Bart Hoekstra 4/5/14 Bart Hoekstra 4/5/14

Champions of the Flyway grants $30k

At the Champions of the Flyway awards ceremony the Batumi Raptor Crew was honored to receive a check of $30.000 for Bird Conservation Georgia, presented by Angelo Caserta, BirdLife’s Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia. These funds have been raised by sponsors, participants and supporters of Champions of the Flyway and will help fund our innovative conservation actions to protect birds of prey migrating through the Batumi Bottleneck in Georgia. We are very grateful for this recognition of our work and will achieve so much for raptor conservation with this support!

We again take this opportunity to thank SPNI and BirdLife International, the organizers Jonathan Meyrav, Dan Alon and Jim Lawrence, and all the teams who were competing to make the Champions of the Flyway such an extraordinary force for conservation. But most importantly, every individual who has made a contribution to the cause. It is not too late make your contribution here.

We sincerely hope this birdrace will become an annual event and many more valuable projects can be funded through this race. Just up until the entire flyway is safer place for migrating birds!

http://www.champions-of-the-flyway.com/

Jasper Wehrmann 4/3/14 Jasper Wehrmann 4/3/14

Good start of spring count

The first day of spring count in Batumi was dominated by the migration of Steppe Buzzards and Black Kites. In the morning we saw them flying close to the mountains and were afraid of a long day with distance observations only. But shortly after 11 a.m. before the switch of the land sea breeze system the raptors came closer and closer to our station 1 and finally took their routes in the west along the coast and in the east over the ridge and Big Mama. It was fantastic to see the diversity of raptors already on the first day of counting, which also shows us that we are maybe 2 weeks late with the count. However, as a pilot study we aim to record a good set of phenology data and an overview of the season. The counting posts are occupied by two persons every third day in average which gives us enough time to similarly count in the Chorokhi Delta.

Results from station 1 (1. April):

Black Kites: 1.531
Steppe Buzzards: 952
Medium Unidentified Raptors: 5.974
Lesser Spotted Eagles: 53
Steppe Eagle: 2
Greater Spotted Eagle: 3
LesGrSteps: 64
Booted Eagle: 11
Short-Toed Eagle: 12
Pallid Harrier: 2 (adult male)
European Sparrowhawks: 36
Common Kestrel: 1
Goshawk: 1
Marsh Harrier: 2

with a total of 8.654 raptors and one beautiful Swift coming close to our station.

The results from the Chorokhi Delta:

Green Sandpiper
Common Greenshank
Little Ringed Plover
Dunlin
Ruff
Black tailed Godwit
Blue-Throat
Common Wheatear
Steppe Buzzard
Black Kite
Marsh Harrier
Osprey
Siberian Stonechats
Little Egret
Great Egret
Meadow Pipit
Common Snipe
Ruddy Shelduck
White Wagtails
Little Grebe
Garganey
Sedge Warbler
Barn Swallows
House Martin
Purple Heron
many uncounted Gulls

When visiting the harbour area we observed several Blue-Throats, a single Ruff, Semicollared Flycatcher, Hoopoe, Field Lark, Common Wheatear, Wood Lark, Yellow Wagtail feldegg, and a few Siberian Stonechats.

The first day we arrived was a big surprise. Instead of wearing sandals we had to grab our huts, gloves, boots and all layers of clothes to get started in the field. The temperature dropped to -1°C in the night and brought lots of snow to Sakhalvasho. Snowy palms, freezing emotions, but a warmly welcome of the families sitting together around their oven and tasting the regional cuisine.

The next day the temperature rose to 25°C, only a slow wind chilled us down. That's how the weather can be in Georgia.

Filiep T'jollyn 3/12/14 Filiep T'jollyn 3/12/14

Tripreport: Eagles and Little Bustards in East Georgia

Just like Batumi, the east of Georgia is a great birding destination in winter. This is the report of Bird Conservation Georgia's first trip to the region. We had a fantastic week, enjoying stunning landscapes, Georgian cuisine, and lots of good birds. Highlights were two almost entirely white Sakers, Pallas'gulls, nest-building Imperial eagles, and so much more...

With the creation of SABUKO, the Batumi team is expanding its work to other parts of the country. One of the new key areas are the steppes of East Georgia, where important populations of several threatened species survive. The first step is to build an understanding of important breeding, wintering and staging areas, population sizes and threats. This information will be collected during targeted expeditions in 2014. You are very welcome to join us for the next trip, taking place from 12 to 20 April!

Day 1: Kumisi Lake: an easy start

Since most people had arrived in the middle of the night, we headed south for some easy birding near Kumisi Lake. As soon as we left the main road, good birding started and within an hour Imperial eagle, Merlin and several Long-legged buzzards were found. When we reached the lake, Pallas’ Gulls were everywhere (68 counted!), and gave excellent views. Good numbers of waterfowl were sitting on the water, with 3 Dalmatian pelicans among the many Ruddy Shelduck, Teal, Mallard and Goosander. Someone with a sharp eye spotted 2 White-tailed eagles on the other bank, and suddenly a Black Vulture flew over. Not bad for a first day!

Day 2: Going east

The main goal of the day was to reach Dedoplistskaro, the last town we would encounter during our journey east. On the way, the three teams each explored a sector of agricultural lands along one of the major river rivers which cut through the East Georgian steppes. After a lot of emptiness, our team hit upon a complex of humid fields absolutely heaving with birds. Thousands of calandra larks busily moving around, two Imperial and three White-tailed eagles soaring overhead, Hen harriers and Merlin everywhere.

One of many flocks of Calandra larks in the area (Thomas Luiten)

And then we found something very strange: a big white raptor in a tree. As it was quite distant, we didn’t have a clue what it could be: a white buzzard? A Pallid harrier? It didn’t seem to fit anything. But then it flew off, and it became clear that it was a large falcon. Our first conclusion was that such a white bird must be a Gyr Falcon, but back at home people pointed out the characters indicating Saker. Indeed, eastern Sakers can be very white. While we were enjoying views of a nice adult male Pallid Harrier, an even bigger surprise came: now two such birds were sitting in a tree!

The only Pallid Harrier of the trip (Quentin Dubost).

And suddenly there were two birds…. (Picture Thomas Luiten)

Record shot of one of the very Pale Saker Falcons (Thomas Luiten)

That said, it remains a mystery how two birds of such a rare color morph ended up together in East Georgia. We will revisit the site during our April expedition, and check if they might breed.

And of course we finished the day celebrating our finds!!

Day 3: Into the steppes…

After sorting out the border admin, we drove into the hills south of Dedoplistskaro.

This huge area is almost completely devoid of trees. Nevertheless, many Imperial eagles were seen. Several pairs had started to construct a nest on seemingly unsuitable electricity pylons. The lack of suitable nesting trees may form a limiting factor for this population, and we will follow this up to see if the provision of nesting platforms or the protection of trees is needed.

Despite the emptiness of the landscape, it held lots of attractive passerines:

Mixed flock of Spanish and Tree Sparrows (Thomas Luiten)

Day 4: A long trip through the Shiraki Valley to Vashlovani NP

We started out on a misty morning. Team Don would drive along the Alazani river, which forms the border with Azerbaijan, to check for birds wintering in the gallery forests. The river was very impressive river, but held few birds. We continued until we were kicked out by the border guards. On the way south we came across several small flocks of Little Bustard.

Small flocks of little bustards were present in the Alazani Valley (Thomas Luiten)

The other teams were having a good time on the vast Shiraki plains. Huge flocks of Calandra everywhere, and nice mixed flocks of Brambling, Chaffinch, Yellowhammer and Spanish Sparrow. Quite cool was also the abandoned Soviet airbase.

Buying supplies for a long stay in the wilderness (Quentin Dubost)

Soviet airbase in Shiraki Plain (Hugh Jansman)

Having seen enough calandra larks, we drove on to the Vashlovani National Park, where we installed ourselves in the comfortable stone houses, enjoyed a delicious meal and a few glasses of beer around the bonfire. Later that night, some people were woken up by howling wolves.

Stunning landscapes in Vashlovani NP (Hugh Jansman)

Alex prepared a nice fish for us (Hugh Jansman)

Day 5: Vashlovani NP

The Vashlovani National Park is a vast area of wilderness in the easternmost corner of Georgia. Apart from the important breeding populations, it is also home to many interesting mammals, including bear, wolf, lynx, porcupine and - until recently – Caucasian leopard. We spent a day exploring the area by car and on foot, and found very high densities of Imperial Eagle, many Black Vultures and a territorial pair of Lanner falcon. The eagles were already busy building nests. During the April trip, we will devote much more time to this wonderful area, and attempt to provide a robust population estimate for key species.

Winding roads in the national park (Hugh Jansman)

Imperial eagles were busy building nests (Paul Voskamp)

Golden Jackals are common in the area (Thomas Luiten)

Day 6: Iori River Valley

The Iori river runs through the steppes of East Georgia, and is lined with tugay forests, a mosaic of reedbeds, shrubbery and tall poplar and oak trees. This forms the breeding habitat of Black Francolin and Pheasant (now very rare in Georgia), and White-tailed Eagles build their impressive nests in the matyre trees. Halfway the river is the Dali reservoir, which holds good numbers of wintering waterfowl, including Dalmatian Pelicans and Pygmy Cormorants.

Dalmatian Pelicans over the Dali reservoir (Thomas Luiten)

We arrived tired and hungry in the historic town of Sighnaghi, built on a hilltop overlooking the Alazani plain and Greater Caucasus mountain range.

Day 7: No man’s land

South of the Iori, along the Azeri border lies an isolated range, with small forested valleys, cliffs and so called ‘mud volcanoes’. These are bubbling pools of grey mud, kept fluent by volcanic gases rising up from the depth. Standing on the ridge in the late afternoon light, we did some of the best birding of the trip. Imperial Eagles of different ages, Black and Griffon Vultures, White-tailed and Steppe Eagle all came soaring past, mostly very close and giving excellent views. In the distance, we could observe yet another nest of Imperial.