Batumi Raptor Count — News

Flyway Monitoring Trainees of 2026

Tohar Tal — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

With the autumn count just around the corner, it’s time to meet this year’s Flyway Monitoring Trainees! Following the success of the first two editions of this fruitful collaboration with OSME, we’re excited to welcome a new cohort to Batumi and can’t wait to see what this season has in store.

In 2024, BRC launched the Flyway Monitoring Traineeship, an initiative developed together with our long-standing partner OSME. The programme supports ambitious bird conservationists from across the Caucasus, the Middle East and Central Asia; giving them hands-on experience in organising migration monitoring while helping them build the skills and confidence to strengthen conservation efforts back home.

Thanks to the support from OSME’s Youth Development Fund, the traineeship is set to continue for the years to come. Originally we planned to host two trainees each season, but careful use of the available resources means we can once again welcome three participants. With just a few days to go until the first raptors start streaming overhead, we’re excited to introduce the trainees.

Who are the 2026 trainees?

Each trainee brings their own unique story, experience and ambitions to Batumi. Below, our 2026 Flyway Monitoring Trainees shortly introduce themselves, sharing what inspired them to apply and their passion for bird conservation:

Toka Eldakamawy holds a BSc in Zoology from Helwan University, where she developed a novel behavioural mimicry prototype indexing ethological data for organisational application. Currently, Toka serves as a Junior Photo-ID Specialist and Educational Awareness Lead with Turtle Watch Egypt (TWE), working in Marine Turtle Photo-Identification Cataloguing, Data Management, and Public Conservation Outreach across Egypt. Alongside her marine turtle work, Toka is working hard on her avian identification skills as an aspiring raptor monitor, gaining early bottleneck-site experience at Ras Ghareb and actively participating in local urban birdwatching initiatives.

Arda Faruzlu is a biology student at Ankara University from Ankara, Türkiye. Before birds, he enjoyed simple things like playing basketball and football, watching motorsports, films, and TV series. Three years ago, a friend took him to the Eymir Bird Ringing Station, and ever since, birdwatching has become Arda’s greatest hobby. During his undergraduate studies, he decided to turn this passion into his life’s work and study ornithology. Over the years, he developed a special interest in raptors and now he knows that he wants to spend his whole life with them.

Redha Tabet is a freelance wildlife conservationist who grew up in the mountains of Lebanon. He has spent his childhood watching the Lebanese bottleneck sky during bird migration without knowing this was called spotting. Now, being a seasoned birdwatcher, Redha has participated in conservation projects across Lebanon, France and Canada, including bird telemetry, breeding and migration monitoring. Alongside being a big fan of birds, he is also fond of fauna in general, including using bioacoustics as a means of studying bat ethology. A game he loves to play in the field is listening to wildlife sounds and seeing if he can imagine the associated animal behaviours.

Toka, Arda, and Redha will all spend a month embedded within the Batumi Raptor Count! Our experienced team of coordinators will take them along, allowing the trainees to learn firsthand how to run a high-standard raptor migration monitoring project. The traineeships are funded through OSME’s Youth Development Fund, which covers all travel and accommodation expenses up to €1,300 per person.

About the Traineeship

Inspired by the rapid development of new monitoring sites across the East Afro-Eurasian Flyway, the traineeship is created to support early-career conservationists from the OSME region who are committed to bringing knowledge and experience to local monitoring projects back home. Trainees become full members of the BRC coordination team during their stay, contributing directly to the counts while also gaining behind-the-scenes experience of what it takes to run a successful migration monitoring project.

For candidates interested in applying for the 2027 traineeship, we recommend preparing your application by reading more about the programme via the button below.

We have a new website!

Bart Hoekstra — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

With the preparations for the upcoming autumn count in full swing, we have to make sure the digital preparations are taken care of as well. The website is our main way of communicating with you throughout the season, so keeping it up to date is always a big concern. At the same time, our list of ideas for what we wished the website could be kept growing, while we were starting to hit the limits of what was possible as a volunteer organisation. Well, to that, we are proud to present the new BRC website!

To dive right in, here is what has changed:

The website is faster, sometimes much faster. You will notice it most on a slow internet connection.
Content is better presented. Photos, videos, text: it should all look at least a little more polished and smoother. This is especially visible in the autumn reports, which are even more of a feast for the eyes than before.
You can finally search the whole site. Sixteen years of news, reports and more, and until now no way to look anything up. Hit the search icon in the menu and you can finally find that one update you remember reading.
There is a dark mode. Use the toggle in the menu to switch, ideal for bedtime reading through the autumn reports. It follows whatever mode your device is set to.
It runs on European infrastructure. We have reduced our reliance on technology from a few specific countries, and the website now runs (mostly) on European services.
It is far more accessible. A lot has changed underneath to make the website usable for everyone, including visitors who rely on a screen reader or on navigating by keyboard. Most of you will never notice, but for those it concerns it makes all the difference.
Speaking of keyboard navigation: you can browse with your arrow keys! Regulars on Trektellen will know you can jump between count dates with the left and right arrow keys. We liked that enough to borrow it: on our news, left and right take you to the previous or next item, and page through the archive. It works in the daily count viewer too, but more on that below.

One of the changes you do not notice as a visitor is that we can now use artificial intelligence tools to work on any aspect of the website, not just the text. Why should you care? Well, it frees up incredible opportunities for a small volunteer-run organisation like ours. All of what we do happens in our free time, in evenings and weekends, scheduled around busy jobs. This is exactly why so many of our ideas stayed on the wish list for years. Things we had always dreamed of doing, but could never find the time for, are suddenly within reach.

An improved daily count viewer

Our daily counts are the most beloved and popular part of the website. Who doesn’t love going through the daily updates?! They have always been powered by Trektellen, who host our count data and whose viewer we have always embedded directly on the website.

What we never found the time for was building something on top of it, shaped around the way you browse our three stations simultaneously. Well, that has changed now. In the new daily count viewer you can switch on the ‘Lock dates’ toggle to move all stations through the season together, so no more clicking each station into place separately. And, you can link straight to a specific day with the ‘Copy link’ button.

A screenshot of the new daily count viewer. Photo: Bart Hoekstra

Once you have changed a date with your mouse, you can carry on with your keyboard: the left and right arrow keys walk that station through its counts, one day at a time. With ‘Lock dates’ switched on they move all three stations together, so you can follow the whole bottleneck day by day without touching the mouse again. A little quality of life update for our most loyal followers.

This is really only the start. We have ideas for far more exciting interactivity and far more ways of exploring the count data, which we can now finally start working towards.

Feedback welcome

The vast majority of pages have made the move already, with the exception of some older autumn reports, which still require some manual work to polish. Your old bookmarks should keep working, but it is very possible there are still issues here and there. In case you find something, please don’t hesitate to send a short email describing the ‘bug’, the browser you were using and whether you are on a mobile device. Attached screenshots are appreciated. You can send your feedback by email. Thanks!

Happy browsing!

Applications open for the 2026 Flyway Monitoring Traineeship

Batumi Raptor Count — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

With the preparations for the 2026 Autumn count well underway, we are happy to announce opening applications for the BRC Flyway Monitoring Traineeship. We started this traineeship in collaboration with OSME, the Ornithological Society of the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

The traineeship aims to strengthen bird migration monitoring capacity along the East Afro-Eurasian Flyway. This fully-funded opportunity enables ambitious conservationists from the OSME region to gain hands-on experience they can implement in their home countries.

Are you ready to spend a month immersed in the Batumi Raptor Count, participating as a long-term counter, and learning all about what it takes to run a count like the BRC? The traineeship covers accommodation and travel up to €1300, making this position accessible to aspiring and ambitious conservationists across the OSME region.

Continue reading at the BRC Flyway Monitoring Traineeship page. Make sure to scroll all the way to the bottom for the testimonials of last year’s participants.

Please, share this call for trainees with anyone who might be interested to apply. Applications are at least open until April 25th. Afterwards, the application process will remain open until we have selected 2 trainees.

Call for Counters: We’re looking for volunteers for Autumn 2026

Batumi Raptor Count — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

After successfully completing another crowdfunding campaign, we’re happy to announce the call for counters. The application form is now open, and we are looking for participants to join us between August 12th and October 21st, 2026.

As always, we welcome volunteers of all skill levels with an interest in raptor migration, the ability to work in a team, and the ability to commit for at least two weeks. Joining our count as a counter is a great opportunity to learn more about raptors and their identification, while contributing to long-term population monitoring. Volunteers will stay at one of the local guesthouses and experience the passage of over 1 million birds of prey together with other like-minded volunteers from all over the world.

The daily fee depends on the length of your stay and ranges between €10 and €24. In addition, we offer free participation for citizens of the main Caucasus countries: Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. We also provide discounted fees for others who, for whatever reason, are unable to cover the full daily or student fee. Upon request, fees can be reduced to a minimum of €10/day. We hope this enables more volunteers from lower- and middle-income countries to participate.

For both Caucasus participants and those requesting a discounted fee, availability is limited. We aim to make the count as accessible as possible and will do our best to accommodate as many people as we can. If you are financially constrained, we encourage you to apply, and to do so early. There is no better moment to do so than today.

If you are unable to join us this autumn in Batumi, please consider sharing this call to birders who may be able to.

New publication in Ardea: The eastern Black Sea coast as a principal raptor flyway in spring

Batumi Raptor Count — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

For seventeen years, the Batumi Raptor Count monitored the legendary autumn migration of over one million raptors through the Batumi Bottleneck in the Republic of Georgia. The spring migration, however, had never been properly quantified.

In 2019, Tohar Tal and Diego Jansen decided it was time to change that, initiating the first full-season spring migration counts at Batumi, focusing on northbound raptors returning to their breeding grounds.

Over the course of three spring seasons (March–May), we counted hundreds of thousands of raptors. We are very excited to announce that our findings are now published open access in Ardea! See link below.

We provide the first comprehensive description of spring raptor migration along the eastern Black Sea flyway, discussing species’ abundance as well as phenology. We further compare abundance and phenological indicators of relatively common species at Batumi between spring and autumn. In doing so, we present new insights into the large-scale seasonal flows of raptor migration through the East African-Eurasian flyway as a whole. Comparisons to scant historical data further suggest intriguing changes in the timing of spring migration of certain species. We end with a consideration of the monitoring and conservation potential at Batumi in spring.

This work would not have been possible without the financial support of OSME and the many volunteers who helped count thousands of raptors!

Read the article

Something remarkable saved the Autumn Count of 2026

Batumi Raptor Count — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Many of you will be familiar with our winter ritual. After sticking our heads together during the annual team meeting, at some point in the final months of the year, we launch the crowdfunding campaign to raise the funds needed to continue our long-term raptor migration monitoring work. This winter was no different: we launched in December, with a clear deadline of March 1st, 2026.

What was different, though, was the silence.

The first donations came in, but more slowly than we’re used to, causing the counter to get stuck far below the 30k. At the same time, if you noticed fewer updates, fewer nudges from us — yes, you were right. We were unusually quiet. Too quiet. As a very small team, and an even smaller fundraising and communications team, we had to confront a hard reality: we simply didn’t have the time this winter to give the fundraising campaign the attention it deserves.

Every part of BRC runs entirely on volunteer time, energy, expertise, and a lot of passion for raptors and raptor conservation. That’s something we’re incredibly proud of, but it also makes us vulnerable. Passion fuels our work, but it doesn’t pay rent, and sometimes it doesn’t create space in an already full week. This year, two members of our three-person fundraising team are in the final stretch of their PhDs, while the third was balancing a full-time job with PhD applications. At the same time, we hold ourselves to high standards in how we communicate with you. Doing a crowdfunding campaign properly takes an immense amount of effort, and this winter our personal lives got in the way more than we anticipated.

We were genuinely worried about what this meant for the 2026 count. Not making the fundraising target of €30k would mean we would have to cancel the count this year. But then something extraordinary happened.

Thanks to an incredibly generous anonymous donation of €15,000, we can share the wonderful news: we have reached (and even surpassed!) our fundraising goal. The Autumn 2026 count is secured, and preparations can begin. To the donor behind this gift: we are deeply, immensely grateful. And to all of you who supported us along the way: thank you.

At the same time, this experience was a clear reminder of how fragile our financial base still is. One unexpected ‘dip’ in our availability can put an entire season at risk. The only way we can truly plan ahead and run our count, Flyway Monitoring traineeships, and invest in new education and conservation plans, is through structural support: recurring donations from our community of supporters, alongside support from organizations, foundations and philanthropic individuals who believe in our work long-term.

We don’t just want to keep counting. We want to do more for conservation, research, and education. In fact, now that funding for the count is secured, we’re preparing to launch a new education project this year, one we’re incredibly excited about. This will require separate funding, and you’ll hear more about it soon. (Keep an eye on your inbox 👀.)

For now, there is one simple way you can help make BRC more resilient:

If just 10% of you were to donate €5 per month, we would already cover our annual baseline costs.

A recurring donation, no matter how small, helps us plan, breathe, and focus on doing our best work yet.

Financial support doesn’t always have to come in the form of a donation you make yourself. Some of the most meaningful help comes from simply thinking along with us. You might know someone who cares deeply about raptors or migration, a foundation or company looking to support long-term conservation work, or a philanthropist searching for a project with real impact. Even introducing BRC to the right person can make a lasting difference. And for those who think far ahead: a small legacy gift, by including BRC in your will, can help ensure that raptor migration is monitored and protected for generations to come. There are many ways to support this work, if you’d like to explore any of them with us, we’d love to hear from you.

If BRC’s work matters to you, we warmly invite you to consider setting up a monthly donation. Not just for this year, but for the years to come. Together, we can keep our eyes on the skies, for a long time ahead.

Set up a Recurring Donation

Thank you 🙏

And… it’s a wrap. What a season!

BRC17 Team — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

It all came to a beautiful end. We began the count with a Marsh Harrier and wrapped it up with a Steppe Buzzard — both iconic species for the bottleneck. But so much happened in between…

We witnessed many breathtaking sightings. From massive kettles of Honey Buzzards streaming overhead to moments of intense eye contact with close-by Short-toed Eagles and watching Black Kites rest after long flights. The weather tested us this year too, ranging from the classic scorching days to thunderstorms and relentless rain. Yet the team never stopped. We kept counting, no matter what. And it was all worth it.

We broke so many records and achieved the highest season total in BRC’s history this season. A testament to the dedication, passion, and teamwork that defines this project. You’ll find all details in our upcoming autumn report, so stay tuned!

A huge thanks goes to everyone who made this season possible: our incredible volunteers, trainees and coordinators, the BRC team working tirelessly behind the scenes, our generous supporters and donors Kite Optics and OSME, and the Georgian families who welcomed us with warmth and delicious food. It’s been a season that will be remembered for many years to come.

The team and some members of our host families celebrating the end of the count with a well-deserved group dinner.

1.5 Million raptors!

BRC17 Team — Sun, 19 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

For the first time in BRC history, we have recorded a staggering 1.5 million raptors in a single autumn season — a true milestone after 17 years of counting!

After counting hundreds of thousands of Honey Buzzards, record-breaking numbers of Black Kites, and now endless streams of Steppe Buzzards, over the last days we’ve been amazed by the number of Long-legged Buzzards! With just today a new all-time day record of 87 individuals!

While our entire team is (of course) currently celebrating breaking these seasonal records for nearly all species, this milestone above all highlights the importance of the Batumi Bottleneck. Perfectly demonstrating why our work of monitoring and conserving raptor migration here is so important!

On a larger scale, as the Batumi Bottleneck represents just one key node in the network of migration corridors within the East African-Eurasian Flyway, we may ask ourselves: how much do we really know about the numbers and movement patterns of raptors across this flyway?

All the more reason to continue not only monitoring efforts here, but also at other well-known and newly discovered bottlenecks by different organisations across the region. Only by combining our knowledge and efforts can we truly understand and protect the migratory species that connect us all. This is something we are already working towards, for example, through our current flyway traineeship program — with more plans and ideas in the making!

Last but certainly not least, we want to thank everyone who made this possible: our coordinators, trainees, counters, the many generous donors who funded our work, OSME as our long-time collaborator and supporter, and Kite Optics for providing us with high-class equipment to count and identify all raptors!

The Station 1 team.

The Station 2 team.

The team of coordinators at station 3 — for a change.

What’s going on up north?

BRC17 Team — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Although we haven’t shared many updates about our pilot count at Kvirike, that doesn’t mean we haven’t been counting! Our dedicated counters have been scanning the skies from Station 3 at Chalet Kvirike: without clouds, in the clouds, and even above the clouds!

Since the start of the count on August 21st, we’ve logged over 200,000 raptors! Although the total number is relatively lower compared to our official counts from Sakhalvasho and Shuamta, the quality of sightings has been absolutely outstanding!

Crested Honey Buzzard flying over one our lower-level watch sites Photo: Guus van den Berg

During the Honey Buzzard and harrier peak in late August and early September, most individuals passed close by at eye level. On the days we counted above the clouds, we enjoyed spectacular views as the sunlight reflected off the cloud tops, beautifully illuminating the birds from below.

Throughout September, the diversity of raptors gradually changed, with highlights including multiple Crested Honey Buzzards, eye-level Griffon Vultures, and even a Golden Eagle!

In late September and the first two weeks of October, we witnessed a fascinating pattern in the migration of Steppe Buzzards: the vast majority of birds have been migrating eastward into the mountains north of our station. These birds likely end up flying through the inland valleys of Mtirala National Park — which could explain why, on some days, Station 3 counted more Steppe Buzzards than Stations 1 and 2 combined! These are also likely the same birds that Station 2 sometimes records in their (very!) far east.

A juvenile Black Kite showing off its beautiful plumage Photo: Richard van Vugt

Within the streams of Steppe Buzzards we often see nice eagles — such as this juvenile Imperial Eagle Photo: Erik Jansen

Altogether, Kvirike has so far proved to be a truly fantastic place to observe eye-level raptor migration while surrounded by pristine semi-tropical forests. Moreover, it provides valuable new insights into the dynamics of raptor flight paths within the Batumi bottleneck.

Make sure to keep an eye out for further updates and our final “Kvirike special” autumn report!

How we often see raptors from our station at Kvirike: in front of the sea and the city of Kobuleti Photo: Tohar Tal

Kite, Kite, Kite Optics

BRC17 Team — Sun, 12 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

A juvenile Black Kite of the eastern variation Photo: Bart Hoekstra

Kite, kite, KITE! We’d like to give a big shout-out to our sponsor this year, Kite Optics, for the T-shirts and optics.

Access to binoculars or scopes can be a barrier for some of our international volunteers and trainees, but now, thanks to Kite Optics, everyone is able to participate fully in the count using state-of-the-art equipment! Beside this, we also had the chance to use their stabilized scopes and binoculars. Having tired hands and arms after scoping birds all day, gives a big advantage with these stabilizers 😉

It’s been an exceptional year for kites. On September 14th, we broke the single-day record for kites, with 43,790 birds counted at one station alone. Then, on October 2nd, we passed 350,000 Black Kites for the season — a new season record! We had an incredibly thrilling moment when we observed the possible first Red Kite for Batumi, that later turned out to be a hybrid (also thrilling and more on this matter later). And to top it off, the highlight of the season: when we broke the record for the most birds ever counted in Batumi - 1,422,172 - the bird that tipped us over that number was, fittingly, a beautiful juvenile Black Kite. A big thank you once again to Kite Optics for their support this year.

Discounted optics via the Kite Optics webshop

We’re grateful to Kite Optics for supporting the Batumi Raptor Count with high-quality optical equipment. As part of their sponsorship, Kite offers a 10% discount on all webshop orders using the code BRC2500KT at checkout.

Photo: Tohar Tal

1,422,172 and counting

BRC17 Team — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

We’ve broken the season record of 1,422,171 raptors set in 2021! At 14:52 today, the 1,422,172nd bird crossed our transect line to the east - a juvenile Black Kite making its way through the misty clouds.

And the season isn’t over yet! With two weeks still to go, who knows how high we’ll push this new record. Huge thanks to our incredible team, counting tirelessly for 55 days and still going strong.

What a day. What a season!

Station 1’s team.

A very ‘gloupsy’ record-breaking Black Kite Photo: Bart Hoekstra

The weeks of diversity

BRC17 Team — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

The weeks of diversity have started! After the thrill of the million, we went straight through to the peaks of diversity. And that brings along… the eagles. Through the mess of the frantically flying Steppe Buzzards and Black Kites, the huge appearances of these eagles, steadily gliding and moving in between them gives a peaceful, yet excited feeling at the same time. They soar through the chaos effortlessly, unaffected by the buzzards spiraling around them. And if the eagles didn’t already seem huge, a surprise Griffon Vulture shows up. Seeing them together in the stream with eagles just makes you realise how massive they are. The challenge of counting a lot of birds that we had in the beginning of the season, has now turned into the challenge of picking out all the different species. The season is changing and with that the migration that keeps on surprising us in every way. We are ready for - already - the last chapter of the season!

One of the few surprise Griffon Vultures we’ve had so far Photo: Filiep T’Jollyn

1,000,000 raptors — already!

BRC17 Team — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

WE HAVE REACHED A MILLION BIRDS! Who would have thought that we would get there so soon? This year we reached it ten days earlier than in any other season — and exactly halfway the count!

It was a day full of suspense. We only needed a little over 10.000 more birds. We extracted every single one of them out of the bright blue sky. Whether we would reach the milestone remained uncertain until the very last minutes of the count. It turned into a real countdown: 5,000 birds to go… 700… and then suddenly just 140. Fifteen minutes before the end of the count, we checked the numbers, and there it was: over one million raptors. What a day. What a season. And what is next? Have all the birds now passed already? Two million birds? Who knows what the bottleneck still has in store for us?

The Station 2 team Photo: Elien Hoekstra

Of course, this achievement wouldn’t have been possible without so many people. A heartfelt thank you to all our counters — those on the ground with us and those supporting us from far away. To our wonderful Georgian host families, for their hospitality and warmth (and for the cheerful smiles of one of our youngest supporters, Noe, our host family’s newborn baby). And finally, a big thanks to Kite Optics for equipping our counters and trainees with binoculars and scopes, and for sponsoring our annual t-shirts.

We’re grateful to Kite Optics for supporting the Batumi Raptor Count with high-quality optical equipment. As part of their sponsorship, Kite offers a 10% discount on all webshop orders using the code BRC2500KT at checkout.

A juvenile Lesser Spotted Eagle showing off its pristine plumage Photo: Sander Bruylants

A juvenile Honey Buzzard taking off from Station 2’s favorite perch Photo: Eduardo Campos Wals

Wave after wave after wave

BRC17 Team — Sun, 14 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

The station 1 team posing in front of one of many rainbows decorating the bottleneck Photo: Joachim Pintens

Over 800,000 raptors counted — and we’re not even halfway through the season! We had just caught our breath after the Honey Buzzard peak when the next wave arrived: Steppe Buzzards, Black Kites, and juvenile Honey Buzzards in full force! Oh and do they love to scatter in all directions… But we kept pace with the flow.

We had some unforgettable moments during the count: sunrises lit with harriers and late afternoons when rainbows formed behind Black Storks kettling through. Moments when we were wrapped in clouds and rain, convinced the skies had gone silent, when the sudden screech of Honey Buzzards broke through - calling to one another as their shapes emerged from the mist.

In the great kettles of Honey Buzzards, the team searched for Crested Honey Buzzards — and they finally showed up in the last few days! The raptors - who take the center stage in our count - together with the constant calls of European Bee-eaters, along with flocks of Rollers, Pelicans, Glossy Ibises, Hobbies and Black Storks, are making this once again an unforgettable count.

A kettle of Honey Buzzards Photo: Eduardo Campos Wals

A juvenile Black Kite Photo: Eduardo Campos Wals

One million raptors: But where do they come from?

Batumi Raptor Count — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

As a migration counter, you can’t help but wonder: “Where did the bird I just tallied come from, and where is it going?” In light of BRC’s main aim — monitoring raptor population trends — this very question is crucial, because we want to know which populations we are actually monitoring.

GPS loggers that track a bird’s every movement may seem like the ultimate solution. Indeed, even in some of our earlier work (Zaytseva et al. 2021), we made a first attempt to estimate the origins of breeding populations based on the limited tracking studies available for the East African–Eurasian flyway.

Black Kite photographed at Batumi in September 2018, a bird that had been wing- and GPS-tagged at the Dudaim landfill, Israel Photo: Wim Bovens

A recently published study by Efrat et al. (2025) takes this a step further. It represents the most comprehensive effort to date, leveraging large GPS-tracking datasets to validate the monitoring potential of migration counts at two well-established watch-sites in the East African-Eurasian flyway: Eilat, Israel, and Batumi, Georgia. For Batumi, for example, the study shows that our watch-sites are well-positioned to monitor a large proportion of Black Kites from a major non-breeding population in the Negev Desert that breeds over a wide longitudinal range stretching over Ukraine and western Russia.

At BRC, we greatly appreciate the efforts of Efrat et al. (2025) to assess the monitoring potential of our surveys using an independent tracking dataset, and read their work with great interest. After some internal discussion in the team, we concluded that Efrat et al. (2025) offer an invaluable first step towards better understanding patterns of migratory connectivity flyway. At the same time, we felt the bias towards very specific populations of tracked birds comes with important caveats regarding the interpretation of watch-site monitoring potential, and that the authors left several important opportunities for integrating count and tracking efforts underexplored. After an informal discussion with lead-author Ron Efrat, we have now published a commentary letter further elaborating on these gaps and opportunities:

Read our commentary

(If you do not have access to the subscription article, you can find the accepted manuscript version of the commentary here)

Efrat et al. (2025), in turn, were offered the opportunity to respond to our commentary, and you can find their reflections here.

Overall, we found it a very interesting experience to publish our scientific debate in such a public manner, via a commentary piece, and we thank Efrat and his co-authors for a constructive and cordial discussion. Even if some minor disagreements remain, it is abundantly clear that large tracking datasets can and should be used to clarify the population-level origins and destinations of birds counted at key watch-sites.

Moreover, besides the question of how robust migration counts are as a monitoring tool, we emphasise that the utility of migration count projects such as BRC takes a multifaceted form, including capacity-building, environmental education, awareness raising and other aspects that contribute to raptor conservation in a broader sense. Even in the “golden age” of animal tracking, old-school migration counts have an important role to play in connecting people with raptors — perhaps now more than ever.

Half a million raptors!

BRC17 Team — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

The Station 1 team that counted almost 110,000 raptors that pushed us well over the half a million.

Whaaahhh! Half a million raptors!!

Today we counted over 100K birds, which means we reached the half a million milestone!

After having some more relaxed days before (still about 30K daily), the birds went crazy today. While the morning started out as normal with some streams in the east and groups of Harriers all over, around 11 o’clock massive streams of Honey Buzzards, Black Kites mixed with the occasional harriers and eagles started streaming all around Station 1 and in between the stations. And of course, as they do, the Honey Buzzards and Black Kites nicely mixed up together, making the counting all the more challenging. But we thrive on this chaos and confusion! It just makes us more excited!

After several hours of counting, among this wildness of Honeys and Black Kites pushing us to the half million, we were able to enjoy Egyptian Vultures and the Caucasian Viper, their bright colours reflecting in the afternoon light. And while the day ended, the birds did not. It felt calm, but the birds streamed. Unstoppable and ongoing.

Now let’s try and reach the 1 million milestone!

High up above: the first few days from Kvirike

BRC17 Team — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

View from the balcony of Chalet Kvirike towards the west, with the Black Sea in the distance Photo: Guus van den Berg

Our pilot count from Chalet Kvirike has now been running for a week and a half, and we must admit we are impressed by what we have so far experienced. Raptors often fly by at eye level, allowing for absolutely incredible views! We are also mastering the art of identifying raptors based on their upperparts, as many fly through the bottleneck below us.

The harriers, particularly Montagu’s, have really been stealing the show, and surely the Honey-buzzard migration peak has also reached Kvirike, with many flying low over our heads.

As we are based at 1080m altitude, we are regularly surrounded by clouds, especially during the afternoons. Two days ago, we experienced what we had really hoped for: reappear above the clouds and see if raptors are migrating above the cloud layer! The answer is a clear yes – several kettles and streams could be seen above the clouds, which was an amazing and unique experience. Raptor migration is magical!

A curious female Honey Buzzard Photo: Guus van den Berg

The Honey Buzzards have arrived!

BRC17 Team — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

What week it has been in the bottleneck! The weather threw everything at us—rain, fog, blazing sun—but the migration didn’t stop, and neither did we.

A classic Station 2 perk: fresh Khachapuri! Photo: Eva Drukker

We had mornings with just a handful of Harriers and Honey Buzzards fighting against the wind, long hours waiting in the mist, and the classic Batumi FOMO, where you feel like most of the streams went to “the other station”. But the calm days were full of cherries: close-by Lesser Spotted Eagles, Ospreys, Rollers flashing against the ridge, juvenile Pallid Harriers, the first Steppe Eagle at eye level and even an Imperial Eagle much earlier than expected.

And then, on the 28th of August, it happened. Our first BIG DAY! Out of nowhere, the sky exploded with raptors. Kettles of Honey Buzzards here, flocks of White Storks there, walls of birds pouring overhead. Every counter was needed, and those who had taken the day off had to come running up the stairs to help. It turned into one of those Batumi days: the kind you dream of. Juvenile Pallids close enough for perfect IDs giving us the fourth-biggest Pallid day of August. Black Storks and White Storks filled the sky together, harriers streamed past in beautiful light, as well as Long-legged Buzzards soaring right overhead. It felt like it would never stop - the clickers were running hot, clicking away streams of Honey Buzzards, mixed with Black Kites, Booted Eagles, harriers and storks.

From cozy khachapuri breaks and grumpy wet hoopoes on rainy days to moments when the sky was overflowing with migration, this week had it all. Batumi migration season is just getting started, we are already over 140 000 birds and if this week is a taste of what’s coming… we’re ready.

The Station 1 team…

… and the Station 2 team.

The first 1000+ raptors day

BRC17 Team — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

It has been 6 days now since the start of the count and yesterday was our first 1000+ day! Finally!!

Tricky to identify, but luckily there were pictures: the first Long-legged Buzzard of the season Photo: Eduardo Campos Wals

Both stations combined counted 1601 birds, of which most were Honey Buzzards and Black Kites. It finally felt like the Batumi we know, with clouds covering the sky, birds gloopsing and un-gloopsing everywhere - aka disappearing in and reappearing from the clouds - and a lot of happy sounds coming from our counters. After days of counting birds in the far east, we finally had some nice close-by streams and kettles. The view of kettles appearing over the mountains, knowing they were coming our way made us very excited. The same for the hectic moments when streams appeared from the clouds in different distance codes making the counters rushing for the clickers, getting their bino’s and scopes ready. We were treated with beautiful bright-lit White Storks coming overhead, the local Steppe Buzzards, even the first Lesser Spotted Eagles and of course the main player; kettles of Honey Buzzards.This is what we came here for!

Soon, there will be much higher diversity of birds; the bright blue Rollers, the elegant Pallid Harriers, the massive eagles… Will it turn crazy, with immense numbers of birds along with crazy migration patterns? Like the Black Kites and Steppe Buzzards which don’t want to follow a nice single stream, but rather stream out in all different directions. Or the sneaky Booted Eagles moving low through the valley, trying to get past us unnoticed. Or will it just be the counters (or coordinators) that go crazy from the mess, excitement and chaos that can sometimes result from the count in Batumi? Who knows.. As long as we reach one million this year, we’re pretty sure everything will all be well.

White Storks Photo: Paul Buntfuß

A kettle of Honey Buzzards Photo: Eduardo Campos Wals

Station 3 – Pilot count from Chalet Kvirike

Bart Hoekstra — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Every year the same questions pop up at the watch sites occasionally: What would we see if we counted from higher up in the foothills of the Lesser Caucasus? Would we see more Harriers? Are birds flying above the clouds? Would the Eagles fly closer?

This year, thanks to a generous collaboration with Chalet Kvirike, we finally have the chance to find out. From their grounds, just 10 kilometers northeast — as the crow raptor flies — of our Shuamta watchpoint, and a full 600 meters higher, we’ll be monitoring raptor migration from August 21st to October 21st.

We are especially excited that this count will run in parallel with our ongoing counts in Sakhalvasho and Shuamta, still somewhat in visible range. The Chalet is located at the fringes of the Colchic rainforest, where we’ll be surrounded by trees, clouds, and hopefully many hundreds of thousands of (eye-level?) raptors.

Those who have followed our work closely in the past may remember that we previously identified the Kvirike area as one of the regional hotspots for illegal hunting. Through our presence this season, we hope to reduce the impact of hunting once again, while also exploring the tranquil grounds of Chalet Kvirike’s potential for sustainable (avi-)ecotourism.

If you’d like to visit the Kvirike site or have any questions about it, you can email us at kvirike@batumiraptorcount.org.

We have updated the data page on our website to show the counts at Chalet Kvirike as well. Keep a close eye on this page from August 21st — if you weren’t already.

The count has started!

BRC17 Team — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Yesterday was the first day of the 17th autumn count. With a small team of counters we counted a small number of birds for this first day.

Caucasian Sand Lizard Photo: Eduardo Campos Wals

Both stations combined we counted 59 birds! We saw four species, Honey Buzzard, Marsh Harrier, Black Kite and Booted Eagle. The latter two showed up in quite some numbers, giving us a first taste of the streams we will soon be counting. Some local Steppe Buzzards, Wood Pigeons and a Short-toed Eagle made an appearance, but it will be a while before they will start their migration. We are more then ready for them though.

The raptors were joined by a Golden Oriole, Bee-eaters, Lesser Grey Shrikes, Swifts, hoverflies, dragonflies, snakes, Caucasian Sand Lizards. The non-birds got some extra attention as they was only one Steppe Buzzard close enough to be photographed.

Of course, we still had to do some work on the stations to make sure we are able to see every bird passing by, no rest for the wicked.

All in all a great first day of the count, and we are very much looking forward to all the birds coming our way, let’s reach that 1 million again!

We will keep you posted about the count as the season progresses, through our social media, website and newsletters. See our link in the bio.

‘Gardening’ around station to ensure we have good visibility of the bottom of the valleys. It is incredible how fast vegetation grows on the edge of the Colchic ‘Rain forest’ Photo: Elien Hoekstra

BRC 2025 T-Shirt

Batumi Raptor Count — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

With so many brilliant women involved in this year’s count, it felt only fitting to place a strong female at the heart of this season’s T-shirt design.

The 2025 T-shirt you can buy from us directly when you visit us in Sakhalvasho.

Enter the female Montagu’s Harrier: elegant, powerful, and often overlooked next to her more flamboyant male counterpart. Just like the many women who make the BRC what it is, she flies with quiet strength and determination.

Some have mentioned the design has a slightly Soviet-inspired graphic flair. Perhaps a subtle nod to the ideals of equality, but mostly… it just looks sharp.

Importantly: by ordering the 2025 T-shirt, you support our ongoing monitoring and conservation work. Keep the Batumi Raptor Count flying high!

Online orders

In Sakhalvasho we only have T-shirts in the color pictured in the photo. Online, many more color options are available. 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!

Did you know you can also find previous editions of the annual T-shirts on our webshop? Make your collection complete!

Buy a 2025 T-shirt

Count preparations

BRC17 Team — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Yesterday, the coordinators of 2025 arrived in Batumi - the first all-women coordinating team in the history of BRC! Over the next couple of days our long-term counters will be arriving to get ready for the start of the season on the 12th of August. We have been sorting out all the material, checking the conditions of the stations and of course also enjoying some good Georgian food.

We are looking forward to this season, and for the first time wondering… Will we reach the million? It did not happen last year, so the suspense is on to see if we can make it this season.

This season, over 50 raptor enthusiast from 19 countries are joining the count. Clearly the anticipation has been really high, because we have never had all positions fill up so fast. We are especially glad to have participants from across the Caucasus region and neighboring countries, with no fewer than 11 participants from Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, Iran and Russia. The Batumi bottleneck once again proves it’s clearly not only a crossroads for birds, but certainly also for people.

A big thanks to Kite Optics for sponsoring us with scopes, binoculars, and more - including the ones you see in the photo! And of course to everyone who donated and supported BRC to make it happen once more this year!

BRC at the Avian Odyssey 2025

Batumi Raptor Count — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

We’re excited to share that Batumi Raptor Count will be part of the Avian Odyssey 2025 — the annual meeting of the British Ornithologists’ Club — held this year at the Natural History Museum in London on Saturday 20 September.

This full-day event brings together leading voices from bird research and conservation NGOs around the world, with a spotlight on success stories from the field. Thanks to a kind invitation from OSME, our chairman Tohar Tal will be speaking about BRC’s work monitoring and protecting one of the world’s most spectacular migrations, that of over one million raptors passing through Georgia each autumn.

Can’t make it to London? No worries — the event will also be livestreamed, and online-only tickets are available.

When: Saturday 20 September 2025 – 10:00–17:00
Where: The Flett Theatre, Natural History Museum, London

Hope to see some of you there, either in person or online. Come say hi!

Watch the talk online

The full presentation is now available on YouTube — we warmly invite you to take a moment to watch it.

Flyway Monitoring Trainees of 2025

Batumi Raptor Count — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Last year, we launched the BRC Flyway Monitoring Traineeship, a new initiative developed together with our long-time partner OSME, to support and empower ambitious bird conservationists from across the East Afro-Eurasian Flyway. The aim: to provide our trainees with hands-on experience in organizing migration monitoring, and to help them bring that knowledge back to their home countries and initiatives throughout the flyway.

With the support of OSME’s Youth Development Fund, the programme continues this autumn — and we are proud to welcome no less than three new trainees to Batumi. Now, as autumn approaches, we’re thrilled to introduce the 2025 cohort of trainees.

Meet the 2025 Trainees

Below, the 2025 trainees introduce themselves in their own words,
sharing what brought them to apply and what drives their work in bird conservation.

Motahareh Hakiminejad — Iran “Motahareh, from Iran, is a biologist passionate about bird conservation and avian migration. Currently pursuing an M.Sc. in Biodiversity Conservation and Management, she has been a key team member of the Hyrcan Raptor Count (more in this OSME blog) in northwest Iran since 2022, co-managing the 2024 count. She contributes to field surveys, bird banding, and Common Swift rehabilitation, while creating educational content and hold talks about bird ecology and conservation to promote awareness. Skilled in data analysis and photography, Motahareh is dedicated to advancing raptor conservation and fostering community engagement, driven by her deep appreciation for nature and wildlife.”

Yaren Özogul Görür — Türkiye “I am an ecologist dedicated to nature conservation, particularly keen on birds. My academic interests stem from human impacts on wildlife and conservation strategies. In my Master’s Thesis, I studied road ecology to understand how human pressures amplify ecological threats, emphasising the need to keep terrestrial ecosystems as intact as possible. I am curious about understanding birds’ responses to habitat change and human activities, aiming to become a conservation-oriented bird ecologist. Therefore, I believe that long-term bird monitoring, like BRC, is vital for understanding global environmental changes and acting proactively.”

Leyla Muslim — Azerbaijan “Leyla is a birdwatcher and eco-guide from Azerbaijan with over seven years of experience in bird migration counts (as a team member of the Besh Barmag Bird Migration Count) and guiding. She is passionate about raptor migration, conservation, and engaging local communities in nature-based tourism.”

Each of our trainees will spend a month embedded with the Batumi Raptor Count, learning firsthand how to run a high-standard raptor migration monitoring project. Their stay is funded through OSME’s Youth Development Fund, which covers travel and accommodation expenses up to €1300 per person.

About the Traineeship

The traineeship is designed to support early-career conservationists from the OSME region who are committed to bringing knowledge and experience back to local monitoring initiatives. Trainees become full members of the BRC team and not only contribute to the counts directly, but also gain behind-the-scenes experience of what it takes to run a successful migration count.

Applications for 2025 are now closed, but we encourage all interested candidates to start preparing for next season. You can read more about the traineeship via the button below.

Applications open for the 2025 Flyway Monitoring Traineeship

Batumi Raptor Count — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

With the preparations for the 2025 Autumn count well underway, we are happy to announce opening applications for the BRC Flyway Monitoring Traineeship. We started this traineeship last year in collaboration with OSME, the Ornithological Society of the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Continue reading at the BRC Flyway Monitoring Traineeship page. Make sure to scroll all the way to the bottom for the testimonials of last year’s participants.

Please, share this call for trainees with anyone who might be interested to apply. Applications are at least open until May 15th. Afterwards, the application process will remain open until we have selected 2 trainees.

Call for Counters: We’re looking for volunteers for Autumn 2025

Batumi Raptor Count — Sun, 16 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT

As always, we are looking for volunteers of all skill levels with an interest in migration, the ability to work in a team, and the possibility to commit for at least two weeks. Joining our count as a counter is a great opportunity to learn more about raptors and their identification, while also contributing to long-term population monitoring. Volunteers will stay at one of the local guesthouses and enjoy the passage of over 1 million birds of prey together with other likeminded volunteers from all over the world.

The daily fee depends on the length of your stay and ranges between €10 and €24. In addition, thanks to an increased fundraising goal (read more below), we are proud to announce two major changes for this year’s count:

Free participation for citizens from the (main) Caucasus countries: We used to offer free participation only to Georgians, but we can now offer this to Armenian and Azerbaijani volunteers as well!
Discounted fees available: If volunteers, for whatever reason, are unable to cover the full daily or student fees for participation, we now have budget available to decrease the daily fees further. Upon request, we can reduce the daily fees up to a minimum of €10/day. We hope this enables more volunteers from lower and middle income countries to participate.

For both Caucasus participants and those from elsewhere requesting a discounted fee, availability is limited. We strive to make our count as accessible as possible, so will try to do our best to accommodate as many people as possible. If somehow financially constrained, we encourage you to apply, and do so early. There is no better moment to do so than today.

Soaring to success: We reached our €30,000 crowdfunding goal for Autumn 2025

Batumi Raptor Count — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Less than three months ago, on December 14th, we re-launched our crowdfunding campaign to fund the upcoming autumn count of 2025. Since 2021, we have successfully funded three autumn counts through our dedicated crowdfunding efforts. As we already accumulated a significant financial buffer for 2025, we decided to continue with the crowdfunding to raise the amount needed to continue our important monitoring work in the Batumi bottleneck. Now, we are delighted and proud to announce that — thanks to your incredible generosity once again! — we have reached €30,000 to fund our work in the upcoming year!

Since we already had a buffer from the leftovers of previous seasons, and with grown confidence from the previous successful crowdfunding campaigns, we decided to increase our target this year to €30,000. With €5,000 more to spend, we primarily want to reduce financial barriers for participants from lower- and middle income countries. It has been a long-held wish to reduce the daily participation fees, so we can start welcoming more volunteers again from the Caucasus and wider region. Our commitment to providing Georgian participants with free participation remains unchanged.

Uniquely, we had already formed a team of coordinators for Autumn 2025 well before the end of 2024 — for the first time the count will be led by an all-women team of coordinators, consisting of some of our most experienced veterans. Now, funding was the only barrier that remained before opening the call for counters and running the count several months later. Given the past successful campaigns, we were optimistic about the support from the community, yet perhaps slightly nervous to relive the rollercoaster of going through another crowdfunding campaign.

We launched the campaign just before the Christmas and New Year holiday season, and donations began to pour in rapidly. Soon after, we already hit the €25.000 mark! While trying to keep the attention going through social media and our newsletter, the rate of donations slowed down quite a bit. That quickly changed when we announced our brand-new webshop! The subsequent spike in attention and merchandise orders helped to raise our crowdfunding bar significantly! Fast-forward to early February when we experienced another boost with very gracious donations, bringing us tantalisingly close to our goal. Then, our friends at NatureWalks organised a raptor identification course and donated the proceedings to our project! With that final €390 donation, the tension relieved as we breached the €30.000 mark!

In total, we raised no less than €30,054 during the past few months! This funding allows us to confidently proceed with the 2025 Autumn count. The enthusiastic response to our crowdfunding campaign has made us feel hugely supported by the international birdwatching community once again. We hope we will be able to rely on that support in years to come. After all, and despite ongoing efforts to secure more structural funding, our monitoring work will continue to depend on your generous support for the foreseeable future.

That said, thanks to your support the immediate future looks bright, and we are excited we’ll be able to organise another outstanding count with many old-time friends and new volunteers next autumn. Didi madloba!

P.S. Save the date! Our call for counters for Autumn 2025 will be opened soon on March 15th, make sure to follow our socials and subscribe to our newsletter to not miss anything!

The BRC Webshop is open!

Batumi Raptor Count — Sun, 05 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

We are proud to announce that BRC now has its very own webshop, featuring a broad collection of beautiful, self-designed merchandise!

It’s not just about shopping — it’s about supporting a meaningful cause. With every purchase you make, you directly contribute to funding our project and supporting our important monitoring and conservation work in the Batumi bottleneck.

Each item is made especially for you as soon as you place an order. On-demand production reduces overproduction, minimises waste, and lowers our environmental impact. So, thank you for making thoughtful purchasing decisions!

Happy shopping!

‘Fight for Flight’

Tohar Tal — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT

During our 2023 Autumn count, Heather Fortune volunteered with us. “Fight for Flight” is the title of her year-long solo expedition, contributing to ornithological research and conservation across Europe and Asia.

From ringing birds in the Mongolian wilderness to conserving Sarus Cranes in Cambodia, and monitoring raptor migration in Batumi, Heather’s journey promotes birds and their conservation. Her initiative is an art-science collaboration aimed at inspiring people from diverse backgrounds to engage with birds and their research and conservation.

For each project she visited, Heather created infographics that she designed herself. For BRC, she focused on analyzing the demographics of our volunteers over the years — a topic we have long wanted to explore but never managed to do. We were delighted when Heather proposed this idea! The infographic covers aspects of participant diversity, including gender and age distribution, new versus returning counters, country of residence, and country income levels of our volunteers from 2008 to 2023.

Links to Heather’s work:

BRC infographic in English and Georgian
Blog post about Heather’s experience at BRC
Interview with BRC 2023 coordinator Pamela Carvajal
Interview with BRC team member Eva Drukker
Blog post about illegal hunting in the Batumi bottleneck
Presentation by Heather on her Fight for Flight project

The infographic made by Heather Fortune, based on the participants between 2008 and 2023.

Fundraiser for 2025

Tohar Tal — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Keep the Batumi Raptor Count flying high with your support!

For sixteen years the BRC has conducted high-quality raptor migration counts. This long-term monitoring is critical to understand how bird populations are doing in our rapidly changing world. However, structural funding for monitoring schemes such as ours is very hard, if not impossible, to find. Over the past four years, we’ve successfully run our autumn counts mainly thanks to your generous donations, support from loyal sponsors like OSME and Kite Optics, T-shirt sales, donations from ecotourism operators, and last but not least the thousands of hours of unpaid work by over 400 volunteers from dozens of countries. This has enabled us to do monitoring work of extraordinary quality, delivering unique data to detect trends in the abundance, demography, and migration timing of otherwise poorly known raptor populations. Furthermore, we’ve always tried to be as open and transparent as possible by having open data-sharing procedures. This sets us apart from many bird observatories worldwide.

This year, securing the count comes with the same deal as before: we need 30.000 EUR to run our 2025 autumn count. The funding goal has increased compared to previous years to help mitigate the rising costs of living and food at local guesthouses, while also supporting our vision of reducing or removing daily fees for counters facing financial constraints. We aim to raise the needed amount before March 1st when we start preparations for the count. If we do not have the required amount of money by March 2025, there will not be an autumn count in Georgia in 2025. Nevertheless, given our large international base of supporters and followers, the many visitors we hope to see in Batumi next autumn, and the generosity of the birdwatching and nature conservation community, we believe it should be possible! Thanks to your generosity in previous years, we only need 9.000 EUR more to reach our target!

Despite the ongoing unrest in Georgia, BRC remains hopeful and believes we can continue our ever-important raptor migration counts in 2025.

The BRC is a volunteer-driven nature conservation NGO that monitors the yearly autumn migration of 1.000.000+ raptors along the Batumi bottleneck in the Republic of Georgia. Since 2008, we’ve been delivering high-quality long-term counts that offer a unique tool to monitor the migration of raptor populations in the East African-Eurasian flyway. Our long-term efforts paid off in peer-reviewed publications of our open-access dataset and analysis of raptor population trends. We have already been able to detect ecologically meaningful trends for 8 key species.

After realising the massive scale of hunting pressures these migrating birds face, the BRC expanded its mission to a monitoring and conservation NGO. We strive to work with the local communities to work on these conservation concerns to achieve mutually beneficial goals:

We promote local guesthouses so visitors of our monitoring stations can witness the spectacular migration while contributing to the local economy
We created an educational program and learning materials about bird ecology and conservation
We work with local falconers, both young and old, to educate ourselves on this age-old Georgian tradition and work together to tackle the issue of illegal raptor shooting in Georgia.
We run a flyway monitoring traineeship to offer (aspiring) migration count leaders from along the flyway a chance to learn and experience monitoring and conservation work at BRC and bring this knowledge back to their home countries.
Across all projects, we use the common love for birds and raptors and hope to secure a safer passage for raptors along the Batumi bottleneck. Our work has already resulted in a decrease in illegal hunting in the local villages.

Help us raise funds for the 2025 count

On the crowdfunding page, you can find more details on how your money will be put to use. To already give some examples: on average, 200 EUR funds one day of counting. With 130 EUR you fund a one-week participation of a young conservationist from the Caucasus. So what are you waiting for? Please, help us circulate this message widely by sharing it with all your friends and family! The sooner we get our budgets together, the better our team can focus on organizing next year’s count. Instead of spending days behind our computers wasting time competing with other conservation groups for small grants, we can put all our efforts into producing important research and organizing valuable education and conservation work in parallel to the counts. Your donation makes a massive difference to us, and you know we’ll use it wisely!

BRC 2024 T-Shirt

Elien Hoekstra — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

As you know, the start of a new count season also means that we are launching a new annual T-Shirt. For the 16th edition of the Batumi Raptor Count, we’re featuring a new species on our T-Shirts: the Black Kite. Nowadays, we count over 300,000 of them each year, so it is about time this species features prominently on our annual T-Shirt. Thanks to Nicolas Van Overmeeren for providing this year’s Black Kite illustration. And thanks to Kite Optics for so fittingly sponsoring the T-Shirts we’re selling in Sakhalvasho. Get them now!

If you visit us in Georgia

When you visit us in Sakhalvasho, you can get the 2024 T-shirt in the following color.

The version of the 2024 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!

Buy the 2024 T-shirt

BRC Flyway Monitoring Traineeship in collaboration with OSME

Bart Hoekstra — Sat, 29 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Over the past decade, migration monitoring has become more and more popular along the East Afro-Eurasian Flyway, with projects (re)starting around the Caucasus region, the Middle East and Central Asia. Simultaneously, we get approached frequently by ambitious people from across the flyway who are interested in learning about the Batumi Raptor Count and bringing knowledge about migratory bird monitoring back home. In the past decade, we have been fortunate to host (aspiring) migration count leaders from around the world, who have gone on to start or reinforce successful bird monitoring initiatives in their home countries. Thanks to a new traineeship programme with a long-time partner, we are now able to further strengthen this kind of capacity building along the flyway.

The BRC Flyway Monitoring Traineeship in collaboration with OSME

We are happy to announce the start of a new collaboration with OSME, offering traineeship positions to ambitious high potentials from along the flyway who are dedicated to bring learned and experienced monitoring and conservation principles back to their home countries. Funded by OSME, we can host a total of 2 traineeship positions for a period of at least 1 month each every autumn.

Alyona Kaptyonkina (left) and Mitra Daneshvar (right)

What the traineeship entails

Trainees will join the Batumi Raptor Count for at least a full month and their accommodation and travel costs will be fully reimbursed by OSME’s Youth Development Fund, up to €1300 combined. Given the highly standardised nature of our counts, trainees should primarily expect to be long-term counters as this will naturally expose them to many of the aspects involved in our standardised monitoring: the count protocol, identification training and becoming a part of a team of international volunteers. However, on top of that, trainees will be involved in organisational aspects as well, which concerns using the Trektellen platform, data checking and cleaning, off- and online public outreach, organising evening activities and other social events, communicating with the host families, and interacting with tourists present. As a trainee, you’ll have the option of participating in education activities (e.g. school visits) and other research and conservation activities if these are taking place during your stay. However, in the end the Batumi Raptor Count first and foremost organises raptor counts, so all activities are influenced to a degree by the raptor migration dynamics in the period of participation.

What we expect

We expect highly motivated, ambitious trainees, who are willing and able to put in long hours every day for at minimum a half-season period of a month, either Aug 8th – Sept 17, Aug 31st – Oct 1st or Sept 17th – Oct 24th. Trainees should live in the OSME region. They should have conversational command of the English language, a social and communicative character and preferably some background in identifying Western Palearctic raptor species. Furthermore, trainees should read and meet the expectations for volunteer counters. In addition, participants are expected to provide a written and illustrated report with photos/videos (or other form of expression) of their participation for the website and social media channels of BRC and OSME.

Applying for the traineeship

We are pleased to announce that the trainee positions for 2024 have been filled. We encourage all interested candidates to mark their calendars and apply for the 2025 Batumi Raptor Count traineeship next year. Make sure to follow our social media and subscribe to our newsletter for updates throughout the year.

Female bird(er)s

Batumi Raptor Count — Tue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT

From all the 37+ raptor species observed in the Batumi bottleneck — why in particular did we choose an adult female Honey Buzzard as cover photo?

Each year, the Batumi Raptor Count team works hard to organize the autumn count and gather an inclusive and diverse team of volunteers. We believe we are generally succeeding at this and this has become one of the core strengths of our count. Over the past fifteen years, we’ve hosted a wide range of volunteers from all over the world with different backgrounds, ages, nationalities and genders. However, we’ve noticed that the number of women volunteering with us fluctuates a lot, and this is something we’d like to change.

Is it because birds are not interesting for women?

The many women that have joined us over the past 15 years of counts would beg to differ. While female role-models might be scarce in the birding world, birds are for everyone!

Is it because women are uncertain about their raptor identification skills?

There’s no need to be uncertain about your skill level. Many people — across all genders — who join are beginning raptor watchers and we provide all the training needed. With thousands of birds to practice on and a friendly, inclusive and risk-free atmosphere, you’ll make great progress rapidly!

Is it because the birding world often seems male-dominated?

This worry should not hold you back, especially when you apply! But continue reading below.

Don’t take our word for it. Take theirs.

We want everyone to feel welcome to join our count. To address any concerns you might have, we have decided to start sharing more of the stories of past volunteers. And we’re starting with testimonials by the women who have participated in or are still actively involved in the Batumi Raptor Count. Real stories, from real volunteers. Happy reading!

We’re looking for volunteers for Autumn 2024

Bart Hoekstra — Sat, 13 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT

After successfully finishing another crowdfunding campaign, we’re happy to announce the call for counters. We have now opened the application form and are looking for counters to join us between August 12th and October 21st, 2024. As always, we are looking for volunteers of all skill levels with an interest in migration, the ability to work in a team, and the possibility to commit for at least two weeks. Joining our count as a counter is a great opportunity to learn more about raptors and their identification, while also contributing to long-term population monitoring. Volunteers will stay at one of the local guesthouses and enjoy the passage of over 1 million birds of prey together with other likeminded volunteers from all over the world. The daily fee depends on the length of your stay and ranges between €12 and €24. Students can pay a discounted fee and Georgian counters can join for free (limited places available).

Education activities are kicking off

Rafa Benjumea — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT

After publishing our new education booklet this past autumn, our education initiative is kicking into high gear this spring! Thanks to our motivated and dedicated partners in crime Elza Makaradze, Dachi Shoshitashvili, and Nature Conservation Georgia, we’ve organized engaging activities at over a dozen schools across the Batumi bottleneck region. We’re pulling out all the stops to inspire and empower educational institutions to launch Bird Clubs. With both the workshops and our education booklet, we aim to foster a deeper connection between children and nature.

Over the past weeks, Elza and Dachi organised a workshop attended by 21 teachers from the Kobuleti municipality. In addition, Dachi spent a week visiting 12 schools in the region, with a total of 293 students and 53 teachers attending the activities.

The initiative, funded by the British Bird Charitable Trust (BBCT) and IJsvogelfonds, has been well received! Aside from distributing the education booklet and collaborating with schools, we will expand our activities during the Batumi Birdwatching Festival in 2024, demonstrating the project’s success and potential impact on conservation in the Batumi bottleneck and beyond.

Follow our social media and keep an eye on the newsletter to stay tuned for more exciting updates as the year unfolds.

Collaboration in the East African-Eurasian Flyway

Tohar Tal — Fri, 22 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT

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!

Count Coordinators for Autumn 2024

Tohar Tal — Fri, 22 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT

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!

Rafa Benjumea — Fri, 22 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT

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

Marc Heetkamp — Fri, 22 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT

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!

Mission accomplished: funding for the 2024 count is complete!

Tohar Tal — Fri, 22 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Since 2021 we’ve been constantly running crowdfunding campaigns to be able to fund our autumn counts, much-needed equipment, and other practical aspects of our monitoring and conservation efforts. Thanks to your generosity and support, we’ve been able to meet our crowdfunding targets each year. But there’s more. We’re happy to share the incredible news that thanks to the leftover money of the 2023 Autumn count and the donations that have been consistently coming in, we have already raised 24.088 euros! This means that we already have the budget to run the 2024 Autumn count!

Having the funding completed this early is a huge relief for us! It means that we can start organizing the ‘24 count right away and allocate more time to our additional research and education activities! These projects have always been a significant part of our organization and conservation aim in the flyway. To stay up-to-date about our projects please subscribe to our newsletter.

We are grateful for this breathing room, which was only possible because of all the generous donors. A big thank you to every one of you! If you’d still like to support our project, please visit our crowdfunding page. Each euro that’ll not be spent this year, will be used for the 2025 Autumn count.

Falconry - Third time's the charm

Dries Engelen — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Levant Sparrowhawk Kimara Photo: Dries Engelen

“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…

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 Sparrowhawks 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: 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: Dries Engelen

Home-made Adjarian khachapuri Photo: 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: 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

Elien Hoekstra — Thu, 10 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMT

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

Buy the 2023 T-shirt

Urgently needed: Long-term counters for Autumn 2023

Bart Hoekstra — Sat, 10 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Dear friends of Batumi Raptor Count, raptor enthusiasts,

For every autumn count we rely on the voluntary work of a diverse group of counters from all experience levels and walks of life. We offer positions for participation anywhere from two-week periods til full seasons. In particular, we rely on a group of long-term participants staying with us for half a season or longer as the ‘backbone’ of our count. Usually, these positions are popular and easily filled. However, this year — for unknown reasons — we still have vacancies for most long-term positions. If, in a worst-case scenario, these positions do not get adequately filled soon, we are unable to ensure consistent count effort throughout the season and we may eventually even have to (partially) cancel the count for this autumn.

Given our experience in the previous year, we are still confident there are many enthusiastic birders able to commit for longer terms to our project. Please, if you are interested in participating yourself, or know someone who may be, forward them this urgent call. Long-term counters receive a discount on the daily fee between €10 and €15. Additionally, we can also offer these positions as internship positions for students. Finally, if you are unable to cover your participation fee for financial reasons, you should know that we can provide further discounts on a case-by-case basis thanks to other participants who have generously decided to pay extra on top of their fees. If you wish to apply for this further reduction of the participation fee, send an email to volunteer@batumiraptorcount.org.

In addition to positions for long-term counters, we also still have plenty of unfilled short-term 2-week slots available.

We strive to keep the barrier of entry for volunteering positions as low as possible. In case you feel there are ways in which we can improve this further, especially if you experience hindrances to participate, please reach out to us via email and we will see what we can do about this now and in the future.

Warm wishes,

Batumi Raptor Count

Edit June 16th, 2023: We’ve lowered the prices for long-term counters by €2 to €10 and €15/day for full season and half season counters respectively.

First BRC publication in Russian Raptors Conservation journal

Bart Hoekstra — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 00:00:00 GMT

We are proud to announce the publication of our first Russian language paper in the Russian Raptor Research and Conservation Network’s (RRRCN) journal ‘Raptors Conservation’.

Spearheaded by Olga Zaytseva, the new publication is a follow-up to our British Birds article, providing both a translation to the Russian-speaking community as well as a review of likely breeding areas of migrants passing Batumi and a comparison between Russian breeding population estimates and numbers of migrants in Batumi.

Despite ongoing conflict in our flyway, we are proud to feature on the cover of Raptors Conservation journal. It truly is an important milestone for us in connecting with the researchers that work in the breeding areas of most of the raptors that we are monitoring every autumn in Georgia.

Read the publication

Bird Artwork by Jérôme Wey

Elien Hoekstra — Sun, 09 Apr 2023 00:00:00 GMT

BRC is happy to announce our collaboration with Jérôme Wey!

Jérôme is an artist and keen French birdwatcher, currently living in southern France. Largely influenced by his travels and the graffiti culture, his art, mostly birds, are realistics and highly colourful tending to explore a more modern approach than the traditional naturalist art. His bird drawings are treated as human portraits with a certain pride and eminence while conserving vulnerability. He has generously offered to sell his drawings to raise money for the BRC.

“I have always been passionate about nature and animals, birds hold a special place in my life. As such and aware of the challenges and threats that weigh on them, especially during their migration, it seems essential to me to protect them. This is where the Batumi Raptor Count comes in. The BRC is doing tremendous work to collect valuable data, to involve local people as well as their desire to limit the impact of hunting and poaching. So, when the opportunity presented itself to me to be able to help the BRC, I did not hesitate for a second.” - Jérôme

Check out Jérôme’s work on his Instagram, Facebook or his website!

Jérôme’s bird drawings are available as prints in A4 format, or as an original. The drawings are made with mixed materials including acrylic paints, alcohol markers and colour pencils. There is one original available or 20 prints, each print is unique on its own as Jérôme adds more details after printing. Originals are made on white grain paper, prints are available on glossier paper.

Drawings are shipped worldwide from France in a cardboard envelope, delivery times range from 3-15 days. Shipping is included in the price.

For now there are four drawings available, but hopefully we are able to add other prints in the future!

Successful completion of 2023 Crowdfunding!

Bart Hoekstra — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Less than three months ago, on Christmas Eve 2022, we re-launched our crowdfunding campaign to fund the upcoming autumn count of 2023. While we already started raising awareness during the past 2022 autumn count, we had raised just about 5000EUR of our 20.000EUR target. Since we had little other funding options left, we knew we had to continue with the crowdfunding to raise the amount needed to continue our monitoring work in the Batumi bottleneck. Now, we are very happy and proud to say that we raised over 20.000EUR in the past months!

While we already successfully ran our crowdfunding campaign last year, the BRC team was nonetheless hugely excited, and perhaps slightly nervous to relive the rollercoaster of going through another crowdfunding campaigning this year again. After the 2022 autumn count, we were a mere few thousand euro away from the 10.000EUR mark. And right after re-launching our campaign during Christmas, the donations started coming in and soon after we hit the 10K mark! While trying to keep the attention through social media and our newsletter, the rate of donations slowed down quite a bit. It wasn’t until the first of March when our counter hit the 14K bar. This was the moment to reveal our cards…

Similarly to last year, our long-time friends at OSME kindly offered to help us reach our target by matching up to 3K in donations! We planned the donation matching campaign to start on the 1st of March and finish on the 14th. And with the 14K on the counter, we knew that in theory we’d only needed 3K more in donations to, in combination with the matching campaign, reach our goal! But little did we know that the matching campaign sparked a huge boost under our supporters and the birdwatching community. In less than two weeks we received over 6000EUR in donations! And on top of this we would receive the 3K in donation matching by OSME!

Of these donations, we received over 1000EUR of donations that had arrived to our project account at Natuurpunt, which facilitates tax-deductible donations for our Belgian supporters. Additionally, our friends at NatureWalks organised a raptor identification course and they donated no less than 620EUR to our project!

Combined, we raised 28.471 EUR during the past few months! This means, once again, we overshot our crowdfunding target, leaving plenty to fund the 2023 autumn count, and nearly half of the budget we’ll need for the autumn count of 2024! The enthusiastic response to our crowdfunding campaign has made us feel hugely supported by the international birdwatching community, and we hope we will be able to rely on that support in years to come. After all, and despite ongoing efforts to secure more structural funding, our monitoring work will continue to depend on your generous support for the foreseeable future.

P.S. Our call for count coordinators for Autumn 2023 is opened, and the call for counters will open on April 15th!

Count Coordinators for Autumn 2023

Bart Hoekstra — Sat, 11 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMT

We are still raising funds, but preparations for the BRC Autumn Count of 2023 have started. 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 bottlenecks in the world.

If you are interested in the position, please continue reading for more information and submit your application by the 31st of March.

PS. Applications to volunteer counter positions will be opened on April 15th.

From counts to knowledge: research in progress at BRC

Wouter Vansteelant — Thu, 22 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMT

While Batumi Raptor Count has hosted student internships and dissertations for many years, our popularity among students of bird migration rose substantially in recent years, to the point that our Research Coordinator has been struggling to accommodate all requests. Strap in for a overview of what research is being conducted at BRC right now.

Comparing relative timing of different species of raptors between the Pyrenees (red) and the Caucasus (blue)

First and foremost, after the successful completion of our last spring count earlier this year our new chairman Tohar Tal will soon be submitting a paper on the first full-season description of Batumi spring raptor migration to a peer-reviewed ornithological journal. Now a student at University of Groningen (NL), Tohar will describe spring abundance and timing of raptors in Batumi for the first time, and also contrast seasonal flight paths through the bottleneck.

The spring data are also being included in a study of sex differences in seasonal migration timing of Pernis and Circus species at Batumi, led by Marc Heetkamp. Marc completed a literature study on this topic as part of his education at the University of Utrecht (NL) last spring, and is now proceeding with analyses.

Beyond using just count data, Elien Hoekstra is using digital photography to study the moult of migrant raptors. Elien got a great grade for her dissertation at Van Hall University of Applied Sciences this year (NL). Now a MSc student at Wageningen University (NL), Elien aspires to publish her interesting results in a reputable ornithology journal.

In addition to the more advanced projects above, several students have initiated new projects after participating in this year’s autumn count. Two of them are actually combining BRC data with high-quality count data of other sites to look at larger scale patterns in migration.

For example, some species like Black Kite are known to migrate much earlier in the western than the eastern flyway (Fig1, top panel).** Michaëla Berdougo**, based at Lund University (SW), obtained data from count sites in the French and Spanish Basque country — situated at the same latitude as Batumi — to investigate how common it is for different (sub) species to show differences between western and eastern flyways, and why this may be.

Isaac West, geography student at the University of Cambridge (UK), is using historic count data from SPNI in Israel from 1990-2013 and BRC data from 2011-2022 to study whether raptor migration timing has shifted in our flyway in response to climate warming. Against our expectations, his results indicate that autumn raptor timing has changed very little over the past 3 decades!

Zooming in on the Batumi bottleneck again, Joachim Pintens completed a full-season internship as assistant coordinator, and is now proceeding with a study of Booted Eagle migration for a BSc. Dissertation at Ghent University of Applied Sciences and Arts (BE). He is comparing the seasonal abundance and timing of dark morph and light morph individuals, which may offer clues about the geographic origin of these birds.

Number of flocks of different sizes recorded at BRC during standardized daily time periods (sunrise + 1h to sunset – 2h) during 11 autumn counts since 2011.

Finally, our long-time president Dries Engelen is preparing a descriptive study of European Roller migration at Batumi. The abundance, and especially the occurrence of loose but large flocks in Batumi (as many as 240 birds together, Fig2) seems to be rather unique in the world. After consulting many specialists and old literature from across the species range we’ll be writing up our findings soon.

Teaching teachers in Georgia about birds

Rafa Benjumea — Thu, 22 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMT

In 2019 BRC started an educational project involving schools, teachers and Georgian conservationists, with the support of British Birds Charitable Trust (BBCT) and IJsvogelfonds of Birdlife the Netherlands. The aim of the project was to bring birds into Georgian schools as a teaching tool, empowering teachers more in the educational process than in content development. The project mostly reaches the villages which are close to the count stations. In September 2019 we organised the first two workshops with the teachers of the schools involved.

The project unfortunately had to stop due to COVID, but this actually led us to work on the edition of an educational booklet in kartuli for teachers and educators. This resulted in a beautiful work of art, with many illustrations. The 60-page book is ready to print now and will show educators how to teach students about birds, their biology, ecology, migration and conservation. At the end of the book there are 6 proposals for activities to do throughout the year. Teachers can choose to adapt these activities to their groups to explore nature through birds. This new material has been developed together with the Georgian teachers and considered all the material already created beforehand in the country. We hope it will be a very useful tool for educational centres throughout Georgia.

During the next season we will also develop a calendar with bird-related activities. After the teachers and their students have worked with the book for a while, we want to organise field trips for the schools already next year.

Drawings were made by Elien Hoekstra and Rafa Benjumea and many thanks to our Elza Makaradze, Aslan Bolkvadze and Dachi Shoshitashvili