Above the fog on the Vogel trail

A cable car took us out of the dull grey early morning fog in the valley to a world of bright sunshine and wonderful colour in the mountains. There were plenty of great flowers and butterflies today on the Vogel trail high above Lake Bohinj. We walked 7 miles and climbed nearly 1700ft (520m), with the highest point on our route being Šija at 6168ft (1880m). 

Carpets of gentians and mountain avens and a sea of alpine pasqueflower and globeflowers were the canvas, interspersed with lots of other wonderful flowers and butterflies. Water pipits sang on the hillsides, alpine chough flew past and ring ouzels cackled. A really great experience, if a little hair raising at times. Then it was onto a mountain hut to chill for a bit before taking the cable car back to reality. At least the fog had now cleared.

Goodbye dark and dreary world, hello sunshine.

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A walk around Lake Bohinj

Today we had an 11.5 mile (18km) walk around Lake Bohinj and the surrounding area. Whilst perhaps not as scenically breathtaking as Lake Bled, from a biodiversity point of view Bohinj seemed much more interesting and wild to me.. 

Botanically Bohinj was outstanding today, with many species that I've not seen anywhere else so far on this holiday, including various species of orchid, dwarf masterwort and Sternberg's pink.

Bird highlights included a flying nutcracker and a hawfinch.

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In the garden of the butcher bird

We arrived at our apartment in Bohinjska Bistrica two days ago, and almost the first bird I saw from the balcony, in the garden below, was a male red-backed shrike. It was on a fence in full sunlight, about 10m away, a stunning bird! Unfortunately, I've not seen it so close since, but it does still patrol the perimeter of the garden, and today I watched it hunting insects and chasing small birds to add to its larder. 

Other birds present over the past couple of days, singing male redstart and black redstart, plus a singing serin. Then tonight, just as we were about to go out for our evening meal, a hobby shot into the garden and started chasing sparrows. Breathtaking!

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Lake Bled

Another touristy day, this time at the stunning lake Bled. A few too many people around for me, but we had a nice but tough walk to a view point at Mala Osojnica where I was delighted to hear a black woodpecker calling but then disappointed not to see it. Oh well, it all added to the experience.

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Vršič Pass, Krnica livada

A nice walk this afternoon through the woodland and pastures of Krnica livada produced black-bellied dipper, firecrest, crag martin and some nice flowers, especially the endemic woodland coltsfoot.

 

Woodland Coltsfoot, an endemic of this area.

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Kranjska Gora, Zelenci NR

A poor day for weather for once, we spent the morning at the Zelenci Nature Reserve just west of Kranjska Gora. An interesting reserve, the highlights being a singing male marsh warbler and Siberian Iris.

Siberian iris, a rare and protected species in Slovenia.

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Slemenova Špica

Not content with tackling the Vršič Pass yesterday, today we went back for seconds, this time from Kranjska Gora, 24 hairpin bends up and the same back down. We parked at the top and walked to the summit of Slemenova Špica, altitude 1911m (6270ft), which involved a climb of 1600ft for us and a walk of 9km (5.5 miles). Just when we thought we'd seen every spectacular view available, this walk offered us even more. Truly breathtaking. 

Lots of amazing flowers on the way including alpine and least snowbells, glacier crowfoot, shrubby milkwort plus the usual dwarf alpenrose, mountain avens and twoflower violet. Plenty of birds including alpine choughs and once again a high altitude lesser whitethroat singing at 1850m! A short walk this afternoon and I managed to find Dinaric hawksbeard, a Slovenian speciality and a rarity even here.

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Vršič Pass

Today we took on the Vršič Pass in the Triglav National Park region of the Julian Alps to get from Bovec to Kranjska Gora. Infamous for it's steep inclines and 50 hairpin bends, the road climbs to 1500m (nearly 5000ft), but fortunately we found the reality a lot less intimidating than the myth and certainly I've faced worse roads in Scotland. At least there was no single track.

No doubting the scenery though, absolutely awesome, every day seems to get better at the moment. Some nice birds, the biggest surprise of all, a lesser whitethroat singing at 1750m (5700ft)! Who knew that lesser whitethroat was an alpine species? Loads of great flowers as well, including more gentians with a probable endemic and carpets of mountain avens. Add to that a couple of great stops at spectacular mountain huts in truly breathtaking scenery and it really was a day that will live long in the memory.

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