Thirteen Years of Counting Raptor Migration in Batumi: Observations and Their Importance for Raptor Conservation in Russia

Abstract

Since 2008 Batumi Raptor Count (BRC) project has been monitoring autumn migration of birds of prey in the eastern African-Palearctic flyway in southwest Georgia on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. Every autumn this flyway is used by a significant proportion of the global population of such raptor species as Honey Buzzard (Pernis apivorus), Montagu’s Harrier (Circus pygargus), Pallid Harrier (C. macrourus) and Marsh Harrier (C. aeruginosus). At least 1% of the global population of 10 raptor species migrates through the Batumi flyway. Batumi Raptor Count is of vital importance for the development of ecotourism in the region, creating an economic, political, and social foundation for raptor conservation and contributing to a reduction of widespread illegal hunting. The project also works to introduce ecology and conservation into local schools and higher education programs. This manuscript’s aim is to summarise the 13 years of the BRC. It contains a detailed description of a typical migration season in one of the most important bottlenecks for raptor migration globally. The current manuscript is loosely based on the publication in British Birds summarising the history of the BRC (Hoekstra et al., 2020). The main difference, apart from publishing it in Russian, is in taking into account the data obtained in 2021 and emphasising the importance of the autumn migration monitoring in Batumi for the conservation and research of the Russian raptor populations.