Totally bear!

It is not as warm in Bulgaria at this time of year as you might think. Yes, that is snow behind the frizz Coal Tit. Due to the unseasonably cold, wet and windy conditions we saw almost bugger all birdwise today, although, given I didn't need any of the target species on our itinerary, I wasn't too miffed. And I became significantly less miffed as just before dark we had prolonged (20+ minutes), close (down to about 120m) views of Brown Bear. Amazingly the blonde headed/mantled beauty bowled into a clearing, stood on its hind legs to suss things out, charged the grazing Roe Deer to scare them off, did a circuit of the perimeter and then tucked into a pile of handily placed apples,... nice.