Autumn 2023
15 years in, monitoring, conservation and education work in the Batumi bottleneck is still going strong.
Autumn 2022
Raptor migration was unusually delayed, but it was another spectacular season nonetheless.
Spring 2022
The third and final edition of our pilot spring counts.
Autumn 2021
After a 1-year autumn count hiatus, we returned to the Batumi bottleneck. And we were in for many surprises!
Spring 2020
While the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic ground much of human life to a halt, bird migration continued and so did the second official spring count.
Autumn 2019
The 12th season brought unprecedented numbers of Black Kites, a new raptor species for the BRC counts, and marked the start of an education project in collaboration with local teachers.
Spring 2019
After 11 years of autumn counts it was time for something completely different, so this year we organised the first structured spring count.
Autumn 2018
A new decade of counts started with unusual weather and early migration of many species, but the usual Batumi migration spectacle.
Autumn 2017
A special year for BRC as we celebrated our 10th anniversary.
Autumn 2016
The 9th consecutive Batumi Raptor Count, with historical totals for Black Kites, Booted Eagles and Red-footed Falcons.
Autumn 2015
Despite unusual weather conditions, we reached the million threshold for the 4th year in a row.
Earlier Reports
Photo by Wouter van der Ham.
Autumn 2014 — Half Season
“This season we started with some very positive upgrades to Sakhalvasho village. The days of fighting with the blue tarp are finally over… at least on station-1… We now have an actual shelter and proper stairs leading there. Also new is the Green Café that opened its doors for counters in need of some relaxation after an intense day of clicking. It’s also a great place to mingle with ecotourists, people involved in other projects and some of the locals. […] Usually the first month of the count is always dominated by large numbers of Honey Buzzards passing through the Batumi Bottleneck. This year was no different except that we counted more HBs than during any of the previous seasons.”
Photo by Eddy Vaes.
Autumn 2013
“So far, the season brought us many surprises. Although we were expecting another peak of Honey Buzzards in the first week of September, we had to be happy with a first season peak day of roughly 68.000. Of course, we knew it would be hard to compete with last year's high, but another higher peak day stayed out and in the end we did not break that record. On consecutive days we had roughly 42.000 (3 September) and 52.000 (4 September) more, mainly over station one. Now that the majority of the Honey Buzzard migration has passed, we seem to have had a fairly average total of Honeys compared with the previous 5 years.”
Autumn 2012
“After 5 years monitoring of raptors at the Batumi bottleneck, we have surpassed all expectations this autumn. We tallied ONE Million migrating birds of prey passing our two count stations along the eastern Black Sea route. Here is the report on this great bar hitting event!”