Our first 10,000+ day of the season!

For the last few days, we’ve battled rain and fog here in the Batumi bottleneck, resulting in low overall numbers of birds. We expect Honey Buzzard numbers to peak in the next week or so and were beginning to wonder: where are they all?

Today, it seemed they’d finally arrived! With nearly 19,300 birds counted between the two stations, we enjoyed a remarkable stream that lasted for several hours, practically creating a wall of Honey Buzzards. Station 1 took on the bulk of the counting while Station 2 tried to pick out the Black Kites and harriers from the streams.

We’re now all extremely excited to see what the next few days will deliver!

Counters scanning the mountains from Station 1 as the sun rises — Sunrise at Station 1. Photo: Sofia Meskhidze

A counter watching a stream of Honey Buzzards through binoculars — A counter follows Honey Buzzards moving through the bottleneck. Photo: Jess Cosentino

A Black Kite flying against a pale sky — A Black Kite passing the count stations. Photo: Jess Cosentino

Two counters scanning beneath rain clouds from Station 2 — Counting at Station 2 under heavy clouds. Photo: Toka Eldakamawy

The 2026 counting team gathered together indoors — The counting team after a memorable day in the bottleneck.