Halfway through the count
Finally a proper shelter on Station 1, made by some locals from Sakhalvasho. Photo by Daniel Hinckley.
Olegi opened up the ‘Green Cafe’ in his backyard. Photo by Daniel Hinckley.
This season we started with some very positive upgrades to Sakhalvasho village. The days of fighting with the blue tarp are finally over… at least on station-1… We now have an actual shelter and proper stairs leading there. Also new is the Green Café that opened its doors for counters in need of some relaxation after an intense day of clicking. It’s also a great place to mingle with ecotourists, people involved in other projects and some of the locals.
Record year for Honey Buzzards with over 650.000 individuals counted so far. Photo by Rafa Benjumea.
So what about the count!? Usually the first month of the count is always dominated by large numbers of Honey Buzzards passing through the Batumi Bottleneck. This year was no different except that we counted more HBs than during any of the previous seasons. Three peak days of 81.500, 88.000 and 91.500 definitely helped reaching the current total of 659,527 counted individuals. Now it’s mostly some juveniles left before all of them have reached Africa.
This beautiful juvenile Saker Falcon is one of the absolute highlights of the count. It shot by, circled once around Station 2 for all counters to enjoy it and then shot onwards south again. Photo by John Wright.
White Storks also had a record passage this year. Photo by Wouter van der Ham.
This was not the only record set so far! Some big flocks of White Storks (328, 220 & 198) contributed to the total of 1553, where the previous peak year (2011) only saw 573 of them. Also the number of Rollers is incredible this year and it seems the BRC (Batumi Roller Count) finally lives up to its name. Mandatory dress code on station-1 and the Rawhide theme song (Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’) certainly helped, boosting their numbers to 2288. Finally the record peak day of Booted Eagle migration was impressive with over 1000 of them counted.
Other ‘happy ending’ moments so far have been the beautiful view of a Saker Falcon circling next to Station-2, the Short-eared Owl passing Station-1, the ‘white-flashing’ Peregrine (ssp. calidus) in a stream of Black Kites and a flock of over 3000 Black-winged Pratincoles.
Some serious streams are being counted in our east. Photo by Rafa Benjumea.
Up until now the weather has been above all expectations, but as we entered the second half of the season, the notorious subtropical rains of Batumi have finally arrived. For the last 48 hours it has been raining more or less non-stop and today was the first non-counting day. This gives us time to take proper rest before counting the next tsunami of birds, particularly Steppe Buzzards, large eagles and Black_é_Storks!
The second half of the season is coming, which means Steppe Buzzard mania. Photo by Rafa Benjumea.
Mandatory dress code on Station 1 to attract more Rollers to break yet another former count record… and it worked (2288 ind.)! Photo by Hans Henrik Schou (guess what his favourite colour is… blue indeed!)
Raptor shooting survey
Not only birdwatchers are keen on autumn raptor migration, the region around Batumi is also notorious for its raptor shooters. Although it is illegal in Georgia to shoot raptors, many get shot when passing the bottleneck.
A mixed team of Georgian and international volunteers are conducting a survey of the shooting and trapping of raptors in the Batumi bottleneck, from August 15 to September 30. This work is important to evaluate our conservation outcomes, and is funded by the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund. It's a follow-up on previous research into this topic. The Master’s thesis work of Johannes Jansen is the most recent, a summary of which can be found here.
The aim of the study is to quantify the pressure of illegal killing in the region on populations of migratory raptors, and to set up a standardized monitoring scheme to be carried out in the next years. In addition, further attention is devoted to documenting the drivers of this illegal killing. BRC has established a non-confrontational approach to reduce this killing. The results of this study will be used to evaluate and optimize our approach to the conservation of migratory birds, based on public involvement, education and ecotourism. The data will also be used to contribute to BirdLife's illegal killing of birds program.
The survey team reports: "The first month of the hunting season has almost passed, and we are in the field observing the hunting pressure and talking with hunters every day. We are interviewing at least one hunter in every village that looks suitable for hunting along the entire coastal zone of Ajara. Most of the hunters are very friendly and willing to answer our questions that are directed to their personal background, demography of the village, number of local hunters, their hunting habits and motivation. On cloudy, rainy days when birds fly very low making an easy target, we spend the day in those villages that were identified as "hunting hotspots" with the help of these interviews, and collect data on the intensity of shooting, and the birds killed or injured. We believe that our efforts will lead to a better estimation on the extent of raptor killing and the number of active hunters in Ajara, and to a better understanding of this practice and the drivers behind."
World Shorebirds Day at Batumi
About half of the world’s shorebird populations are in decline, and the rate of habitat loss is worse than ever before. The World Shorebirds Day aims on raising public awareness about the need to protect shorebirds and their habitats throughout their life cycles and about the need for ongoing shorebird research.
This year 756 registered locations worldwide participated in the event. Sabuko, Society for Nature Conservation Georgia, was one of them. We decided to focus on the threatened Chorokhi delta along the Eastern Black Sea Coast flyway at Batumi, Georgia, and conduct a shorebird count there.
Written by Robrecht Debbaut
On 05/09 we celebrated the Wordl Shorebirds Day with a team of volunteers of the BRC and headed out to the Chorokhi delta. Our plan was to look in the morning in Batumi for passerines and afterwards, when it was too hot for passerines, to go to the delta where we would focus on waders and crakes.
When we arrived at the delta around 9:30 a.m. it was already pretty hot, but that did not distract us from the quest. Some highlights upon arrival in the delta were squacco heron, citrine wagtails and lesser grey shrikes. An unpleasant sighting however were the numerous hunters and shot birds we encountered on our way to the beach. We saw some hoopoes and turtle doves shot dead and wounded purple herons and glossy ibises.
At the beach we came to well suited areas for waders. There we observed black-winged pratincoles, temminck’s stints, little stints and broad billed-sandpipers. After checking the waders it was so hot that we went for a swim in the Black sea. The water was refreshing and we only swum 15 meters away from a red-necked-grebe.
Before we had to head back, we hurried to the ponds which are well suited for crakes. At the ponds we saw a little crake, several short-toed larks and a red-necked phalarope! We could approach the phalarope up to 2 meters and thus had very close looks on it. On the way back to the bus we saw a cattle egret and ruddy shelducks. We were all tired of the exhausting day but satisfied as well. Without rushing to see as much species on one day, we still saw 74 species.
Species list:
| Wryneck | Jynx torquilla |
| White wagtail | Motacilla alba |
| Whinchat | Saxicola rubetra |
| Yellow-legged gull | Larus michahellis |
| Tree pipit | Anthus trivialis |
| Eurasian reed warbler | Acrocephalus scirpaceus |
| Great reed warbler | Acrocephalus arundinaceus |
| Eastern-olivacious warbler | Iduna pallida |
| Common whitethroat | Sylvia communis |
| Lesser whitethroat | Sylvia curruca |
| Willow warbler | Phylloscopus trochilus |
| Great cormorant | Phalacrocorax carbo |
| Rosy-starling | Sturnus roseus |
| Booted warbler | Iduna caligata |
| Black-headed bunting | Emberiza melanocephala |
| Little egret | Egretta garzetta |
| House sparrow | Passer domesticus |
| Tawny pipit | Anthus campestris |
| Hooded crow | Corvus cornix |
| Great egret | Ardea alba |
| Hoopoe | Upupa epops |
| Garganey | Anas querquedula |
| Little grebe | Tachybaptus ruficollis |
| Black-necked grebe | Podiceps nigricollis |
| Squacco heron | Ardeola ralloides |
| Grey heron | Ardea cinerea |
| Purple heron | Ardea purpurea |
| Glossy ibis | Plegadis falcinellus |
| Black kite | Milvus migrans |
| Marsh harrier | Circus aeruginosus |
| Montagu’s harrier | Circus pygargus |
| Levant sparrowhawk | Accipiter brevipes |
| Eurasian coot | Fulica atra |
| Black-winged pratincole | Glareola nordmanni |
| Little ringed plover | Charadrius dubius |
| Northern lapwing | Vanellus vanellus |
| Dunlin | Calidris alpina |
| Broad-billed sandpiper | Limicola falcinellus |
| Temminck’s stint | Calidris temminckii |
| Little stint | Calidris minuta |
| Wood sandpiper | Tringa glareola |
| Green sandpiper | Tringa ochropus |
| Common sandpiper | Actitis hypoleucos |
| Eurasian curlew | Numenius arquata |
| Common snipe | Gallinago gallinago |
| Ruff | Philomachus pugnax |
| Caspian gull | Larus cachinnans |
| Heuglin’s gull | Larus heuglini |
| Little tern | Sterna albifrons |
| Sandwich tern | Thalasseus sandvicensis |
| White-winged tern | Chlidonias leucopterus |
| Turtle dove | Streptopelia turtur |
| Common kingfisher | Alcedo atthis |
| Bee-eater | Merops apiaster |
| Great spotted woodpecker | Dendrocopos major |
| Short-toed lark | Calandrella brachydactyla |
| Sand martin | Riparia riparia |
| Barn swallow | Hirundo rustica |
| Yellow wagtail | Motacilla flava |
| Citrine wagtail | Motacilla citreola |
| Thrush nightingale | Luscinia luscinia |
| Common redstart | Phoenicurus phoenicurus |
| Northern wheatear | Oenanthe oenanthe |
| Lesser-grey shrike | Lanius minor |
| Cattle egret | Bubulcus ibis |
| European goldfinch | Carduelis carduelis |
| European greenfinch | Chloris chloris |
| Ruddy shelduck | Tadorna ferruginea |
| Red-necked phalarope | Phalaropus lobatus |
| Little crake | Porzana parva |
| Water rail | Rallus aquaticus |
| Common moorhen | Gallinula chloropus |
| Red-necked grebe | Podiceps grisegena |
| Great crested grebe | Podiceps cristatus |