Roofvogels in Bulgarije: vroeger en nu

At present, at least 26 raptor species are breeding in Bulgaria. There is still a lack of basic information on raptors in the country, despite the fact that much more data became available on population sizes of individual species since the 1960s (Table 1). Around 1960 Black Vulture, Griffon Vulture and Imperial Eagle were thought to be extinct as breeding birds in Bulgaria. After establishment of the Dadia Forest Reserve in neighbouring Greece, and some recovery of both vulture species in that area. Griffon Vultures and Black Vultures crossed the border and started to breed again in the Bulgarian Rhodopi mountains. During a trip through Bulgaria in June 2001 21 species of bird of prey were observed (Fig. 1, Table 2). Despite the high species diversity in Bulgaria, rather small numbers of raptors were observed during daytime trips, probably due to poor densities of most species as compared toWestem European countries.