Meanwhile, only two days to go..
Thursday 30th June – Village of Pirin
I had planned on Thursday to visit Trigrad, but after a long drive across the mountains (the only route possible, which included about a 2 mile section of the motorway that was being dug-up) I decided that this might be a bad idea (we’d already been in the car for about 2 hours and were still nowhere near our destination) so I changed the plan slightly and we decided to visit the village of Pirin. I knew which rare species might be seen over the Pirin Mountains (our first stay at Bansko was in fact, the other side of this mountain range). The village of Pirin turned out to be a picturesque version of dilapidated ramshackle houses, and a small village centre with a bunch of old wizened men sat on a bench clearly astonished at the site of a woman driving a car (and not covered head to foot in dull clothing). Most of the still-active residents of the village seemed to be out on the land with their donkeys either gathering shrubs, grasses or unidentified herbs. Half the men we passed seemed to have gone crazy in the heat and spending too much of their lives with only a donkey as company.
We found a nice walking route just above the village, a dirt path right alongside the worked stone crevices with plenty of wildflowers growing along the path which sometimes looked like marble. Karen spotted our first Large Tortoiseshell of the morning, this time out of reach on a small Elm away from the path. I managed however to finally get a couple of photos with my longer lens of this butterfly that had eluded me several times already during the holiday. There were still plenty of Black-Veined Whites, Silver-Washed Fritillaries, Sloe Hairstreaks, Common Blues, Commas and Spotted / Lesser Spotted Fritillaries at the start of the route. As we walked further up into the mountains we weren’t sure if the weather would hold out, as again the clouds were forming over the mountain. Again we would see Scarce and Purple-Shot Coppers, Heath Fritillaries, Marbled Whites, Eros Blues and the usual range of Ringlets, Clouded Yellows, Meadow Browns and common Nymphalids. Continuing to follow the path which also led further up the mountain, we would see Scarce and European Swallowtails, our first Cleopatra of the trip, a single White Admiral and again plenty more Silver-Washed Fritillaries, Lulworth Skippers and a few Pearly Heaths. I hoped that walking further up into the mountains I would see some Apollos, but I was to be disappointed on this front.
Black-Veined White at the start of Pirin Village. Note the droplets from the nights rain or dew.
Another Marbled Fritillary stops on the flowers as the sun decides to come through.
Large Tortoiseshell on the smaller bushes at the side of our walk from Pirin. A long lens was needed to get a 'half-decent' shot.
The outskirts of the Pirin village.
Possibly Heath Fritillaries - just before the start of our walk opens into the wilder mountains.
There were plenty of flies greeting us on the walk from Pirin village.
Silver-Washed Fritillaries could be seen at the side of the walks on the local stone surfaces and mountain crevices.
Purple-Shot Copper at the side of the road. Some had very changeable colouration.
Marbled Whites were common nectaring on the many wildflowers.
Possibly an Eros Blue.
An identified Blue - not sure about this one...
Another fresh Scarce Copper on the higher section of the mountain walk.
Always a pleasure to see Scarce Swallowtails. This one nectaring on what looks like Salvia flowers.
. I managed a few photographs and then it was off again. I would spend another twenty minutes wandering up and down the track but the weather started to deteriorate and soon the Admirals flew up into the trees bordering the road. Just after 10 am the rain started and we left for the car, where we stayed for almost another two hours watching the rain come down! Eventually after a short walk up the track to check that nothing was flying - we decided that the clouds and rain would not clear. In fact, all we could see were layers of low mist over the mountains 
. Driving out of the mountain range it was evident that the rain was over the whole of South-west of Bulgaria: we returned to our hotel in Melnik and eventually went for a last walk up the end of the village – the sun only came through between 5:30 and 6pm and the most exciting thing we were to see there was a couple of mating tortoises – they do make a very strange sound!
