Rhodope Mountains

Tenderness

It’s hard to identify the emotions of birds. We’re separated by 320 million years of evolution since our most recent common ancestor …

As a Griffon Vulture approaches, with its fingered-wings spread, and its tail deployed downwards to brake its flight, it gets ready to …

Griffon Vultures have a wingspan of 2.3–2.8 metres, which is 7.5–9.2 feet in old money. The technical term to describe them is ‘massive’.

Griffon Vultures have a most curious walk. It’s a high-stepping display walk with neck and wings outstretched. It looks ridiculous, as well …

There’s a strange faculty which humans and other animals have. It’s the ability to see faces in things where there aren’t faces. …

Cinereous Vultures are scruffy. Ragged wings, unkempt body feathers and tattered tails. Maybe it’s just moulting. Or maybe it’s just scruffy.

There appears to be a strict social hierarchy and sense of corpse-etiquette amongst the Cinereous Vultures. These three have ganged up on …

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 …

It’s near to the end of a long day marooned in a mountain-top hide, sitting in silence. I spot an eagle circling …

Ravens are large birds. They look like toys next to Griffon Vultures.

Golden Jackals use their levator labii superioris muscle to snarl. The name means ‘raiser of the upper lip’. This Jackal’s top lip …

Our workshop leader isn’t sharing the information that someone has been sitting in these very hides in the Bulgarian mountains for several …

As we sit in the hide at dawn in the Rhodope Mountains, marvelling at the enormous Griffon Vultures which have just arrived, …

We’ve spent a day in a minibus travelling east from Lake Kerkini in Greece to the Rhodope Mountains in Bulgaria. In the …