Lake Kerkini is an artificial water reservoir located close to the Greek-Bulgarian border in Central Macedonia region. Since its creation in the 1930s, it has established as one of the main birdwatching destinations of Greece, as it lies in the migration routes of different wintering waterfowl and other bird specialties on their travels between the Aegean Sea, the Black sea, the Hungarian steppes and the distant tundra of Scandinavia.

Winter is a particularly interesting season to visit Lake Kerkini as thousands of waterfowl use the area as their wintering grounds. This has brought Lake Kerkini to the attention of international conservation organisms, declaring the area a Ramsar site since 1975. Despite its artificial origin and continuing human intervention, including the presence of an active exploitation of water buffalos, Lake Kerkini is today one of the winter strongholds for the globally threatened lesser white-fronted goose in Europe.

The size of the lake allows for a short (3 day) visit to connect with all targets. In my case, I focused the lesser white-fronted geese, but also Dalmatian pelicans and pygmy cormorants. Other Eastern specialties of habitats outside the lake were also in mind, including western rock nuthatch, sombre tit and Syrian woodpecker. Important targets for Darío also included the tundra swan, the great white pelican and the middle spotted woodpecker.

We based our visit on cheap Wizz Air flight tickets from Valencia to Sofia — although Bulgaria was not yet part of the Schengen area, we drove the 3 h (220 km) among Sofia and Kerkini without trouble. We secured great views of all nine of our targets on the first two days, while devoted our third morning for a last sneak peak resulting in three unexpected Greek rarities: Siberian chiffchaff, little bustard and Oriental turtle-dove.

All in all, a very enjoyable trip resulting in 107 bird species. Pleasant surprises, beautiful landscapes, cold but manageable weather, cozy accommodation, tasty food and plenty of time on our way back to explore some sights in Sofia, a city we had never visited before. Fitting this trip on our budgets and schedules was not a big deal and the trip exceeded all expectations.