Bird watchers will count migrating birds on October 3 and 4 at events hosted by the Poda Nature Protection Centre in Burgas, the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB) says.

Now in its 34th year, the initiative aims to draw attention to migratory birds and the places where they breed, rest and spend the winter.

More than 30 BirdLife partner organisations from Europe and Central Asia take part in the European Bird Watch, run as a kind of bird-watching contest that focuses on working across borders to protect birds. Participants count birds on both days and log the data in the SmartBirds Pro app. BirdLife Slovakia will compile the figures, with results due out on October 5.

A group of bird-watching trainees will leave Sofia on October 3 to look for white-backed woodpeckers in the Vitosha and Etropole mountains. On October 4 they will move on to wetlands in the western Sofia plain — the Mramor reservoir, Petarch, Bezden, the Aldomirovtsi marsh and the Dragoman marsh. Other towns across Bulgaria will hold events too.

The BSPB warns that migrating birds face threats from climate change, which is upsetting seasonal patterns, as well as from power lines, glass building facades, intensive land use and poaching.

Days ago, the organisation said it had finished building a bird-watching tower in the Kalimok-Brashlen protected area.