Spring in Bulgaria, News from the Eastern Rhodopes

Finally, a Griffon Vulture Too

Changes Among the Little Owls

In Europe, there are still places where every tiny village with ten houses has at least one Little Owl – and the larger ones may have four. They often nest in half-collapsed buildings, but for now they are still doing well there. Little Owls are everywhere. You can’t drive through a village, even at midday, without your eyes wandering up to a roof or chimney where one of these adorable miniature owls is perched. Dolni Glavanak, Gorno Pole and Senoklas – obvious choices, places you simply have to visit.

But even in Bulgaria, their habitat is changing. The encroachment of abandoned pastures and the “modernisation of villages” are clearly visible even in the few places we visit in the Rhodopes. A lot has changed over the past eight years. European subsidies for grazing livestock apparently no longer flow as they once did – what used to be pasture is now an impenetrable jungle of thorny bushes. And where there were once ruins in Dolni Glavanak where we photographed a Little Owl three years ago, there is now a new house…

In the Czech Republic, however, the situation is even worse. Despite efforts to save the population, the fate of the Little Owl here seems almost sealed. The fewer than one hundred pairs counted each year are desperately trying to survive in a landscape dominated by gigantic fields, with little food, isolated populations suffering from genetic decline, technical traps and people poisoning rodents.

They Brought in Giant Schnauzers

On the very day we arrived, 17 May 2025, an important milestone was reached for vulture conservation in Europe. Three Bearded Vultures were released into the wild in Bulgaria’s Blue Rocks (Sinite Kamani) near Sliven, marking the beginning of a new population of these magnificent birds of prey, which were driven to extinction in Bulgaria more than fifty years ago.

As with the previous reintroductions of Griffon, Cinereous and Egyptian Vultures, Ostrava Zoo once again played a crucial role in the project. Two young males came from Moravia – they are siblings – while the third Bearded Vulture was raised by the Green Balkans conservation centre in Bulgaria.

A protected release site was prepared among the rocks, complete with nests and special tubes for contact-free supplementary feeding. The Bearded Vultures are being monitored by a camera system and guarded by conservationists. I hope they will thrive in Bulgaria – and perhaps, in time, some of them will even turn up in front of our photography hides above the Arda River near Madzharovo.

The Bearded Vulture holds a special place in Bulgaria – it is also a symbol of Bulgarian nature conservation.

Spring over the Arda River