{"id":35864,"date":"2026-03-10T14:46:44","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T12:46:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bspb.org\/?p=35864"},"modified":"2026-03-10T14:46:44","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T12:46:44","slug":"the-first-egyptian-vulture-of-the-spring-has-arrived-in-bulgaria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bspb.org\/en\/the-first-egyptian-vulture-of-the-spring-has-arrived-in-bulgaria\/","title":{"rendered":"The first Egyptian Vulture of the spring has arrived in Bulgaria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Spring is already here \u2013 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 \u2013 spring has arrived.<br \/>\nThe first bird to return this year is Zara. She was hatched and raised at the <a href=\"https:\/\/greenbalkans-wrbc.org\/en\/\">Wildlife Rehabilitation and Breeding Centre of Green Balkans<\/a> 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.<br \/>\nDuring 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.<br \/>\nMost 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.<br \/>\nThe 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.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-35857 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/bspb.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/viber_image_2026-03-10_13-11-51-984-461x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"332\" height=\"737\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 332px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 332\/737;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Conservation activities for the Egyptian Vulture are carried out within the framework of the project \u201cThe Green Belt of Southeast Bulgaria\u201d, funded by the Endangered Landscapes &amp; Seascapes Programme (ELSP), managed by the Cambridge Conservation Initiative\u2014a collaboration between the University of Cambridge and leading international biodiversity conservation organisations.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-33053 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/bspb.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/ELSP_Logo_Colour.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"895\" height=\"419\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/bspb.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/ELSP_Logo_Colour.jpg 895w, https:\/\/bspb.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/ELSP_Logo_Colour-480x225.jpg 480w\" data-sizes=\"(min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) 895px, 100vw\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 895px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 895\/419;\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spring is already here \u2013 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":35853,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[],"dipi_cpt_category":[],"class_list":["post-35864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bspb.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bspb.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bspb.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bspb.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bspb.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bspb.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bspb.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bspb.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bspb.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bspb.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35864"},{"taxonomy":"dipi_cpt_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bspb.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dipi_cpt_category?post=35864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}