SmartBirds
Spring is already here – and this time it arrived on the wings of Egyptian vultures. Earlier today, before noon, the first Egyptian vulture of the year returned to Bulgaria. In the Eastern Rhodopes and in some parts of the Balkan Peninsula, such as Greece and Albania, the arrival of spring is marked not only by the stork but also by the Egyptian vulture. This means we can now safely take off our martenichki – spring has arrived.
The first bird to return this year is Zara. She was hatched and raised at the Wildlife Rehabilitation and Breeding Centre of Green Balkans and was released into the wild by BSPB in 2020 as part of the species reinforcement programme in Bulgaria. For the past six years, she has been living freely in the wild, and since then, we have been closely following her life thanks to the GPS transmitter fitted by our team.
During this time, Zara has formed a pair in the wild and has already produced offspring twice. Interestingly, she was also the first Egyptian vulture to return to Bulgaria last year, although she arrived five days later, on 15 March.
Most Egyptian Vultures return to Bulgaria after 20 March, with the arrival of astronomical spring. However, Zara clearly cannot wait to come back home. During her spring migration, she covered nearly 4,000 kilometres in 24 days, travelling from Sudan to Bulgaria.
The Egyptian Vulture is the most endangered vulture species in Europe. Today, only about 55 pairs breed on the Balkan Peninsula, around 35 of which are found in Bulgaria. This makes our country the most important place for the conservation of this globally endangered species in the region.
Conservation activities for the Egyptian Vulture are carried out within the framework of the project “The Green Belt of Southeast Bulgaria”, funded by the Endangered Landscapes & Seascapes Programme (ELSP), managed by the Cambridge Conservation Initiative—a collaboration between the University of Cambridge and leading international biodiversity conservation organisations.
