W. Vansteelant et le suivi de la migration des rapaces à Batumi (Géorgie)

When one think about major places to survey raptors during their post-breeding migration, the names of Gibraltar, Bosphorus Straight or Eilat are evident. But there’s another special area which is not yet known by Western birdwatchers : the hills near Batumi in Western Georgia (Ajaria), on the Eastern Black Sea coast. Thousands of raptors fly through the area during autumn migration (from late August to October).
The first edition of the Batumi Raptor Count (BRC) took place in 2008. It was coordinated by Brecht Verhelst, together with Johannes Jansen and Jan Putteman. The survey lasted from August 21th till October 14th. Although counts had been conducted before at the East Black Sea bottleneck, the amazing total of 806,679 raptors whire were counted in 2008 came as a complete surprise. At no other place in the West-Palearctic had similar numbers of migrating raptors ever been observed during autumn.
The count in 2009 confirmed the importance of the bottleneck when 851,491 migrants were registered. Currently 34 species of raptors have been recorded by the BRC, the most numerous being the European Honey Buzzard and the Steppe Buzzard.
Wouter Vansteelant, member of the BRC, answered our questions.