Life for Falcons

About the project

The project ‘Securing the recovery of the endangered Saker Falcon in Bulgaria and Southern Romania’ is dedicated to the restoration and conservation of the endangered species Falco Cherrug in 28 Natura 2000 areas. The overarching concept of this project is to boost the population recovery by reducing the impact of the main threats combined with external efforts of an ongoing restocking project in Bulgaria that has proven to be successful already.

The project Securing the recovery of the endangered Saker Falcon in Bulgaria and Southern Romania (LIFE20 NAT/BG/001162) is of 5 years duration and has received funding from the LIFE Programme of the European Union.

Our news

Second edition of the Hunter’s Guide have been published by BSPB and UHAB

Jun 24, 2022

IBER experts visited breeding centers for European hamster

Jun 14, 2022

The final round of the Bulgarian National Olympiad in ornithology was held

Jun 06, 2022

The first Saker falcon monitoring in Romania covered over 5000 km

May 25, 2022

The ''LIFE for Falcons'' project was presented at the Strandzha Periwinkle Festival

May 19, 2022

Launching of the website of the project – Save Raptors.org

May 11, 2022

“Life for Falcons” take part in the exhibition dedicated to the LIFEs 30th anniversary

May 04, 2022

Start of the LIFE project Securing the recovery of the Endangered Saker Falcon in Bulgaria and Southern Romania

Jan. 05, 2022

The Saker Falcon

The Saker falcon is a large powerful falcon, slightly bigger in size in comparison with the Peregrine falcon. The body length is between 47-55 cm, the wingspan is 105-129 cm; the tail length is 16-26 cm; weight 730-1150g. Sexes have similar plumage but females are ca. 15% larger and 40% heavier than males.
The plumage is brown above and streaked below with a paler head and whitish supercilia (eyebrow). It has a relatively small head on broad-chested, though long and otherwise slender body with long wings and long tail. In flight the silhouette is similar to the Peregrine but is with rather broad wings with blunt tips.

Small mammals

The conservation of the Saker Falcon will rely on multi-sided holistic approach in which breeding and reintroducing small mammals, such as the European Souslik and Romanian Hamster which are key prey species for the falcon, has an important part.