Johannes Jansen

In France, Common #Cranes are particully exposed this year. Already +10 000 casualties were reported in what is the greatest migration corridor for the species (up to 450 000 individuals crossed in the humide area of the "Champagne" region)

#birds

jhm.fr/jusqua-10-00...

Gaumarjos to that Theo. It is not your first time, if i remember well? ;-)

Quote: "It is very hard to interpret big data in ecology in meaningful ways if you do not know anything about who the organisms are and what they do in the environment."
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Grauwe zenderkiek Erben is een week geleden in Marokko aangekomen en heeft afgelopen weekend hemelsbreed zo’n 750 km afgelegd door het land. Huub is ook in Marokko en maakt een stop tussen Matarka en Ain Bni Matar. Het bekende stopovergebied waar ook de Marokko-expedities van GKA naartoe gingen!

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

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! 🤩

It almost escaped trying to pot it but in the end I've got my 2nd very rare migrant moth at light this autumn, Diasemiopsis ramburialis! About the 16th for Belgium since 1980 and my 708th garden species, hopefully better pics this evening...
#mothmigration #insectmigration #mothsmatter

One of many kettles of Black Kites we've counted over the past days. Photo by Sander Bruylants.

A crisp juvenile Lesser Spotted Eagle in beautiful light. Photo by Sander Bruylants.

Screenshot of our live seasonal raptor 'counter' on the website.

ONE MILLION RAPTORS!

The wait is over... Today #BRC17 hit the earliest 1-million mark in BRC history! Usually, this happens around end-September, but this year the raptors clearly had other plans.

And with still over a month to go, we expect plenty more to come!

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#ornithology #RaptorResearch

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 ...

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

Large kettle of Honey Buzzards

A single Honey Buzzard flying low through the bottleneck

A stunning juvenile Black Kite

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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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

The Honey Buzzards have arrived! — Batumi Raptor Count What week it has been in the bottleneck! The weather threw everything at us—rain, fog, blazing sun—but the migration didn’t stop, and neither did we.

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...

Insectenzomer 2025: 2,2 miljoen waarnemingen, met de Aziatische hoornaar op kop De Aziatische hoornaar was dit jaar het meest gemelde insect tijdens de Insectenzomer, een campagne van Natuurpunt. Van 1 juni tot 31 augustus namen 52.650 mensen deel en registreerden samen 2,2 miljo...

the most commonly recorded insect this summer was #asianhornet probably a #vespawatch.be effect www.natuurpunt.be/nieuws/insec...

The first 1000+ raptors day — Batumi Raptor Count It has been 6 days now since the start of the count and yesterday was our first 1000+ day! Finally!!

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...

The count has started! — Batumi Raptor Count Yesterday was the first day of the 17th autumn count. With a small team of counters we counted a small number of birds for this first day.

We are off! The #BRC17 count has officially started! Until Oct 21st, we'll be counting 1+ million raptors. 🤞🪶

For the first time in years, we'll be posting many of the posts on our main social media channels to our website — and via our website also here.

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

Huge news for bird migration researchers in the Afro-Palearctic flyways!

The Sahel Rainfall Index and annual flood extent developed by Leo Zwarts et al (2009,2023) is now #openaccess by Altenburg & Wymenga.

Critical data to understand annual survival in migrants! #ornithology

sahelrainindex.info

YouTube video by Benn Jordan I Saved a PNG Image To A Bird

New doc releases today!

- Ultrasonic recording of a starling that can record and playback virtually any sound

- Analyzing incredible slowed-down bird songs

- Showing you how to do this (and way more) on the cheap

youtu.be/hCQCP-5g5bo

A male Montagu's Harrier flying by at sunrise. Photo by Bart Hoekstra.

Rain pushes the Honey Buzzards downwards towards eye level. Great conditions for photography, although a little dark. Photo by Bart Hoekstra.

Hobby leaving with a prey after it fought over the prey with another Hobby — an amazing display of their aerial acrobatics. Photo by Bart Hoekstra.

Station 2 could be seen from miles away last year, thanks to its strikingly red tarp. Although this did not seem to bother the birds much, with plenty of eye-level, close views of raptors. Photo by Paula Menzel.

In less than two weeks, we’ll be back at the Batumi bottleneck for the 17th Batumi Raptor Count #BRC17. Preparations are well underway, and excitement is building. Over the next few months, we’ll have plenty of exciting news to share with you — it’s already shaping up to be another memorable season.

July is a good time to see the pronounced age difference in the timing of Black-tailed Godwits @globalflyway.bsky.social. While most adults left the breeding range by now, all of this year's young are still in 🇳🇱 and may not leave till Sept. #ornithology
www.globalflywaynetwork.org/tracks/speci...

Last week the waakvogels.nl team tagged the first juvenile Spoonbills of the year. JUTTER is the first to explore the mudflats. This year we'll tag 25 chicks across 6 islands to study early-life learning of space use by Wadden Sea Spoonbills! #ornithology
www.globalflywaynetwork.org/tracks/speci...

Are skylarks preferring bright nights around full moon for migration?

Ringing data suggests: yes!

Read more in our new #ornithology paper, based on MSc thesis of Dajana Prinz and in cooperation with @ramonaheim.bsky.social @jki-research.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#birdmigration

Great PhD in #ornithology is opening up as part of the www.grassbirdhabitats.eu project. Hosted by the University of Groningen in close collaboration with the University of Gaston Berger and NDC in Senegal. West African students are especially encouraged to apply!

www.rug.nl/about-ug/wor...

Ben je benieuwd hoe het met de broedvogels in Vlaanderen gesteld is? Volg dan zeker het ABV-project! www.vlaanderen.be/inbo/project...

Of tel samen met ons af naar de vogelatlas van 2026... 📖

Looking for a PhD in #agroecology? Check out this position opening up as part of the www.grassbirdhabitats.eu project. Hosted by University of Groningen in collab wt University of Gaston Berger and NDC in Senegal. West African students are especially encouraged to apply!

www.rug.nl/about-ug/wor...

#vacature onderzoeker Systeemherstel Schelde -- Je verwerkt, interpreteert, en rapporteert (monitorings)data om bij te dragen aan beleidsrelevante kennisvraagstukken rond natuurherstel en -inrichting in het Scheldebekken, bv. in het kader van het Sigmaplan. Soll tot 16/06 bit.ly/4k1VwWn

Spring at @globalflyway.bsky.social!

Today fresh data from a 3.5 day ocean-crossing by a Bar-tailed Godwit from the Bijagós (Guinea-Bissau) to UK.

A Whimbrel flew from Bijagós to Galicia (Spain) two days earlier. And a Godwit flew from France to Iceland. 👀

www.globalflywaynetwork.org #ornithology

Would you like to experience mind-boggling raptor migration by helping us count over 1 million raptors this autumn?

Yes? Perfect! Because volunteer slots for both some long-term and plenty of short-term positions of 2 weeks are still available.

But, there is more...👇

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Applications open for the 2025 Flyway Monitoring Traineeship — Batumi Raptor Count With the preparations for the 2025 Autumn count well underway, we are happy to announce opening applications for the BRC Flyway Monitoring Traineeship . We started this traineeship last year in colla...

Our new Flyway Monitoring Traineeship is open for applications from raptor enthusiasts living in the OSME region.

Learn all about raptor migration, identification and what it takes to run a count like the BRC, and receive up to €1300 to cover costs.

www.batumiraptorcount.org/news/2025/4/... 🪶

Migratory Birds Advance Spring Arrival and Egg-Laying in the Arctic, Mostly by Travelling Faster | @globalchangebio.bsky.social | onlinelibrary.wiley.... | #ornithology 🪶🧪 #animalmigration 🌐

Every year, fewer #WhiteStorks cross the Straits of Gibraltar on their annual migratory journey. In this paper, we unveil the mechanisms driving the recent and rapid loss of their migratory behaviour.
👉https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1365-2656.70035