24/05/2026

theSunday Special XII ON SUNDAY MAY 24, 2026 E NDANGERED Egyptian vultures, with their vivid yellow face and white plumes, would usually be nesting across the Balkans in their dozens by April. But experts tracking the rare birds say local teams have struggled to find more than a handful in recent weeks, raising fears the wars in the Middle East may have further disrupted their already perilous journey from Africa.

Waiting for vultures to arrive

have long pushed efforts to protect the birds across their range. Protecting resting places along with breeding programmes has helped their numbers improve slightly in Bulgaria, where the majority of the vultures now nest in the Balkans, Petkov said. But they remain particularly vulnerable to accidental poisoning from bait use on farmland, which often means the birds eat tainted carrion. Waiting hopefully In the rugged wilderness of southern Albania, the shepherds of Salaria are usually the first to notice the vultures return as a signal of the coming European spring. As the season nears its end, they have recently spotted two soaring over their flocks. Even for experts such as Xherri, it took hours of scouring mountainous nesting sites to confirm the shepherds’ report. “Good news!” he exclaimed, as he squinted through binoculars at the white dot descending onto a ledge about 400m up a rockface. He would have another long wait before confirming a second of Europe’s smallest vultures had also safely returned to its lofty perch. The painstaking nature of the work makes it almost impossible to know how many actually reached nests in Albania, even before the war. But Petkov remained optimistic, suggesting they may have delayed their journey due to colder weather earlier this year. “So, they might be a bit late. But hopefully, as we often say, you count the birds in autumn.”

War imperils yearly odyssey of rare birds to Balkans

“The war is adding to the risks already present along their migration route,” Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds project manager Nikolai Petkov told AFP. From electrocution to poaching, the scavenger birds face many hazards on its 5,000km annual migration to its Balkan breeding grounds. “The Middle East is a crucial migration corridor and the war can have a considerable impact on this already sharply declining population,” said Xhemal Xherri from the group Protection and Preservation of Natural Environment in Albania. With thousands of people killed in bombing campaigns and the threat of further military action, any information on the impact on wildlife is hard to find, even for experts. “Bombardments disturb not only

Residents walk past a mural depicting an Egyptian vulture, raising awareness about one of the world’s most threatened vulture species. – ALL PICS FROM AFP

Egyptian vultures but also many other birds,” he said, adding that the decline of the specific species could be a wider signal. Stark decline In the last 30 years, their numbers have fallen by 80% in the Balkans, according to Petkov, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies the species as endangered worldwide. Due to their key role in clearing carcasses, which prevents the spread of disease, conservationists and NGOs

An Egyptian vulture flies high in the sky over Gjirokaster, Albania.

Xherri fears the war’s impact on the vultures.

Wild peacocks bring unexpected delight, despair to Italian village

DOZENS of preening peacocks looking for love have colonised a seaside village in Italy, strutting their stuff for the ladies but infuriating human residents with their spring mating season screams. The birds with their irisdescent, sweeping trains perch on rooftops and fences across Punta Marina, a village on the Adriatic Sea coast in the Emilia Romagna region, east of Bologna. Their booming numbers have split the town in two – one side thinks they should be left alone, the other wants them taken to more suitable pastures. The once-revered creatures appear throughout nearby Ravenna’s prized mosaics as a symbol of immortality, but 81-year-old Marco Manzoli, a retired bus driver, said they were essentially delinquents who poo a lot. “The population has boomed over 30 years and it’s too big now. They disrupt sleep, disrupt traffic and dirty the ground with ice-cream-like excrement, which we then step on. “The peacocks climb onto the cars... and scratch them,” Manzoli said, creating fears “tourists won’t come on holiday anymore unless they have a garage to park their car in.” Although not officially counted, the birds are reported to number some 120. ‘Something magic’ Pastry chef Claudio Ianiero, 64, told AFP peacocks have long lived in the pine forest behind the village but began seeking safety from predators by nesting in the gardens of abandoned houses.

The peacocks are a fierce topic of contention in the village.

Villagers complain the peacocks’ loud mating calls are disrupting the peace. are getting adoption offers from all over Italy,” Ianiero said. Although the council launched a campaign in 2024 to instruct locals and holidaymakers on how to live alongside the birds – such as not feeding them – local Emanuele Crescentini said more must be done. Kitted out in a fluorescent orange jacket, 50-year-old Crescentini said he had appointed himself a peacock “ranger”, walking the streets to protect the birds from irate locals. “There’s plenty of space in Punta Marina, they could spread out everywhere and cause no trouble at all. We could set an example of intelligent and mature coexistence. It can be done,” he said.

A visitor taking a picture of a wild peacock in Punta Marina. – ALL PICS FROM AFP

supermarket cashier, said she had neighbours woken nightly by mating calls. The peacock problem had “split the town into two factions,” she said. The birds should be “taken to pine forests, woods, places where they can be in their habitat because they should never live on concrete. They need to be in their natural environment,” she said. Peacock ‘ranger’ Ravenna city council has toyed with various strategies to manage the population over the years. But an attempt to relocate them in 2022 fell through largely due to opposition from animal rights groups. It may have more success now, for “we

“Out there they have many natural enemies such as wolves and foxes. Here however, they have none and they are proliferating in a way that is difficult to control,” he said. As a peacock neared the window of the bakery, Ianiero denied frenzied media reports of an invasion, a sanitary emergency or locals being forced to move away. The chef, who boasts peacock biscuits among his delicacies, says locals have lived in harmony with them for years. The crested birds in their myriad blues are “something magic” for Punta Marina, he said. But Mara Capasso, a 57-year-old