hand holding an ice-cream!!

It looks as though the dragonfly flew into the spider's web to catch the spider, and the some of the web stuck to the dragonfly's wings.

Blue-eyed Goldenring.

Last year I only saw a single Dark Spreadwing, and the photo I took was not really worth keeping, so I was quite pleased when I spotted this one.

Dark Spreadwing.

The Spearhead Bluet, known as the Northern Damselfly in the UK, which is only found in Scotland in the UK, is found in high mountain lakes in Bulgaria.

Spearhead Bluet. (Northern Damselfly).

On our day in Greece we came across another of our main targets. The Bladetail. Last year I did get some nice shots of this large dragonfly, but this year the glimpses were a bit brief, so our clients got priority with their cameras. We also found on the edge of Lake Kerkini some beautiful Violet Dropwing. It's difficult to give these dragonflies the justice they deserve as they are small and rarely rest within easy reach.

Violet Dropwing.

The Black Pennant is another tricky species. These are even smaller and are extremely active over the water. I have only seen one of these at rest before!! Hence it was only flight shots that I managed.

Black Pennant in flight.

Black Pennant egg laying in tandem.

We saw Red-veined Darters at several sites, although I only took a few images in the final couple of days. The female below was at the same lake as the Black Pennant, and was hunting a few feet back from the water.

Female Red-veined Darter.

This male however, was hunting from above the water. It was pretty hot on this particular day, and he was pointing his tail straight up to avoid overheating.

Male Red-veined Darter.

The images here are a small selection of what we saw during this brilliant 9 day tour. My next post will concentrate on the butterflies that we saw.