About us
Our work
See what your support makes possible.
Photo: Video: Christian Gelpke
Our impact
Counting for a purpose
Since 2008 we have monitored one of the world's greatest raptor migrations, turning every count into an opportunity for research and conservation, hands-on environmental education, and connections that span the flyway and last a lifetime.
- 1,000,000 +
- raptors counted each autumn
- 18
- years monitoring the bottleneck
- 510 +
- volunteers since 2008
- 8
- key species with detectable trends
- 100 %
- open-access data & publications
What we do
Three ways your support helps the Batumi Raptor Count take flight
Research & conservation
Long-term monitoring and open-access data that reveals population trends and root our project in the local communities.
Read moreEducation
Empowering local teachers and students so the next generation grows up championing their migrating raptors.
Read moreFlyway network
Connecting watch sites across the East African–Eurasian Flyway to monitor and protect it together.
Read more
Research & conservation
Migration counts as a vehicle for research & conservation
Since 2008 we monitor the raptor migration in the Batumi bottleneck, where over 1,000,000 migrating raptors pass every autumn. We publish our results and data open access for everyone to read and use.
Volunteer-based migration counts have been at the core of our project since the start in 2008. The long-term and high-quality counts of BRC offer a unique tool to monitor raptor populations in the East African-Eurasian flyways in the 21st century. In 2019 our sustained count efforts culminated in the peer-reviewed publications of our dataset and a first formal analysis of raptor population trends in the Batumi bottleneck. Despite the comparatively short monitoring period, we can already detect ecologically meaningful trends for 8 key species.
We welcome volunteers from all experience levels, train them to be experienced raptor counters, and make sure they go home with an international group of friends and a life-long interest in raptor migration.
By housing our volunteers in local guesthouses our project is strongly rooted in the villages of Sakhalvasho and Shuamta. We further promote the guesthouses among ecotourists and many families now benefit from the increased tourism directly. As a result, illegal hunting has decreased considerably in our host communities.
Education
Educating future generations
Educational activities have been a core part of the BRC project since the beginning. Over the years, we have worked with conservation and environmental science students from across the Caucasus and the EU, several of whom now play key roles in regional conservation organisations. Hundreds of local schoolchildren have visited the BRC watch sites and seen the international appreciation for the birds migrating through their home region. We are now expanding this work by supporting local teachers to bring raptor migration and conservation into the classroom.
In 2023, we developed and distributed our educational booklet about birds in Georgia. More than 25 schools joined a meeting about covering birds and bird migration in the classroom, and our team visited eight schools in the Kobuleti municipality, reaching more than 200 students and 25 teachers. The following year, we organised a workshop for 21 teachers and activities in 12 schools, attended by 293 students and 53 teachers. These visits showed how keen teachers and students are to continue learning about the birds that pass through their home region.
Building on this experience, we have developed a structured programme centred on teachers. Through workshops, we introduce them to bird migration, conservation principles and practical ways to use the activity-based materials from our booklet. We support teachers in starting bird clubs and making environmental education part of their regular school activities. The strong response to previous school visits has also led us to organise autumn bird camps, where children can experience the migration, join guided field activities and develop basic scientific and observation skills.
The programme is designed to reach around 40 schools and more than 300 students each year across the bottleneck. It also includes two annual children's camps, with 20–30 students in total, held during the BRC migration season. Alongside firsthand watching raptors, the children see how migration research works in the field, and the international appreciation it receives.
This initiative is unique in Georgia: there is currently no comparable long-term, structured programme like it. By empowering teachers, working with local partners and supporting strong bird clubs, we aim to create a sustainable educational framework that helps future generations appreciate, love and protect nature. At BRC, we see education as a foundation for conservation, and our long-term goal is to establish a lasting programme that supports Georgian schools in nurturing environmental awareness and responsibility across society.
Flyway network
Building flyway connections
Alongside local research and conservation efforts, BRC aims to facilitate knowledge exchange and collaboration among migration monitoring initiatives across the East African–Eurasian Flyway. We are working towards a functional network of watch sites to monitor and conserve the millions of migratory soaring birds that rely on this globally important flyway.
Over the past decade, migration monitoring has gained real momentum along the East African-Eurasian Flyway, with exciting projects (re)emerging across the Black Sea region, the Middle East, and Central Asia. As a consequence, we are increasingly approached by motivated individuals from across the flyway who are eager to learn from the Batumi Raptor Count and take practical monitoring experience back to their home countries. In turn, we are eager to support this and have hosted many (aspiring) migration count leaders from across the region who have gone on to establish or strengthen successful bird monitoring initiatives locally.
In 2024, together with our long-term partner OSME, we launched the Flyway Monitoring Traineeship programme to further strengthen this capacity building. The programme offers ambitious early-career conservationists an extended stay at our count, providing a rare opportunity to learn the inner workings of our unique, long-running project. In parallel, we are developing a new initiative to bring raptor migration watch sites together across the flyway, with the long-term goal of strengthening collective monitoring efforts and conservation impact in our chronically underfunded and understudied flyway.
Support us
Help keep the count soaring
World-class migration monitoring soars or falls with its funding, and we are operating in a chronically underfunded flyway. A one-off or monthly gift keeps our platform for long-term monitoring, education and conservation going. It is the single most valuable way to back our work.