Love is in the air for Bulgaria’s Cinereous Vultures
It’s been minus 9 degrees overnight and we’ve been in the hide since before dawn. It’s vital we don’t disturb the wildlife when we arrive and depart. We’ve had a mountain ascent in a 4×4 vehicle to reach a peak surrounded by other mountains over 2,000m high. Then we wait.
A stunning vulture has arrived in front of our hide. It’s even bigger than the Griffon Vultures which arrived earlier. It’s a Cinereous Vulture, Aegypius monachus, also known as the Eurasian Black Vulture. This one has a yellow leg ring and is part of a brave effort to reintroduce this iconic species to the landscape where they belong.
Aren’t they magnificent? This is a bird which is almost 4ft long. There’s another ringed individual, F12, a six-year-old male with a blue ring who has clearly found love:
Here are the details of his love affair from last year:
https://4vultures.org/blog/new-cinereous-vulture-pair-in-eastern-rhodopes
With this latest pair, the number of known Cinereous Vulture couples in the region grows to three. The first one comprises F10, a five-year-old female, and F32, a six-year-old male. The second pair is formed by F12, a five-year-old male, and a non-marked female also presumably from the Dadia colony.
Significantly, the ringed individuals are part of the LIFE project “The Return of the Cinereous Vultures to the Rhodopes”, carried out by the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB) in collaboration with the Rewilding Rhodopes Foundation. Initiated in 2022, the project aims to restore the presence of Cinereous Vultures in the Bulgarian part of the Eastern Rhodopes.
Their existence here is precarious. Just after New Year this year, six Cinereous Vultures were found dead in a suspected case of poisoning.
People have spent years campaigning, fundraising, volunteering and working together to bring these massive, inspiring birds back to their native lands and their hopes have been destroyed by one person, a dead sheep and a can of poison.
The poisoned bait also killed Golden Jackals, because poison is indiscriminate.
Thanks to decades of coordinated conservation work, the Cinereous Vulture finally returned to Bulgaria in 2021 as a breeding species. Today, approximately 18 breeding pairs are established across the country, following the reintroduction of over 140 birds in several different sites.
They are so precious and so beautiful I can only hope that F12 and his mate remain healthy and have many successful breeding attempts.
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