Collaboration in the East African-Eurasian Flyway
The guests from WWF Türkiye and the Istanbul municipality visiting our team on Station 2.
Can, Kadri and Chemil with our chairman Tohar during an early morning on Station 1.
This year, the BRC had the honor of hosting three counters, Can Yeniyurt, Kadri Kaya, and Cemil Cezgin, from the brand-new Bosphorus bird migration count sites in Turkey. On top of that, we received six visitors from WWF Turkey and the Istanbul Municipality. The reason for this is that WWF Turkey conducted their first pilot migration counts at the famous Bosphorus corridor this year. Using two watch sites on the northeastern and southeastern side of the Bosphorus they monitored the tens of thousands of migratory soaring birds that move through this area each autumn. Their final aim is to establish long-term protocolized counts, similar to those of BRC.
In addition to our Turkish colleagues, we also received Watter Albahry from Nature Conservation Egypt who are behind the Galala Raptor Count, the corridor in Egypt where hundreds of thousands of raptors migrate through each spring.
While coming from different countries and backgrounds, each of these visits has one thing in common; to exchange knowledge of raptor migration monitoring. From the history of count sites to methodology, and the identification of raptors. We, the Batumi Raptor Count, aim to assist - newly established - watch sites in the region by making our peer-reviewed methodology available and opening our doors for collaboration.
In the end, knowledge exchange and collaboration is the only way to establish a functional network of watch sites to monitor and conserve the millions of migratory soaring birds using the globally important East African-Eurasian Flyway. Recently, a paper by Jobson et al. (2021) underlined the importance of collaboration: "Workshops run by a coalition of interested organizations and experts at key bottleneck sites could lead to a more sustainable monitoring program in the East African-Eurasian flyway, and consequently to better knowledge of migratory soaring birds".
Does this make you curious about the projects that are going on in the region? Good! Then make sure to keep an eye out on our socials, website, and of course newsletter, as we are working on an East African-Eurasian Flyway page to showcase all the (raptor) migration count sites we have collaborated with!
Falconry - Third time's the charm
“Somewhere deep in Africa, where the elephants roam, but where there is no roaming”
After returning from Georgia last year, with ‘only’ two Levant Sparrowhawks tagged out of eight anticipated individuals, our moods were down. We wondered if perhaps we had been too optimistic and doubted whether or not to give it another chance in the autumn of 2023. Sure, the weather and migration were unusual in 2022, but just two birds tagged in three weeks (!?) … Our field team of six simply couldn't believe it. To make things worse, one of the tagged Levants stopped sending signal already after two weeks, while still being in Turkey, and after little over a month the second bird seemed to have fallen quiet as well, somewhere in Sudan...
Levant Sparrowhawk Kimara. Photo by Dries Engelen.
Then... nearly two months later, Levant Sparrowhawk Dudu brought hope from the plains of Tanzania! Directly after having received this update, our spirits were lifted and it was decided that we would return to Georgia in 2023.
Preparations went well and before you knew it we were back at our host family in Poti. Our three young falconers had several kochis ready upon our arrival, Hunan Global Messenger Ltd was so kind as to replace our old tags with a new batch, and even the weather was looking promising.
With two Levant Sparrowhaks trapped on the first day, this season started of great! The first one was picked up in the last moment by our sharp falconer, and therefore rightfully earned to have the bird carry his nickname Kimara. The second bird, being a mere 139 grams, was not considered suitable for tagging. As this year we timed our visit a little later there were quite some Eurasian Sparrowhawks mixed up in the migration already. This 'bycatch' provided the falconers a nice opportunity to improve their ringing and measuring skills.
A young falconer extracting a Eurasian Sparrowhawk from the net. Photo by Dries Engelen.
The next day our enthusiasm reached new levels when an adult female was trapped. It was an absolute stunner of a bird, and we decided to name it after the warm and kind hostess of our guesthouse - Julia. We had high hopes this bird was gonna make it far, as well as for the juvenile bird that was tagged two days later. This young bird, named Io, weighed 242 grams and was the fattest individual of all. By now we had tagged more birds in four days, than last year in three weeks! We were optimistic and celebrated with a home-made Adjarian Khachapuri and some ludi.
Adult female Julia. Photo by Dries Engelen.
Home-made Adjarian khachapuri. Photo by Dries Engelen.
However, the following days migration slowed down and with each day passing things were starting to look bleak until, eventually, our last day had arrived. Although we were not very hopeful anymore, a nice breeze was blowing from the plain in the east that morning, pushing the migration of birds to the coast. It turned out to be a crazy day, with Sparowhawks all around. The young falconers managed to trap a total of 29 birds! At this point in the season, of course they were mostly Eurasians, but luckily for all of us there were still 5 Levants among them! Suddenly we had the luxury to decide on which individuals to deploy our three remaining tags. The lightest birds were obviously omitted for this purpose and in the end we tagged another two juveniles - Shotiko and Gia -, and one adult(!) male Tornike.
Juvenile Levant Sparrowhawk Shotiko. Photo by Pelle Mellov
Where are the birds now:
†Kimara (juv) – This bird moved south quickly after trapping, overshot its migration route somewhat in Turkey, but corrected it and seemed to be quickly on its way to Afirca, when, unfortunately, on 5th of October the bird died in southern Israel.
Julia (adF) – as expected, steadily moving southwards and the third bird to have arrived to Tanzania.
†Io (juv) – Unfortunately Io never got far. It stayed around the Kolkheti NP for about 2 weeks, slowly making its way to the mountains, but ultimately never made it out of the park.
†Shotiko (juv) – This individual was the first bird to make it to Tanzania this year. However, shortly after arriving there it died on 3rd of December near the Mbalageti river in the Serengeti NP, probably predated by another raptor.
Tornike (adM) – still going strong, but taking things slow. It was the only bird that did not cross the Red Sea after the Sinai desert, but instead went back up to circumvent it. , Now it is gradually moving southwards along the Nile river.
Gia (juv) – One of the three birds to be in Tanzania right now, almost as far as Dudu got last year. Will it also do a similar loop to what we saw Dudu doing before heading back north...?
The map shows the routes and final locations of all the birds, along with the routes of Dudu and Gizo that were tagged and tracked in 2022, but whose data transmission stopped eventually.
Stay tuned!
BRC 2023 T-Shirt
As you know, the start of a new count season also means that we are launching a new annual T-Shirt. For the 15th edition of the Batumi Raptor Count, we’ve decided to feature a new species on our T-Shirts, the Booted Eagle. This mini-Eagle shows splendidly on each of our T-Shirts, from the mini S sizes to the not so mini but no less beautiful XXL+ sizes. Get them now!
If you visit us in Georgia
When you visit us in Sakhalvasho, you can get the 2023 T-shirt in the following color.
The version of the 2023 T-shirt you can get from us in Sakhalvasho.
Online orders
The following T-shirts can be ordered online. The design is the same, but the colors of the T-shirts are different. The T-shirts are made especially for you as soon as you place an order, which is why it takes us a bit longer to deliver it to you. Making products on demand instead of in bulk helps reduce overproduction, so thank you for making thoughtful purchasing decisions!