Northeast of Bucharest, Europe’s second-longest river starts doing what big
rivers do when they come to the end of the line. It splits into numerous
branches, deposits a lot of mud and wanders about a bit before emptying into
the Black Sea.
This is the Danube delta, known to nature-lovers the world over as one of the
continent’s richest locations for birds. Situated midway between the Arctic
and the tropics, it’s a pitstop for thousands of migratory species. The
delta offers them a wide assortment of habitats: lakes, channels, marshes,
forests, grasslands and reed beds. Much of it is open water, the rest sodden
to varying degrees. It covers an area of more than 4,000 square kilometres
and it’s teeming with birds. Without wanting to be offensive, you might say
that it’s an ornithologist’s wet dream.
The only way of getting to grips with a delta is by boat. In the Danube delta,
there are essentially two options: make daily sorties from a hotel on land,
or go the whole hog and stay on a boat with cabins. I opted for the latter.
The delta lies largely in Romania, though it spills over the border into the
Ukraine. I boarded my 10-cabin vessel, the Ibis, at the city of Tulcea, the
main entry point into the watery wilds, a three-hour drive from Bucharest.
Here, the river splits into three main channels, but they are crisscrossed
by myriad lesser waterways, few of which are actually navigable by a
floating hotel. Hence, the daily schedule of birdwatching went like this.
Every morning after breakfast, we’d leave the Ibis in a small motor launch —
armed with binoculars, coffee and biscuits — to explore the backwaters,
while the mother ship chugged along a main channel to drop anchor in time
for lunch. The afternoons followed a similar pattern, enabling us to probe
deeper into the delta each day and, at the same time, providing a fresh
vista to go with every meal.
This is one of Europe’s last great stretches of natural environment. As a
sanctuary for our continent’s wildlife, the Danube delta is unmatched. Some
have compared it to the great game parks of East Africa. It’s a unique and
fabulous profusion of flora and fauna, including Europe’s largest colony of
pelicans, a 500-year-old forest and the greatest continuous expanse of reed
bed in the world. It’s a waterlogged wilderness of epic proportions.
Our guide, a man named Eugene, who had lived in the delta all his adult life,
stood at the bow of the launch, pointing out the birds. There were great
cormorants and pygmy cormorants, herons and egrets, tits, warblers and
buntings. We got close to a group of cormorants nesting in a grove of willow
trees. Not just one or two nests but dozens and dozens of them, all at
different heights within the branches. Every possible bough supported
several nests and the air was thick with birds squawking, circling and
swooping.
Nearby, on a low, muddy bank, we saw two very small iridescent blue
kingfishers perched one above the other on a couple of twigs. And in the
blink of an eye they were gone, whizzing away at water level faster than my
binoculars could follow.
At another spot, further into the delta, where the trees were thinning out,
Eugene called a halt by a lonesome willow to show us the less conventional
nest of the penduline tit. It was woven from reeds and shaped like a gourd.
The reeds here were as thick as bamboo. Where clumps of broken stems littered
the water, our launch slowed to nudge a way through, sending a cascade of
bright-green frogs hopping and plopping away.
Each day brought constant reminders that the natural world comes in three
dimensions. Where the water was clear, the shadows of fish swam beneath us,
while at my elbow, electric-blue dragonflies darted in and out of vision.
Then Eugene would point to the heavens and announce the arrival of
newcomers. “Pelicans,” he’d say, and all eyes would reach for the sky to see
several hundred flying in formation, five giant Vs that slowly snaked and
weaved like ripples crossing the firmament.
Few people live in the delta, and those who do value their seclusion. One
afternoon, we stretched our legs on a bit of dry land at the Monastery of St
Atanasie. Accessible only by boat, it’s a long way from the nearest shop,
and the Orthodox monks are largely self-sufficient — they keep chickens and
a few cows, and maintain a neat kitchen garden surrounded by reed fences.
Their houses and church are made entirely of wood.
It felt good to leave the water, if only for an hour. For me, the stroll was a
reminder of my reliance on walking as the primary form of movement, a
significant disadvantage in aquatic topography such as this. But after my
long weekend in the delta, I’d become more familiar with this environment.
And I no longer needed Eugene’s cry to identify a handful of the more common
species. I was able to recognise for myself the flying-handkerchief style of
the great white egret, and the perfect aerodynamic shape of its cousin, the
little egret, like the best paper dart you ever made at junior school. I
knew the sleek, black, pencil-thin body of the pygmy cormorant and the
rather laboured flapping of the cuckoo in flight.
I won’t say that I felt at home in this fundamentally alien wetland world,
but, like the monks at the Monastery of St Atanasie, I could certainly
appreciate its seclusion. Remote, serene and undisturbed, this is about as
far away from the world of the motor car as you’re likely to manage in
Europe.
Travel details: Nick Middleton was a guest of Naturetrek (01962 733051, www.nature
trek.co.uk). Its 10-day tour of the Danube delta and Carpathian
mountains costs from £1,095pp, including flights from Heathrow with British
Airways, all transport and guiding, and full-board accommodation. Or try
Wildlife Worldwide (0845 130 6982, www.wildlifeworldwide.com).
Four more birding hot spots
ISLE OF MULL, Scotland
Stronghold of the whitetailed sea eagle and golden eagle, Mull also has
teeming colonies of puffins, razorbills, storm petrels, guillemots and
kittiwakes, which nest in late spring on the tiny, outlying Treshnish Isles.
Sightings of otters, seals, whales and dolphins are an almost inevitable
bonus. Speyside Wildlife (01479 812 498, www.speysidewildlife.co.uk)
has 10 nights, full-board, on Mull and in the Cairngorms (for capercaillie,
black grouse and Scottish crossbill) from £1,150.
LESBOS, Greece
The best place on the planet to witness the spring migration from Africa to
Europe. From late April to early May, the skies above Lesbos are filled with
colourful bee-eaters, rollers, red-rumped swallows and hoopoes, drawing
raptors in spectacular numbers. Limosa (01263 578143, www.limosaholidays.co.uk)
has seven nights, full-board, from £1,295, including flights.
HORTOBAGY, Hungary
A mosaic of marshes, farms and fish ponds, the national park comes alive from
September to November, when 70,000 common cranes share it with vast
gatherings of geese on their winter migration from Scandinavia to the Nile;
rare great bustards and red-footed falcons, too. Ornitholidays (01794
519445, www.ornitholidays.co.uk)
has six nights, full-board, with flights, from £1,249.
EXTREMADURA, Spain
This vastarea of grassland and cork-oak woods is the best place in western
Europe for raptors, including the endemic Spanish imperial eagle, and black,
griffon and Egyptian vultures. Birdquest (01254 826317, www.birdquest.co.uk)
has 11 nights, full-board, from £1,750, including flights.
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