I moved from Southern England with my wife Nikki and Staffie Bull Terrier Kassie, to Yambol a town in Southern Bulgaria.
It kind of just happened, one minute I was buying a holiday home and the next myself and wife Nikki were living in a village in the middle of rural Bulgaria. Now 3 years and 5 months on, we’re still here and living a quiet, easy-going, semi retired life at the grand old age of 44. I won’t say how old Nikki is, but she is catching up 
We don’t have our Kassie any longer, she lives with her new owner, 6 months in Spain in the winter and 6 months back here during the summer. However we are not without canine as we discovered Bulgarian strays are quick to seek us animal lovers out, and we now own Immy, a black and white part Karakachan stray aged 2 years 8 months and our new addition of just 4 weeks, a 5 month old German Shepherd looking stray called Buster.
Shortly after moving here, we discovered how beautiful the country is. We took time out to travel around the area and soon found that Bulgaria is a very diverse place indeed. Only 1 hour from the flat agricultural rolling hills of Yambol travelling north we find ourselves in the Balkan Mountain Range, less than 1 hour to the South is Turkey and a little over that to the west is Greece. To the east approximately 1 hour 45 minutes you will find you are standing on the soft golden sands of the Black Sea resorts.
When I lived in the UK, I had no interest whatsoever in photography, I didn’t even own a camera. When I think about it now I realise that it was down to the fact that I didn’t have time to be out traipsing round the country taking piccies, and although there are some amazingly beautiful places to photograph, it’s nothing like the wide open spaces and lack of human life that I embrace here in Bulgaria.
My first pictures were of the birds of prey…I couldn’t get enough of them. I didn’t even know what they were called, so I took the pictures and checked them out on the www and soon realised I was capturing Lesser Spotted Eagles, Short Toed Eagles, Long Legged Buzzards and more. The Storks also cast a spell on me, at first glance these birds could be mistaken for Teradactyl’s if you didn’t know any better, they look so big and yet they are one of the most graceful birds to watch in flight, though positively evil when they fight for ownership of a nest.
I remember a flock of Black Storks, not so common here as the White ones, set themselves down just outside the village for a couple of weeks when the weather wasn’t particularly good at the beginning of spring 2007. I told lots of people about them, all the Bulgarians insisted that there was no such thing as Black Storks that they were some other bird. I was driving back from a trip out to the mountains with Nikki and our Bulgarian friends, as we entered the village I stopped the car suddenly and jumped out as I had just spotted a couple of Black Storks. When I came back, I pointed them out to our friends who were also non believers in Black Storks and then took them home and showed them the same bird on my computer. They just couldn’t believe that there were any other types of storks, and soon they started to realise all birds have other names other than eagle, owl or just plain old bird!
The arrival in late spring of the European Roller and Bee-Eaters truly captured my imagination. They are my favourite birds although I love the Golden Orioles (though very elusive to me) and the Hoopoes too. The Hoopoes appear to enjoy sitting on my rooftop and call their very particular hoo hoo hoo for a mate at around about 5.50am every morning which has funnily, lost all its charm for Nikki.
I soon got a huge buzz from being out with nature and everything I saw became an amazing creature, plant or view. I’m only now starting to take more interest in the butterflies and the wild flowers, of which there are so many beautiful flowers here, some may even be weeds for all I know, but so delicate and colourful they make for some truly wonderful scenic shots.
I hope you will enjoy seeing what Bulgaria has to offer from my eyes but eventually come here and see it for yourself.
Take care
Darren
