Black sea

The bird lagoons of Bulgaria

Bulgaria /

One of the biggest wetlands along the Black Sea coast are the Burgas lakes in Bulgaria. The five lakes and their surrounding wetlands cover almost 100 km² and on the right days, you can see thousands of birds here. We met up with the NGO ‘Green Balkans’ and the NGO ‘Bulgarian Biodiversity Foundation’, two organizations that run projects for their protection, and learnt about the complex interrelation of traditional salt production and biodiversity in two hypersaline lagoons.

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The turbulent history of the Agigea sand dunes

Romania /

We visited the Agigea Ornithological Observatory on the Romanian black sea coast to talk about why ringing birds is so important and what we can learn from it. What we did not expect is to learn about the 100-year-old protected sand dunes located in just next to the port of Constanta.

The ‘Dunele Marine de la Agigea’ (sea dunes of Agigea) are in fact the only natural sea sand dunes left on the entire Romanian coastline outside the Danube Delta. But how can a 100-year-old, so strategically located protected area survive world wars as well as communism? Not easily, we can tell you this much…

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If you like it, then you shoulda put a ring on it!

1 Comment / Romania /

The Dobrogea region in southeastern Romania is part of the Eurasian-East African Flyway, one of the important migration corridors for birds that follows the western coast of the Black Sea. To learn more about conservation in this region, we headed to the Black sea coast to visit the Agigea Ornithological Observatory, as it is the first and only permanent ringing and bird migration research station in Romania. But why are birds even ringed, how do you ring them and what are the challenges? Let´s find out!

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