Current view: Text account
Site description (2000 baseline):
Site location and context
A dammed reservoir on the Black Sea coast, below which lies a brackish lagoon linked by an outlet to the sea, next to the town of Burgas. The open-water surface covers 1,300 ha, and is fringed by
Phragmites,
Typha,
Juncus and
Bolboschoenus. Along the shore, salt-tolerant vegetation is dominated by
Puccinellia and
Salicornia, and sand-dunes are overgrown with
Leymus grass and
Gypsophila. The lake is surrounded by wet meadows, marshes, arable land and areas of
Paliurus scrub, with some forest of
Quercus and
Acer on the south bank.
The complex is important for many bird species, notably for globally threatened species (e.g.
Numenius tenuirostris,
Oxyura leucocephala), breeding waterbirds (e.g.
Platalea leucorodia,
Recurvirostra avosetta), and wintering waterbirds. The site holds 20,000 or more waterbirds on a regular basis, and is also a notable migratory bottleneck site in autumn, where more than 3,000 raptors (notably
Aquila pomarina) and up to 20,000
Ciconia ciconia pass overhead. Species of global conservation concern that do not meet IBA criteria while staging at the site:
Pelecanus crispus,
Aythya nyroca. Significant proportion (³1%) of national population breeding at site:
Nycticorax nycticorax (28-30 pairs).
Pressure/threats to key biodiversity
Problems include illegal hunting in the protected area, mining of sand from sand-dunes, and chemical pollution of water. The management plan for Poda Lagoon Protected Landscape was prepared by BSPB under the Bulgarian-Swiss Biodiversity Conservation Programme, and BSPB manages this area.
National Partial
International None151 ha of IBA covered by Protected Landscape (Izvorska Mouth, 151 ha). 101 ha of IBA covered by Protected Landscape (Poda Lagoon, 101 ha).
Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Important Bird Area factsheet: Mandra-Poda complex (Bulgaria). Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/site/factsheet/mandra-poda-complex-iba-bulgaria on 23/12/2024.
