In between the eagles, Griffon Vultures appeared! Watching one glide alongside the eagles just proved how absolutely massive these vultures are! Although its very close pass did make us wonder about our scent after so many days of counting...

For daily updates & news: batumiraptorcount.org/data
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This achievement was only possible thanks to our amazing and hard-working team – counters, trainees, coordinators – and our wonderful host families for their endless hospitality.

Check out our daily counts and news flashes here: www.batumiraptorcount.org/data

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2/2 Most mornings start, as tradition dictates, with harriers. Sometimes tricky to ID when flying against a rising sun, but always a joy to see!

Occasionally, we may get distracted by non-targets, but only when they pose nicely like this Levant Sparrowhawk 😉

📸Nikolina Bukovac & Jonathan Meire

Foremost, we found it an exciting experience to publish our scientific debate in such a public manner, and thank @moveandconserve.bsky.social and co-authors for the constructive and cordial discussion!

Exciting times ahead — only together can we connect birds, people & places across the flyway!

Luckily, we have a great team of counters, trainees, and coordinators to count and identify the many thousands of raptors heading their way!

Make sure to check out our daily count updates and season totals here: www.batumiraptorcount.org/data

Stay tuned for more news from #BRC17!

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We are experiencing a particularly exciting season so far! For example, we've counted exceptionally high numbers of Short-toed Eagles, Marsh Harriers, and Black Kites!

Meanwhile, we're not even halfway through the season yet, with still so much to come.

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Photos by Eduardo C. Wals & Paul Buntfuß

In the upcoming week or so, we expect to count another 100-200K Honey Buzzards as we're moving towards the half a million raptors milestone. You can follow our daily count updates, all uploaded to the @trektellen.bsky.social platform, via our website: www.batumiraptorcount.org/data

The Honey Buzzards have well and truly arrived, so the first 296,911 have already been counted #BRC17 🪶. It's been a period of everything: rain, fog, blazing sun, and then suddenly the sky explodes with raptors in typical Batumi fashion.

The team's report:
www.batumiraptorcount.org/brc17/2025/8...

We've now had the first 1000+ raptor day at #BRC17 — and y'day we were already well above 4000+ in a single day. Numbers that will continue to rise as we're approaching the peak of Honey Buzzard migration in the final days of August and first of September.

www.batumiraptorcount.org/brc17/2025/8...