Count Coordinators for Autumn 2024
With the funding for 2024 complete, we have started preparations for the count! The count will run from the 12th of August until the 21st of October. We are searching for brave count coordinators to lead the team of raptor counters in one of the most magnificent and globally important bottlenecks in the world.
If you are interested in the position, please continue reading for more information and submit your application by the 29th of February.
Education: The new booklet is in the schools!
A full classroom was present during the 'book tour'!
Dachi Shoshitashvili making school children enthusiastic about bird migration and the continental flyways.
Our new educational booklet about birds in Georgia is already in most schools in the bottleneck. In September, we held a meeting involving more than 25 schools dedicated to promoting the study of birds in their classes. The idea was to present the book we have edited, which aims to explain to teachers how to use birds as a didactic tool. With this support, it is not necessary for teachers to be experts in ornithology, as the idea is to work together with their students to study the birds around them. All along the 60 illustrated pages, the book covers various topics on the biology, behavior, and conservation of birds. The book concludes with various activity proposals encouraging teachers to initiate ornithological projects with their students. The book has been very well received, as there is nothing similar in Georgia, and the teaching staff has shown genuine interest in the content and how the different didactic proposals are presented.
To complete the project for this season, we visited 8 schools in the municipality of Kobuleti, a neighboring area to our count stations. Here, we have explained and discussed with over 200 students and over 25 teachers why Batumi is such a crucial site for bird migration and how its conservation relies on all of us. They understand that preserving a well-conserved natural heritage is important for all generations, benefiting society as a whole.
This project has been carried out thanks to the funding provided by the British Bird Charitable Trust (BBCT) and IJsvogelfonds, to whom we are immensely grateful for their support. Following the positive reception of the project, the potential we see in it, and the motivation of the education team, our idea is to continue and expand the impact of these activities. We are in touch with the Batumi Tourism Department and the Ministry of Education in Georgia to print more copies and possibly collaborate with schools in the upcoming edition of the bird festival in Batumi. It has been hard work, but we are extremely happy and hopeful about all we can achieve!
This project would not have been possible without the incredible work of both Dachi Shoshitashvili and Elza Makaradze, our long-term friends, collaborators, and host in Georgia.
After a long road towards writing and translating, the booklets were finally printed and distributed.
Screenshots from the PDF version of the book before printing.
GPS-tagged Greater Spotted Eagle at Batumi
The GPS-tagged juvenile Greater Spotted Eagle that was seen from Station 1. Photos by Marc Heetkamp.
On October 1st a juvenile Greater Spotted Eagle carrying a GPS tracker was seen passing Station 1. As this is not the first time a tagged bird has passed our stations in recent years, we set out to find the researcher who may have tagged it. Thanks to a volunteer who knew who to contact, we came in touch with Dr. Alexander Mischenko, coordinator of the GSE conservation and tagging project by the NGO BirdsRussia, who kindly supplied us with more information regarding the bird. This particular GSE is named Pyatnitsa (meaning Friday in Russian) and was equipped with a “Druid” tracker as a nestling on the 21st of July in the Moscow region. Like another tagged GSE in 2019, Pyatnitsa is now spending its first winter in Egypt.
The first BRC publication in Russian Raptors Conservation journal with on the frontpage a stunning juvenile Short-toed Eagle giving onlookers in the Batumi bottleneck a close look.
The observation of this Russian-tagged individual nicely fits the idea that most spotted eagles that pass through Batumi originate from the European part of Russia, as we postulated in a recent article in the Russian journal ‘Raptors Conservation’ (Zaytseva et al. 2022). Indeed, Greater Spotted Eagles tracked from Ukraine and Belarus seem to consistently migrate along the western coast of the Black Sea. As more and more tracking studies are being conducted in the East African-Eurasian Flyway, it is slowly but surely becoming possible to identify the source breeding areas of raptors passing through Batumi. Crucial information to link the trends we observe in our counts to environmental changes at the breeding grounds!
Additionally, on October 15th, we suspect to have seen another tagged bird this season; a White-tailed Eagle. Unfortunately, the bird flew too far away to confirm it was carrying a transmitter. Nonetheless, according to a social media post by Ohad Hatzofe of Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority which shows the (quite remarkable) route of this bird, the day and moment of passing seem to coincide with the tracks shown, plus we only get a handful of White-tailed Eagles each season in Batumi. However, we are still awaiting confirmation that the observed bird was indeed the tagged individual.
While it often remains surprisingly difficult to pick out ringed or tagged birds on migration, our list of species has grown in the past years, including Imperial Eagles, Lesser Spotted Eagles, Black Kites, and Black Storks. Let’s see which species will be added to this list during the upcoming seasons!