World Shorebirds Day at Batumi

About half of the world’s shorebird populations are in decline, and the rate of habitat loss is worse than ever before. The World Shorebirds Day aims on raising public awareness about the need to protect shorebirds and their habitats throughout their life cycles and about the need for ongoing shorebird research.

This year 756 registered locations worldwide participated in the event. Sabuko, Society for Nature Conservation Georgia, was one of them. We decided to focus on the threatened Chorokhi delta along the Eastern Black Sea Coast flyway at Batumi, Georgia, and conduct a shorebird count there.

Written by Robrecht Debbaut

On 05/09 we celebrated the World Shorebirds Day with a team of volunteers of the BRC and headed out to the Chorokhi delta. Our plan was to look in the morning in Batumi for passerines and afterwards, when it was too hot for passerines, to go to the delta where we would focus on waders and crakes.

When we arrived at the delta around 9:30 a.m. it was already pretty hot, but that did not distract us from the quest. Some highlights upon arrival in the delta were squacco heron, citrine wagtails and lesser grey shrikes. An unpleasant sighting however were the numerous hunters and shot birds we encountered on our way to the beach. We saw some hoopoes and turtle doves shot dead and wounded purple herons and glossy ibises.

At the beach we came to well suited areas for waders. There we observed black-winged pratincoles, temminck’s stints, little stints and broad billed-sandpipers. After checking the waders it was so hot that we went for a swim in the Black sea. The water was refreshing and we only swum 15 meters away from a red-necked-grebe.

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