Count preparations
This year’s team of coordinators, from left to right: Elien Hoekstra (Netherlands), Mitra Daneshvar (Iran), Eva Drukker (Netherlands).
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!