5 Reasons why you should NOT participate in the Batumi Raptor Count
Since 2008, in over a decade of counts, over 380 volunteers have participated in the annual Batumi Raptor Count. This year, the 13th count is organized, which runs from August 12th until October 21st of 2021. Despite the positive stories you may have heard from volunteers or visitors, participation in the count or coming as a visitor is not without some drawbacks! In the spirit of transparency, we have listed the most frequently encountered problems participants face during and after their stay.
1. Watching raptors won’t ever be the same again
There’s a distinct non-zero chance Imperial Eagles will fly in your face while you’re on station. Luckily, a collision was narrowly avoided here. Photo by Bart Hoekstra.
Those fantastic days of raptor migration in your home country or in other migration hotspots? They will forever pale in comparison with what you experience in the Batumi bottleneck. Every single Honey Buzzard you see will bring back the good memories of seeing 50,000+ migrate on a single day; every harrier will remind you of the sun rising in a sky scattered with Marsh, Montagu’s and Pallid harriers; every eagle… well, you get the point. By participating, you risk becoming forever spoiled with experiencing migration of more than a million birds and around 30 species in a period of only 2 months.
Steppe Buzzards making a mess of an otherwise pristine blue sky. Ugh. Photo by Rafa Benjumea.
2. Painful fingers
At BRC we like to count birds so much, we count them one at a time! Our trusty clickers keep track of the numbers, while the most important thing counters have to do is move their fingers at the pace of birds crossing the transect line. A calm but continuous click-click-click-click is the resulting background sound throughout the day… That is until migration breaks loose and the calm clicking turns into a frenzy of rattling counters all over the station. The upshot? You will physically be able to feel the intensity of migration. The downside? Your fingers will end up hurting and we cannot promise you won’t develop temporary RSI-like symptoms. Imagine clicking streams of birds like in the video below, but for hours on end on all sides of the stations:
Video by John Wright.
3. We don't count everything
At BRC we have made the decision to focus on a few key species for the bottleneck. Our aim is to count those species really well, instead of counting all species badly. These tens of thousands of Bee-Eaters flying by? All these Hobbies, Common and Lesser Kestrels? These Swallows or Alpine Swifts? Painful, maybe, but you will just have to enjoy them. Instead, we’ll keep you busy identifying, sexing and ageing our target species at a rapid pace. This should provide plenty of entertainment and learning experience for even the most hardcore of counters.
Yeah, too bad, you’ll just have to enjoy those. Photo by Juho Jolkkonen.
4. (Almost) Every day is the same
Every single day, except for the one day a week in which you have a day off, will look like this: You wake up an hour before sunrise, prepare your stuff and have breakfast. A lunch prepared by the host families will be waiting for you to take to the station. Then, from sunrise until 2 hours before sunset you will be counting birds in a standardized fashion, regardless of the weather conditions. When you return to the guesthouse, certainly tired but possibly satisfied, families will provide a dinner full of Georgian dishes, and only after that you’re free to do as you like. Ugh.
Clicking these clickers, scanning the sky through the binoculars and identifying species by scope. All. Day. Long. Photo by Bart Hoekstra.
All we can offer to break the daily slur, besides the birds you’ll be seeing, is 1 day off per week in which you can explore the region (or sleep), a very international group of like-minded birders from all experience levels, a pleasant atmosphere (and bonding over shared suffering), regular evening presentations to get to know the raptor species and each other, drinks in the Green Cafe and the occasional team visits to the nearby beach.
Doing the same thing every day ensures we run a smooth count, even if tens of thousands of Honey Buzzards pass by. Video by Triin Kaasiku.
5. You may come back again… and again…
The birds, the people, the country, the food, there are plenty of reasons to come back one more time. And many participants do come back as counter or coordinator, time and again, despite the hardships described above. It is quite likely you will plan to come again next autumn the moment you have ended your stay and leave Georgia for your home country. Seriously consider this before you plan to come only once. The Batumi Raptor Count is a gateway drug for a life-long raptor obsession.
Sunrise from station 1. The calm before the storm in a landscape you won't ever forget about. Photo by Juho Jolkkonen.
So what?
If after reading this you still think you want to participate, you can read more and apply here . But… you have been warned!
An earlier version of this blog originally appeared on the website of OSME, the Ornithological Society of the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Watch now: Worlds Collide selected for British Documentary Festival
A short film directed by Nicholas Rodd about migration through the Georgian bottleneck has been selected by the British Documentary Festival — and is now free to watch until May 14th.
Worlds Collide, a documentary directed by Nicholas Rodd about the Batumi bottleneck.
“Across the eastern coast of the Black Sea, through the foothills of the Southern Caucasus Mountains one of the world’s greatest natural spectacles takes place. Over a million birds of prey pass through a narrow bottleneck in Georgia. Below them, scientists and birders eagerly watch and record the skies whilst at the same time local traditions send showers of bullets and nets snapping in their direction.
A clash of ideals and beliefs, this film will take you into the heart of an evolving story. A story which explores a clash of western ideals with local customs, a shared love and excitement for the magic that is migration, a world apart in how they enjoy the spectacle. A conflict waiting to happen or an opportunity to show a new way in which conservationists can work together with local communities to avoid a deep and bitter battle, safeguarding the future of migration in Georgia.”
The documentary is only free to watch until May 14th, 2021.
BRC: A model for migration monitoring in new BirdLife review
A new Sandgrouse paper, initiated by Ben Jobson (BirdLife International), reviews the challenges and opportunities for monitoring of migratory soaring birds in the East African-Eurasian flyway. In it, Batumi Raptor Count is highlighted as a key site to monitor the migration of numerous soaring birds, and a best practice model for migration monitoring in the region. That achievement would not have been possible without the collective effort of all volunteers that have allowed us to conduct counts over more than a decade; rigorous data collection, management and analyses; and striving for the highest possible standards in open and reproducible research. Currently, there are more migration counts conducted across the flyway than ever before. We hope this renewed interest will boost collaboration among sites and eventually secures funds for long-term monitoring across the flyway.
Abstract
Monitoring of migratory soaring birds at flyway bottlenecks is vital for informing population estimates and detecting population-level changes, since monitoring these species on their breeding grounds is notoriously difficult. Since the last review of bottleneck monitoring in the Red Sea/Rift Valley flyway over 15 years ago, there has been progress to coordinate and standardise monitoring along flyways around the world for various avian groups, from waterbirds to raptors. The same period also saw dramatic improvements in our understanding of migratory routes through the development of remote tracking technologies. This article reviews current monitoring of major bottlenecks for migratory soaring birds in the East African-Eurasian flyway. We summarise developments in migratory soaring bird monitoring and research and identify priority locations for implementing standardised and coordinated monitoring initiatives. Our review identified 10 sites that have recorded one of the three highest counts for the 12 main migratory soaring bird species in the flyway, and can be considered priorities for targeting future monitoring. Additionally, we provide recommendations to progress coordination and standardisation of monitoring across this globally important flyway.