BRC weekend Ghent
During 20-23 February most members of the enlarged BRC team came to Ghent to spend a long weekend together.
On Saturday we went to the Belgische Vogeldag in Antwerpen. Here we could familiarize people with our project and promote the autumn count and birdwatching around Batumi. It was great to promote BRC with so many of its members. It was also nice to catch up with people that have already visited Batumi as counter or visitor during previous years. After the event we had dinner, drank Belgium beers and ended the evening in style with Vodka at a Ukrainian party.
The Sunday was used for a team meeting and it was great to talk in person again with everybody and to see the shared engagement and enthusiasm for this project.
Unfortunately some of us had to leave at the end of the evening already, but those that were left went to the Netherlands the next day to some birdwatching. Highlights were the Black Guillemot, the Oriental Turtle Dove and the huge mixed flocks of geese.
All in all the weekend rejuvenated our spirits and motivated us to continue working hard and make 2015 another successful year for the BatumiRaptorCount. Keep your eyes open for the next news and consider traveling to Batumi this autumn!
BRC is a volunteer based project and the count has been run since 2008. Any donation is very much appreciated and will help us organize the count every year.
With kind regards,
The BRC Team
Dries Engelen
Updated protocol of monitoring raptors
With the experiences from 6 years counting raptors at Batumi we decided to discuss the protocol, our insights into the migration flow at the bottleneck and the integration of new ideas. The meeting was held in the beautiful scenery of Wageningen, Netherlands. The updated version of the protocol will soon be provided to our count coordinators and counters at BRC 2014.
We are thankful to everybody giving us comments, feedback and insights into the monitoring of raptors at other bottlenecks of the WP. Special thanks goes to Wouter, Simon and Rafa for this splendid and efficient meeting.
BRC Design Contest
We are expanding our assortment of merchandising and are looking for the artists among you with creative ideas.
With this contest, we invite everyone to send us his/her design(s) for t-shirts, hoodies, stickers… Anything is possible! Let your imagination work and be original! We would also like one of the designs to have some Kartuli (Georgian handwriting) integrated in it.
The best designer wins a fantastic BRC-merchandising-package. Don’t worry, it’s not because you’re not the winner that we won’t use your design.
Please send your designs to filiep.tjollyn@batumiraptorcount.org before the 15th of April.