The European bee-eater has been chosen as Belarus’ Bird of the Year for 2027. The competition was organized jointly by the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus’ Scientific and Practical Center for Bioresources, the Smartpress information resource and the Wild Nature company.
Participants chose from four candidates: the European bee-eater, garganey, black-headed gull and great cormorant. The bee-eater won by a wide margin, receiving 2,165 of the 2,172 votes.
“The European bee-eater, our champion, is a migratory insect-eating bird from the tropical bee-eater family that nests in burrows and is included in the Red Book of Belarus. It occurs in all regions of Belarus but is more common in the south. Its population is small but is gradually increasing as the climate warms, with the species expanding northward. Unfortunately, their nests are often destroyed in active quarries, so such sites need to be identified in time and placed under at least temporary protection,” Wild Nature reports.
The stork was chosen as the Bird of the Year for 2026.
Since 2000, the competition had been held annually by the public organization APB/BirdLife Belarus, but in 2022 the authorities shut it down “for extremist activities under the guise of volunteering”. Before its liquidation, APB had managed to announce the Birds of the Year for 2023, 2024 and 2025.
