The importance of the Eastern Black Sea Flyway for migrating birds of prey was first documented during the 1970's but it was not until 2004 that the idea of establishing an annual autumn count was discussed but it was 2008 before this became a reality and the Batumi Raptor Count (BRC) was established.
Regular counting at the neighbouring positions of Sakhalvasho and Shuamta, just north of Batumi has established that more than a million raptors pass through this area each autumn.
An autumn visit to Batumi to watch this migration spectacle is close to the top of many birders bucket list. Having talked about making a trip to Batumi for several years a group of us finally made the trip this autumn and we weren't disappointed!
Travel out: Turkish Airlines flight from Manchester, left at 16.25 on 4th September, arrived at Istanbul at 23.25. A long wait in Istanbul airport until our Turkish Airlines flight to Batumi left at 06.45 arriving at 09.25 on 5th September.
Travel back: Turkish Airlines flight from Batumi at 10.25, arriving at Istanbul at 11.30. Then a 13.45 flight to Manchester, arriving at 16.05.
All times are local time and the flights kept fairly closely to their scheduled times.
eBird log and Trektellen figures
I kept a daily eBird log, and did two where we visited two locations in a day:
At Batumi our raptor watching was all done from the counting station at Sakhalvasho and the official figures for there can be found on Trektellen: https://www.trektellen.org/count/view/1047/20220905
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| Crested Honey Buzzard - male and one of the most sought after raptors at Batumi |
Accommodation
For the raptor migration part of the trip we stayed a short distance from Batumi, at Sakhalvasho in a guest house run by Ruslan and Mari Dilaverov. The rooms and the food were excellent and they were very helpful. The guest house is only a 500 metre walk from the counting station, though some of that is steeply uphill. Ruslan owns a minibus and took us to and from the airport and on three trips to the Chorokhi delta (just south of Batumi).
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| Ruslan's house and the view north from the garden, it's a similar view from Sakhalvasho |
For the mountain excursion we stayed in a Edelweiss guest house in Mestia. On each of the three mornings we hired two 4 x 4 minibuses which took us up into the mountains so that we were at about 3000 metres for sunrise.
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| Edelweiss Guest House |
Sakhalvasho
This is one of the two counting stations for the Batumi Raptor Count and enjoys a panoramic view to the coast (just over 2 km away) and up into the hills. On a clear day the snowy peaks of the Caucasus can be seen to the north. There is a surprisingly good observation building at Sakhalvasho, and it’s needed because on one day we counted 55 birders there (including 8-10 official counters). The other counting station at Shuamta is 4 kms to the east, but we never visited it, as travel there was slightly awkward and raptor counts are typically lower than at Sakhalvasho.
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| The counting station at Sakhalvasho |
Sakhalvasho 5th to the 12th September
Ruslan and John met us at Batumi airport on the morning of the 5th. Ruslan drove us to our accommodation, we had lunch and were at the watchpoint for 13.30. We were lucky in that the official account on Trektellen says it was a calm morning, but then “suddenly all the Honey Buzzards booming overhead”. It was a fantastic introduction and the day ended with an official total of 41,055 Honey Buzzards.
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| Honey Buzzards - males |
The 6th started with good numbers of harriers, but then the honey Buzzards really poured through. The official total for Sakhalvasho was 77,700 Honey Buzzards and taken together the Sakhalvasho and Shuamta totals came to over 100,000 raptors. An incredible day and exactly the sort of spectacle we had been hoping for!
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| Honey Buzzards and Black Kites in the mist with a Crested Honey Buzzard bottom right which I hadn't seen until looking at the photo at home - how many must be missed? |
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| Honey Buzzard - female |
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| Short-toed Eagle - probably 3cy |
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| Short-toed Eagle - adult |
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| Lesser Spotted Eagle - adult |
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| Booted Eagles - pale (upper) and dark(lower) adults |
We saw Levant and Eurasian Sparrowhawks everyday but generally both species migrated as singles or up to 4 or 5 birds in the case of the Levants. The number of Levants counted was generally in the 5-10 range each day but we recorded a maximum of 25 on the 10 September.
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| Levant Sparrowhawk - young adult male |
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| Levant Sparrowhawk - juvenile |
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| Pallid Harrier juvenile male |
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| Pallid Harrier adult male |
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| Pallid Harrier adult female |
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| Montagu's Harrier juv male |
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| European Bee-eater |
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| Migrating Turtle Doves |
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| European Roller |
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| Long-tailed Tit of the grey backed race major |
On the 9th we visited the Chorokhi delta and although it began promisingly with lots of Whinchats and various warblers, heavy rain set in and eventually we had to abandon the visit but not before we had seen Isabelline and Pied Wheatear, Thrush Nightingale several Tawny Pipit and our only Blue-cheeekd Bee-eater of the trip not to mention a minimum of 40 Whinchat and lots of Red-backed Shrikes.
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| Isabelline Wheatear |
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| Pied Wheatear juvenile |
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| Sheltering from the rain at the Chorokhi Delta |
The rain continued for most of the day, but to our surprise the afternoon saw a reasonable passage of raptors. We sat on the upstairs veranda at our guest house and enjoyed the dramatic sight of birds moving despite the wind and rain.
The 10th was a good day for Booted Eagles and Black Kites, and we had our first Crested Honey Buzzard (photo at top of page).
There was a moderate raptor passage on the 11th and early morning at the base of the viewpoint produced Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, 16 Golden Orioles and singing Green Warbler.
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| Golden Oriole - male |
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| Chorokhi Delta with the river mouth and Black Sea in the distance |
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| Tawny Pipit one of more than a dozen seen |
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| Great Reed Warbler |
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| Little Crake |
Mestia and the Svaneti area 13th to 17th September
Giorgi Rajebashvili of Ecotours Georgia arrived, we loaded up the minibus and left Sakhalvasho at 08.00.
The weather was poor, so we didn’t stop to view the lake at Kolkheti. We did stop for a coffee at the McDonalds in Zugdidi; not surprisingly it turned out to be like a McDonalds anywhere. We later stopped for lunch at a restaurant near Nodashi which produced our first Common Crossbill of the trip.
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| Restaurant stop at Nodashi in coniferous woodland |
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| Black Redstart male of the orange bellied nominate race ochruros |
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| Rock Bunting presumed adult female of the race par |
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| Above the clouds on Mt Tetnuldi withthe twin peaks of Mount Ushba in sunlight |
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| At 3000m on the slopes of Mt Tetnuldi (L to R Mike Barnett, Martin Quinlan, Paul Doherty, Roger Barnes, Vaughan, Me, John McLoughlin, Giorgi Rajebashvili) |
Our first stop for Caucasian Snowcock was unsuccessful, but at our second Roger saw a group of dark rocks start walking and we had our first Snowcocks! In the end we counted thirteen, rather distant, but very enjoyable birds.
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| Caucasian Snowcocks |
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| Alpine Accentor of the race montana |
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| Red-fronted Serin juvenile |
On the return journey and once we were below the tree line we encountered Mountain Chiffchaffs.
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| Mountain Chiffchaff juvenile |
The following day we followed a similar routine. Caucasian Black Grouse and Guldenstadt’s Redstart continued to elude us, but John found 5 Great Rosefinch.
Later Giorgi found a Caucasian Snowcock and eventually we discovered there were 7 on a patch of slope.
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| Snowcocks, photo of five birds feeding on this steep rocky slope |
For our final day we decided to follow exactly the same routine. We left Mestia at 06.00, which meant we were high in the mountains (about 3000 metres/10,000 feet) by 06.45 which was pre-sunrise. Temperatures were bitterly cold at first, but soon warmed up once the sun reached us.
We were not to be successful with either Caucasian Black Grouse or Guldenstadt’s Redstart, but there was compensation in the form of much better views of at least 11 Great Rosefinch which included adult males, females and fledged young.
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| Great Rosefinch adult female upper and moulting adult male |
As with the other days we were back in Mestia by about 13.30 and afternoons usually involved some leisurely birding around the town. Birds seen included Red-backed Shrike and Siberian Stonechat, plus John heard Black Woodpecker.
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| Siberian Stonechat |
After breakfast on the 17th we returned to Sakhalvasho, this time with a stop at the Maltakva river mouth, which added several species to the trip list; Slender-billed, Mediterranean and Little Gulls, Whiskered Tern and Little Stints, though none were particularly notable. We reached Sakhalvasho at 15.40, so there was time for a quick dash up to the counting station, though (courtesy of Trektellen) we already knew there hadn’t been any special numbers of raptors while we were away.
Sakhalvasho 18th to the 24th September
Numbers of Honey Buzzards had reduced and the age profile had changed with the majority now being juveniles. Black Kites were now the commonest raptor and there was a huge count of 35,351 on the 19th, Steppe Buzzard numbers were increasing and we counted 432 on 20th. Lesser Spotted Eagle numbers had also increased and we counted 40-80 each day along with our first Steppe and Greater Spotted Eagles of the trip.
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| Honey Buzzard dark juvenile |
On the 19th we also saw another Crested Honey Buzzard and our first Steppe Eagle. As you would expect the second period of our visit to Sakhalvasho saw an increase in the number of aquila eagles.
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| Crested Honey Buzzard - another adult male |
The 22nd was a good day for eagles with an official count of 171 Lesser Spotted Eagles, 5 Greater Spotted Eagles and 7 Steppe Eagles. The 22nd also saw a White Pelican fly north.
Chorokhi Delta
Our third and final visit to the Chorokhi delta was on the 21st September. It was again very good for birds with a BW Pratincole, excellent views of Citrine Wagtail and several Siberian Stonechats. This area would make a superb reserve and although that has been proposed in the past nothing has ever happened. That is particularly sad as it is spoilt by uncontrolled and excessive shooting.
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| Black-winged Pratincole |
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| Citrine Wagtail - adult female |
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| Recovering a shot Glossy Ibis |
Shooting and Trapping
Most wild birds are protected, but there is no enforcement and illegal shooting is a major problem. Migrating raptors are targeted and gunshots are a depressingly frequent sound at Sakhalvasho.
We also saw Sparrowhawk trapping with birds lured into nets with RB Shrikes used as bait.
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| Hunters with nets and a Red-backed Shrike lure |
Sparrowhawks which have been trapped are primarily used to hunt Quail. They are said to be released at the end of the season.
Health
All of us suffered at some stage with what seemed to be either a stomach bug or a virus or perhaps even both. For two of us it was very minor, but Mike had to go to the local health centre and Martin was very ill on the journey to Mestia, but still managed to make the mountain trip the next day.
Summary
A brilliant trip, we recorded 157 species of which 92 species were seen at Sakhalvasho. It's a different experence to Besh Barmag where there is much more variety in the migrating birds but fewer raptors.
The timing worked very well. We arrived in time for the huge passage of Honey Buzzards on the 6th and the days after we left on the 24th were not particularly good.
The timing of the mountain trip was good and fortunately we didn’t miss any big raptor days while we were away. We opted for three full days in the mountains, as we felt that to have only one or two days would leave us very much at the mercy of the weather. In the event we enjoyed three days of blue sky and saw the mountain scenery at its best. The only downside was our failure to see either Caucasian Black Grouse or Guldenstadt’s Redstart. Both occur in the area and we searched hard, but failed to see them. For whatever reason they just weren’t about. The Caucasian Snowcock and Great Rosefinches were excellent, as were the other mountain birds we saw.
The food and accommodation were very good, and in particular Ruslan and Mari at Sakhalvasho were extremely helpful.
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