Bulgaria's Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB) said that it has launched on March 1 its Spring Alive project for the third consecutive year.

Spring Alive's goal is to track the spring migration of birds by non-specialists and mainly by children, who report the birds they notice on the project's website.

The global programme by BirdLife International, an association of conservation organizations, started in other European countries at the beginning of February.

BSPB said that in February 2008 alone more than 200 observations have been recorded on the international website. Half of the birds that have been observed already arriving in Europe have been swallows. The first stork in Bulgaria has also been registered on February 12 in the north-western city of Vidin on the Danube.

The project's spring map contains 18 European counties. BSPB said that since 2008 one of Spring Alive's symbols is the Bulgarian martenitsa, so 40 000 martenitsi have been sent to different European countries. The countries, where the migrating birds arrive after March, the local residents would keep the Bulgarian tradition and tie the martenitsi on blossoming tree after they observe the first stork.

Spring Alive was first held in 2006. The project' targets are four breeds of migrating birds, which in different European countries are the forerunners of spring. Spring Alive aims to collect data from maximum number of people about when and where they have noticed for first time a white stork, swallow, swift and cuckoo, which would help it paint a picture of the spring migration.

In addition to a lot of information about the birds, springalive.net also contains materials for the teachers with information about those birds' breeds, games and pictures, as well as manual for beginner ornithologists. It is translated in 27 languages.