Adonis – the great traveler, is back home – it has been seen in the Grands Causses, where it was released in 2014 as part of the reintroduction project there – now managed under the LIFE GYPCONNECT project.
Adonis is one of the most famous and most travelled birds of all our reintroduction project – in June 2015 he left the Causses and flew across France and Belgium to north Germany (as far north as Hamburg), but then returned south and arrived back to the Swiss and French Alps. Then last year, he wandered again, in a grand tour of eastern Europe (see map) – Slovakia, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, and Romania – where he stayed sometime in the Carpathians – it´s stay there captivated the imagination of Romanian birdwatchers and conservationists, and a local beer company even named one of its limited edition brews after this distinguished bird (see photo). In September 2016 its tag stopped working, and we lost the trail of Adonis, until December 2016 when it was seen again in Vercors, and then photographed in the Baronnies.
Early this year Adonis was spotted in the magnificent canyon of the Gorges du Verdon, where it has been observed several times last January, often near the reintroduction site of the black vultures (a program managed by LPO PACA). Now, his GPS tag restarted to work, and we could see he is back in the Grands Causses – in fact it was possible to confirm that Adonis was the immature bearded vulture seen locally since last September, often in the company of Layrou (released in 2013).
Photos: LPO/LIFE GYPCONNECT
