Press releases

MINSK, 2 October (BelTA) – The European Bird Watching Days, EuroBirdwatch 2018, will be held in Belarus on 6-7 October, BelTA learned from the Belarusian bird conservation organization Akhova Ptushak Batskaushchyny.

Millions of birds are now leaving Europe for the winter. The goal of EuroBirdwatch is to get local residents familiar with migrating birds, their nesting needs, problems they encounter along flyways and within wintering areas in the Mediterranean and Africa.

To make part of the campaign one needs binocular glasses or a spyglass and a walk to to a park, a forest or a water body to count birds and identify them. Any observation information can be submitted to the Belarusian bird conservation organization via the internet before 16pm on 7 October.

The EuroBirdwatch events will be held across Belarus. Ornithologist-guided excursions will be offered in Minsk. The first excursion will kick off at the Island of Birds at 10.30 on 6 October, the second one – in the greenfield area of Stepyanka at 11.00 on 7 October. Observation platforms will be installed in Grodno, Gomel, Brest, Vitebsk, Borisov, Myadel, Verkhnedvinsk, Turov, Slutsk and Chausy.

EuroBirdwatch is an annual campaign which is to be held for the 25^th time. Taking part in the EuroBirdwatch event in Belarus in 2017 were more than 2,200 participants who saw over 29,000 birds of 131 varieties. It is also possible to see rare species during the event. For example, last year bird watchers saw a desert chat in Finland, a buff-breasted sandpiper in Sweden, red-throated pipits in Belarus, Switzerland and Lithuania, and Eleonora’s falcon in Bulgaria.