In mid-July, the monitoring of nest boxes for the Red-footed Falcon (Falco vespertinus) and the European Roller (Coracias garrulus) was completed. The boxes were installed in 2024 in cooperation with Elektrodistribution North AD (EDN) under the LIFE project “Safe Sky for Birds in North-Eastern Bulgaria.”
A total of 150 nest boxes were placed across the regions of Veliko Tarnovo, Dobrich, Ruse, and Silistra, aiming to provide safe nesting sites for target bird species with an unfavorable conservation status and to stabilize their populations at the regional level. Ninety of the boxes were designed for the Roller, and the remaining sixty for the Red-footed Falcon.
BSPB bird conservation expert Mihail Iliev inspected the 90 Roller nest boxes and found five different breeding bird species using them. Of the target species - the European Roller - 23 boxes were occupied, which is a 40% increase compared to the number of breeding pairs attracted in 2024. Notably, the Eurasian Scops Owl was also found breeding in this type of box, with seven pairs recorded in 2025.
Using a miniature camera, the number of chicks per occupied box was also counted: for Rollers, the average was 2.53 chicks per pair, and for Scops Owls - 3 chicks per pair.
Among the 60 nest boxes of a different type intended for the Red-footed Falcon, nesting was observed only by the Lesser Kestrel.
Monitoring will continue during the upcoming breeding seasons, with the hope that the number of occupied nest boxes will increase.
The Red-footed Falcon is a small falcon that has suffered a dramatic population decline in Bulgaria over the past twenty years, reaching a critical low of just a few known pairs by 2022. For this reason, it is listed as Critically Endangered in the Red Data Book of Bulgaria, and due to its declining numbers across Europe, it is also included in the IUCN Global Red List.
The European Roller is a protected species that nests in holes in earthen banks, rock crevices, stone walls, tree hollows, and cavities in concrete electricity poles. The population of this strikingly blue bird began a sharp decline in the 1950s, mainly due to the use of pesticides in agriculture.
The “Safe Sky for Birds in North-Eastern Bulgaria” project, funded by the EU’s LIFE Programme, started at the end of 2022 and will run for five years. Its activities include insulating power poles from the ERP North grid and installing bird flight diverters across 28 project zones within Natura 2000 sites and key corridors between Special Protection Areas. The project focuses on 16 endangered bird species in Bulgaria, aiming to prevent unnatural mortality caused by electrocution and collisions with power lines.
Safe Sky For Birds