The Batumi Raptor Count group, based on the south eastern coast of the Black Sea in Georgia, posted their figures from a couple of incredible sessions held early last week. I'll let the numbers do the talking:
Batumi - Saghalvasho
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Yep, you read that right - 165,080 Honey Buzzards in just over 12 hours! And that's not the end of it, here's a bit of a summary too:
"However our observations of two days ago on August 30th surpassed the expectations of even the most experienced counters currently working in Batumi. After one day of continuous hard rain on the 29th, where hardly a migrating bird could be spotted, a record-breaking number of 99,038 Honey Buzzards out of 102,293 raptors appeared out of nowhere above our observatories; an astounding number by any measure. The count was even more astonishing as in the week preceding the rain event we had already observed Honey Buzzard migration exceeding 150,000 birds. It is hard to put to words the awe that overcomes you when confronted with such a tsunami of birds. Quite frankly, one should just be here to have any sense of what such numbers really mean. It is magical to feel excitement build among the observers with the ever increasing numbers collecting in vast kettles over the Kobuleti plains to the north … Huge towers of raptors, growing up to several 1000's of birds strong and several 100's of meters in height. And when finally the never-ending stream of birds arrives overhead, and when you hear the tally counters clicking like mad and see your fellow observers laughing -nearly hysterically- with hardly any time to eat, that's when you know what the Batumi craze is all about. As far as natural spectacles go, the migration in Batumi must be one of the most thrilling in the world".
As pictures like the ones here show, bird migration is surely one of the greatest spectacles in the natural world. It is confounding, mysterious and exciting to ponder; from Chaffinches suddenly arriving en masse in urban gardens in autumn to raptors heading south - an absolute joy to witness. While everyone's heard of Falsterbo, Gibraltar and the Bosphorus, it's great to see Batumi on the map, literally - I had to look it up (just north east of Turkey FYI). Worth a visit I reckon?!
BRC are a nature conservation NGO, working to monitor and protect the hundreds of thousands of birds of prey that migrate through the Republic of Georgia every year. Check them out here. Fantastic work.
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