Wouter Vansteelant

And you for the nice discussion! Best of luck with all the exciting stuff you are developing.

On the train back home, still buzzing from some great days at @vogelwarte.bsky.social where Hans Schmid wrote "Getrennte Wege" - a classic synthesis of Honey Buzzard migration. A quarter century later the species has revealed a few more, but still not all of its migratory "Geheimnisse". #ornithology

Great day exploring the hills around Sempach ahead of a work visit to @vogelwarte.bsky.social. Good practice wt woodland birds of which I've seen very little since moving to Fryslan few yrs ago. Lovely soundscape wt whistling Red Kite, croaking Ravens, ticking Hawfinch, rattling of Mistle Thrush...

Vorläufige Ergebnisse des 8. Internationalen Weißstorchzensus 2024 Der 8. Internationale Weißstorchzensus fand 2024 wieder als ein gemeinsames Projekt von NABU (BirdLife Germany) und BirdLife International statt. Der NABU koordiniert die länderübergreifenden Zählunge...

New funded PhD projects with @marius-somveille.bsky.social, myself and collaborators. Examining migratory connectivity for seabirds www.uea.ac.uk/course/phd-d... and and the dynamics of seasonal migration www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPK742/p...
#ornithology
@ueaceec.bsky.social @ueaenv.bsky.social

Dispersal, maturation and recruitment in a long-lived, intercontinental migrant bird | www.sciencedirect.co... | Animal Behaviour | #ornithology 🪶

The meadows still have to flood, but the winter bird community at Blaugerzen is starting to form. The first Barnacle and White-fronted Geese are back, and mixed flocks of Lapwing, Starling and Golden Plover are on the fields again. They'll define the birding scene for next five months. #birding

Steppe Buzzards moving through the cloudy Batumi bottleneck. Photo by Tohar Tal.

The Station 1 team.

The Station 2 team.

The team of coordinators at station 3 — for a change.

1.5 MILLION RAPTORS! 🦅🤯

For the first time in BRC history, we have recorded a staggering 1.5 million raptors in a single autumn season — a true milestone after 17 years of counting!

Read more here: www.batumiraptorcount.org/brc17/2025/10/15-million-raptors

#ornithology #RaptorResearch

New visual story: Bird migration is one of nature’s greatest spectacles — and scientists are uncovering extraordinary insights into how new threats are reshaping these epic journeys. Follow the remarkable travels of three birds as they fly across the planet. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

The structure of the annual migratory flight activity in a songbird | royalsocietypublishi... | Proceedings of the Royal Society B | #ornithology 🪶

EARLY VIEW in IBIS

Challenges in population monitoring: Bar-tailed Godwits (Limosa lapponica) on the East Atlantic Flyway defy assumed population structure | onlinelibrary.wiley....

Jesse R. Conklin, Roeland A. Bom, Åke Lindström, Pierrick Bocher, Theunis Piersma | #ornithology 🪶

Teenagers SILENE and SPARTINA only reached France and N Morocco on their 1st journey in 2024. Now they caught the wave to W Africa! They flew together for 10h until SILENE split of to land in basins of a phosphate factory. Let's see how far they'll go! 2/2
www.globalflywaynetwork.org/tracks/speci...

Over the past 2 weeks, no less than 10 Dutch GPS-#Spoonbills made the crossing from Iberia to Africa. They did so in classic Spoonbill fashion by starting the ocean-crossing near Cadiz, rather than taking the Strait of Gibraltar. 1/2 #ornithology
www.globalflywaynetwork.org/tracks/speci...

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...

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

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

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

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

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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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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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...

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!

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

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...

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...

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! 🤩

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

2/2

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

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