BRC Flyway Monitoring Traineeship in collaboration with OSME

Over the past decade, migration monitoring has become more and more popular along the East Afro-Eurasian Flyway, with projects (re)starting around the Caucasus region, the Middle East and Central Asia. Simultaneously, we get approached frequently by ambitious people from across the flyway who are interested in learning about the Batumi Raptor Count and bringing knowledge about migratory bird monitoring back home. In the past decade, we have been fortunate to host (aspiring) migration count leaders from around the world, who have gone on to start or reinforce successful bird monitoring initiatives in their home countries. Thanks to a new traineeship programme with a long-time partner, we are now able to further strengthen this kind of capacity building along the flyway.

The BRC Flyway Monitoring Traineeship
in collaboration with OSME

We are happy to announce the start of a new collaboration with OSME, offering traineeship positions to ambitious high potentials from along the flyway who are dedicated to bring learned and experienced monitoring and conservation principles back to their home countries. Funded by OSME, we can host a total of 2 traineeship positions for a period of at least 1 month each every autumn.

2024 Trainees

We are very proud to already welcome the first two trainees!

Alyona Kaptyonkina (left) from Kazakhstan and Mitra Daneshvar (right) from Iran will join us this autumn. Follow us to read more about their experience as the first Flyway Monitoring trainees.

What the traineeship entails

Trainees will join the Batumi Raptor Count for at least a full month and their accommodation and travel costs will be fully reimbursed by OSME’s Youth Development Fund, up to €1300 combined. Given the highly standardised nature of our counts, trainees should primarily expect to be long-term counters as this will naturally expose them to many of the aspects involved in our standardised monitoring: the count protocol, identification training and becoming a part of a team of international volunteers. However, on top of that, trainees will be involved in organisational aspects as well, which concerns using the Trektellen platform, data checking and cleaning, off- and online public outreach, organising evening activities and other social events, communicating with the host families, and interacting with tourists present. As a trainee, you’ll have the option of participating in education activities (e.g. school visits) and other research and conservation activities if these are taking place during your stay. However, in the end the Batumi Raptor Count first and foremost organises raptor counts, so all activities are influenced to a degree by the raptor migration dynamics in the period of participation.

What we expect

We expect highly motivated, ambitious trainees, who are willing and able to put in long hours every day for at minimum a half-season period of a month, either Aug 8th – Sept 17, Aug 31st – Oct 1st or Sept 17th – Oct 24th. Trainees should live in the OSME region. They should have conversational command of the English language, a social and communicative character and preferably some background in identifying Western Palearctic raptor species. Furthermore, trainees should read and meet the expectations for volunteer counters. In addition, participants are expected to provide a written and illustrated report with photos/videos (or other form of expression) of their participation for the website and social media channels of BRC and OSME.

Applying for the traineeship

We are pleased to announce that the trainee positions for 2024 have been filled. We encourage all interested candidates to mark their calendars and apply for the 2025 Batumi Raptor Count traineeship next year. Make sure to follow our social media and subscribe to our newsletter for updates throughout the year.