The Conservancy and Voluntary Project of Raptor Count

The major part of raptors of Iran, including some species of eagles, are migrants. These birds stay in our country during the winter or pass through it to the higher or lower latitudes. Natural features of the earth, valleys and mountain ranges are bottlenecks for their passage. This concentrated passage, shapes the migrating paths of these valuable birds and makes it possible to count and monitor their numbers.

Counting these birds can provide an appropriate estimation of their populations and population fluctuations for researchers and conservation scientists. The monitoring over the years will determine whether their populations are increasing or decreasing.

 The raptor count project is defined under the conservation goals of Iranian Birding Club (IBC). We estimated that probably raptors and especially Steppe Eagles which are on the IUCN Red List of Threatened species and are seen every year in dumping grounds in large numbers, will pass the created bottleneck on the eastern side of Caspian Sea and Alborz Mountain range to southern latitudes and Africa, during the winter migration season. Based on Mr. Ehsan Talebi’s suggestion, the project manager of current raptor count, there was a potential opportunity to examine the situation and start the first phase. To do this, we needed some people who have a moderate skill in raptors identification. Thus, in the past spring and summer, we started our virtual training on raptors’ identification, so the trained people would participate in this project, if they were willing to.

The phase 1 which is the examination of eastern areas of Caspian Sea for raptor count, started on September, 10^th and it will last until October 18^th. According to the manager and members of the project, who are mostly the members of IBC and trained people in this filed, considerable number of Steppe Eagles (more than 2000) were counted. This is a good start for the ongoing activity.

It should be noted that the project is voluntary and there is no sponsor organization for it.

Detailed reports of scientific information will be published in near future.

If you are skilled in raptor identification or participated in the training classes of raptor identification and willing to have this experience, join us and leave your contact info on this page. In order to participate, you are required to be present at the field of the project, at least for 3 days.