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Reposted by Wouter Vansteelant

Miguel Clavero @chikichanka.bsky.social · 5d

GREAT DAY FOR EEL CONSERVATION
The Basque Country is the craddle of glass eel consumption
Today, the Basque Government has announced a ban on glass eel fishing due to eel's critical situation
Similar movements needed in Spanish @miteco.gob.es and EU @ec.europa.eu
www.eldiario.es/euskadi/gobi...

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Batumi Raptor Count @batumiraptorcount.org · 7d

170.000 RAPTORS IN ONE DAY!

After yesterday’s heavy rain and a quiet morning, today the sky exploded with Steppe Buzzards and large eagles! Continuing from 10 am until almost the end of the count.

At some point, we counted over 14.000 raptors in less than 20 minutes. THAT'S BATUMI!

#ornithology

Today's totals! See our website for more details!

Steppe Buzzards. Photo by Filiep T'jollyn

After-count team photo - with perhaps the most beautiful rainbow ever seen in the background

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Wouter Vansteelant @wmgvs.bsky.social · 9d

After a super intense week with a back-to-back Spoonbill and Wader Study conference, its time to shift to lower gear for a bit. Starting the day with a slow stroll through the fog at Griene Dyk. Hoping for a Yellow-browed Warbler among the plentiful Gold- and Firecrests. #birding

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Batumi Raptor Count @batumiraptorcount.org · 9d

After the thrill of reaching the million, we went straight to the peak of diversity. The challenge of counting high numbers of birds slowly shifted into identifying the (relatively) fewer but more difficult ones: the large eagle species!

But they also brought a special guest along...👇

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Lesser Spotted Eagle - Photo by Eduardo Campos Wals

Lesser Spotted Eagle - Photo by Matthew Sprangers

Black Kite (left) and Steppe Eagle (right) - Photo by Matthew Sprangers

Lesser Spotted Eagle - Photo by Filiep T'jollyn

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International Wader Study Group @waderstudy.bsky.social · 11d

Thank you to all of today's speakers for a really interesting array of talks! So much great research, and more on the way tomorrow! #IWSG2025 #waders #shorebirds #ornithology

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Wouter Vansteelant @wmgvs.bsky.social · 12d

What an honour to open the 50th @waderstudy.bsky.social conference with a plenary on Spoonbill migration culture on the beautiful stage of DOT in Groningen. The Spoonbill-inspired concerto 'Solanum' by Tjibbe Stelwagen and Caspar Kootstra made for a perfect tandem wt the arts. #ornithology

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International Wader Study Group @waderstudy.bsky.social · 12d

We're got a variety of great talks at our conference today, with topics including...

👥️ Population development
💧 Resource use
☀️ Responses to environmental change
🪱 Foraging ecology and diet

#IWSG2025 #waders #shorebirds #Ornithology

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International Wader Study Group @waderstudy.bsky.social · 12d

Here we go then! Our 50th annual conference is officially open 🥳 #IWSG2025

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Jeroen Reneerkens @jeroen-reneerkens.bsky.social · 13d

A vagrant juvenile Sanderling turned up in Israel—likely after a single non-stop flight from the Dutch Wadden Sea. Here’s thread explaining why that’s remarkable and interesting. @wadertales.bsky.social @globalflyway.bsky.social #Birds #Migration

The colour-marked Sanderling photographed in Israel, still carrying its radiotransmitter

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Wouter Vansteelant @wmgvs.bsky.social · 14d

Well spotted, Tohar. But at that point she was already floating on the waves for almost 7hours. Looks like LAYLA hit the waves at 09:07 on the 25th, a few kms further offshore.

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Wouter Vansteelant @wmgvs.bsky.social · 14d

A dramatic end for an ambitious Spoonbill. Yday morning LAYLA crashed into the ocean just offshore Madeira, 56h after departing from the Wadden Sea. She rested barely 7h even though she found nice Spoonbill hotspots on the way. Poor choices... #ornithology
www.globalflywaynetwork.org/tracks/speci...

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Batumi Raptor Count @batumiraptorcount.org · 16d

A true Bluesky — filled with raptors!

After days of rain, we were greeted by a bright, blue, cloudless sky this morning! The result? Thousands of birds and a high species diversity.

With the main message: the eagles are coming!

Stay tuned for more! For daily totals: www.batumiraptorcount.org/data

Marsh Harrier. Photo by Nikolina Bukovac

Short-toed Eagle and Black Kite. Photo by Nikolina Bukovac.

Greater Spotted Eagle. Photo by Nikolina Bukovac.

Where are the birds? Somewhere up there in the blue sky!

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Wouter Vansteelant @wmgvs.bsky.social · 16d

The www.BirdEyes.org team is thrilled to announce a new paper by Mohamed Henriques showing how Spoonbills change space use over the course of their summer stay in the eastern Dutch Wadden Sea. After breeding, many adults converge in the Lutjewad area. #ornithology

www.birdeyes.org/lutjewad-amo...

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Wouter Vansteelant @wmgvs.bsky.social · 18d

Yday >1900 #Spoonbills left 🇳🇱 via the watch-site at Cadzand!

Among them were 4 GPS-birds that departed from the Delta, including LUNA who met PLUK in flight over Ostend (🇧🇪).

Meanwhile, TAAS and HIDDE jointly flew from Balgzand to the Delta. #ornithology

www.globalflywaynetwork.org/tracks/speci...

Five of our GPS-tracked Spoonbills left the Netherlands, four of which flew past Cadzand-Bad after departing from staging sites in the Dutch Delta region. The birds used a narrow migration corridor to cross Belgium, mostly flying within a few 100m offshore, before ultimately dispersing a bit more in northern France.

Spoonbills PLUK and LUNA met each other in flight near Ostend, Belgium, after departing from staging sites in the Dutch Delta and the port of Antwerp, respectively. They flew together for roughly 3.5 hours before splitting up again in northern France.

Spoonbills HIDDE and TAAS departed from Balgzand in the southern Wadden Sea together for a relatively short flight to the south of the Netherlands.

Spectacular number of Spoonbills recorded flying past Cadzand-Bad near the Dutch-Belgian border. 2nd highest count ever in the Netherlands.

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Wouter Vansteelant @wmgvs.bsky.social · 21d

Astounding for the @batumiraptorcount.org crew to reach the 1 million milestone so early in the season. 😳 Congrats to all volunteers and flyway trainees, expertly led by the first ever all-women coordinating team: Eva Drukker, Elien Hoekstra and Mitra Daneshvar. Celebrations are in order! 🤩

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Batumi Raptor Count @batumiraptorcount.org · 21d

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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Wouter Vansteelant @wmgvs.bsky.social · 22d

50+ is heel goed aantal voor Zwettepoel! Mijn max daar is dikke 80 in oktober.

Wouter Vansteelant @wmgvs.bsky.social · 22d

A Goshawk managed to catch a Snipe at Blaugerzen the other day. Then got the attention of one, two, three Marsh Harriers. In the squabble, a juvenile harrier was eventually able to claim the prey for itself. #birding

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Tom Hengl @tomhengl.bsky.social · 23d

Had a privilege and pleasure to teach terra pkg (created by @roberthijmans.bsky.social et al.) and spatial sampling with R together with Alexandre Wadoux at the #EOSummerSchool2025 at WICC. You can follow the terra tutorial from here: differ.blog/p/processing...
📹: youtu.be/q9sQkg7BeAc?...

Processing large rasters using terra package for R: combining tiling and time-series modeling

differ.blog

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Batumi Raptor Count @batumiraptorcount.org · 28d

The Honey Buzzards keep on coming!

With another 50K+ counted today, we’ve now passed half a million HBs this season! Rising numbers of Black Kites — as their peak is still ahead — pushed our overall total past
700K! And it’s not just the bulk species 👇

#ornithology
📸Eduardo C. Wals
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A single Honey Buzzard flying low through the bottleneck

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Centre for Research on Ecology, Cognition and Behaviour of Birds @ecobird.bsky.social · 28d

🚨 Calling researchers, students, technicians in cognition 🚨

We’re running a 10-min anonymous survey on how animal cognition is defined and studied across disciplines (from ecology, ethology, psychology, neurology, etc). 🧠✨

Scan the QR code & share widely

#AnimalCognition #ResearchSurvey #Science

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Batumi Raptor Count @batumiraptorcount.org · 29d

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!

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Batumi Raptor Count @batumiraptorcount.org · 29d

A new study led by @moveandconserve.bsky.social used GPS tracking to test the monitoring potential of Eilat and Batumi.

An invaluable step toward linking counted birds to their origins, but we found it needed some elaboration from a migration count perspective!

Our commentary: tinyurl.com/nnbzu7kc

One million raptors: But where do they come from? — Batumi Raptor Count

As a migration counter, you can’t help but wonder: “Where did the bird I just tallied come from, and where is it going?” In light of BRC’s main aim — monitoring raptor population trends — this very ...

tinyurl.com

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Wouter Vansteelant @wmgvs.bsky.social · Sep 9

The first week of September is barely behind us and already the impressive volunteer crew of @batumiraptorcount.org has tallied over half a million raptors making their way south along the eastern Black Sea coast. #ornithology

Batumi Raptor Count @batumiraptorcount.org · Sep 6

HALF A MILLION RAPTORS! 🦅

After a few slower days (~30K+), #BRC17 hit the absolute jackpot yesterday!

Around 11 am, the floodgates opened — massive streams of Honey Buzzards & Black Kites pushed us past 100K raptors in a single day! Bringing the season total to 540K😍

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Video by Zülfü Farajli

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Batumi Raptor Count @batumiraptorcount.org · Sep 6

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

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