Kazakhstan - Sogety Valley

One of the better mornings we had during our Rockjumper 'Best of Central Asia' tour was spent in Sogety Valley, in south east Kazakhstan, close to the border triangle with China and Kyrgyzstan. This arid upland valley, and the surrounding hills and mountains, host some brilliant birds. We spent quite a bit of time on the plains, searching for our big target - Pallas's Sandgrouse.

Personally, Pallas's Sandgrous was one of my most-wanted birds. It seems that recently they have become more difficult, and sadly we failed to find any. I guess more time is needed for them. But even without those sandgrouse, birding was superb. The plains held good numbers of Brandt's Horned Larks:

And few of the famous duo - Desert Wheatear and Asian Desert Warbler, so often seen together:

Desert Wheatear

Asian Desert Warbler

We then headed up towards the hills, where a small spring attracts many birds. It took us a while to reach the spring because our attention was drawn towards several singing Grey-necked Buntings on the hills. The local subspecies neobscura is much duller than cerrutti I saw in E Turkey several years ago, and their song is different. Great birds to see - especially when they are so confiding.

Eventually we made it to the spring and sat down at a safe distance, not to disturb the birds. It was very busy - during the hour or so we were there we had big numbers of Mongolian Finch, several shy Asian Crimson-winged Finches, Rock Sparrows, more Grey-necked Buntings, Black-bellied Sandgrouse - huge fun. 

A pair of Turkestan Shrikes feeding young nearby made lots of noise.

eBird checklist of Sogety Valley and hills is here.

We then headed south towards Temirliq. At Temirliq River a pair of Lesser Grey Shrikes, and a pair of White-crowned Penduline Tits, were nest-building:

Up towards the mountain pass, in a lush rocky gully, we had Meadow Bunting, Siberian Stonechat and a few other birds.

We then headed back towards Almaty, via the impressive Charyn Canyon:

Boom mega whopping day on Mt. Hermon

What an amazing day it was. I joined the Hermon breeding survey today, coordinated by Nadav (with just a bit of help from yours truly). I was privileged to survey one of the most exciting corners of our country, right on the Syrian border very high up. Because of the sensitivity of the site we had to wait for military escort before we could go down, so we worked the Duvdevan ridge for the first couple of hours of the morning - it was very good. Most impressive was a high concentration of Crimson-winged Finches - we had about 15-17 pairs along a short stretch of the ridge (!), some of them already with fledglings. They are really stunning birds, so rare and so special. As always they were very mobile so this time I got only half-decent images:

 Croimson-winged Finch

Other highlights on the Duvdevan ridge were both Rock Thrushes (Rufous-tailed and blue) breeding, one distant singing White-throated Robin (new site), Spectacled Warblers, several families of Horned Larks and generally lots of birds. 

Horned Lark ssp. bicornis

After we met up with our military escort (late!) we climbed down the steep slope into a beautiful high-altitude valley, at about 2000 m. It was already late and hot and light conditions were very harsh, but we had a fantastic time there. Highlight was two pairs of White-throated Robins - we saw only the males that were feeding - possibly the females are still in the nest. 

Soundscape thing of the breeding area:

They are so rare so we were very gentle with them. During the first session of the survey a month ago Re'i and Lior had about five pairs in this valley. Today we struggled a bit to find them but eventually enjoyed great views and activity.

Other highlights included singing Upcher's warbler, several families of Spetacled Warbler, a couple of singing Cuckoos, Raven, and many more. The area was exploding with buntings - Cretzschmar's and Black-headed in very good densities, and also Rock and Corn.

Black-headed Bunting 

 Spectacled Warbler 

 Woodlark - big numbers

We got our adrenalin rush when we had a close encounter with an impressive group of 14 adult Wild Boars with nine piglets: 

Mountain Horned-poppy (Glaucium oxylobum)

Unidentified mushroon - will update when I get the ID from friends

This is the valley we worked in:

Amir posing with his military escort early in the morning before we split up:

Many thanks to Roei and Eran for a great day - hard work but well worth it.

Hermon breeding survey - post mortem

So what began as an epic day of birding on Mt. Hermon, continued with great phone excitement, and ended with acceptence of this a coming dip.

We surveyed today the higher elevations of Mt. Hermon. I worked with Amir and Arad in Bul'an Valley, that is one of the most fascinating birding sites in Israel. The combination of lunar landscape and super breeding birds there makes this place so special. 

Birding and surveying was pretty tough at first - it was very cold and windy up there at 2000 m, but later on the sun started working, and the wind slowed down a bit. Main stars of the morning were four breeding pairs of White-throated Robins - about one third of the entire Israeli breeding population in one small valley. They are much earlier breeding this year compared to last year - last year on this date we had none. Now they were very busy already - possibly with eggs. Stunning birds!

White-throated Robin - male 1

 White-throated Robin - male 2

The robins breed in these small scattered bushes strewn on the barren slopes:

Other highlights were three breeding pairs of Upcher's Warbler, three pairs of Crimson-winged Finches, two pairs of Horned Larks of the local race bicornis, pair each of Rock Thrush and Tawny Pipit, many Woodlarks, and the commonest bird at this elevation - Northern Wheatear of the local race libanotica.

Horned Lark of the local race bicornis

Northern Wheatear of the local race libanotica

View of Bul'an Valley from the overlooking Duvdevan ridge:

Lebanon Lizard (Lacerta laevis) of the endemic Hermon population kulzeri

Some prominent plants - thanks to Ouria Orren and Mimi Ron for their expert ID help:

Montpellier Maple (Acer monspessulanum)

Mullein sp. (Verbascum sp.)

  Foxtail Lilly (Eremurus libanoticus)

Mountain (?) Hound's Tongue (Cynoglossum montanum)

Just before noon I got an excited message from visiting birder and good friend Steve Arlow that he had just found a Chanting Goshawk near Yotvata! At the opposite end of the country! I quickly sent the news out. Soon it was relocated by several birders who were in the area, and it was identified by Itai Shanni as Eastern Chanting Goshawk - amazing first for the WP if accepted! Congrats to Steve on this crazy find! 

However I reckon that the first Israeli record of 'Dark Chanting Goshawk' from 1979 should be revisited.

It soon materialized that the bird is sticking to one specific area, and that I will not be able to go and see it within the next few days. I have reached my maximum capacity of long-distance driving and strenuous days in the field after 1-2 hours of sleep. I've been doing this for almost the whole spring, and today on the way back home from Hermon I really crashed and hit rock bottom - almost fell asleep on the wheel, and felt like shit. I really need to spend some time at home with family and relax a bit. If it stays for a few more days then I might give it a try, but for the time being I have accepted that I am not going to see this bird.

Turkey day 1 - Van to Iğdir - starter

After last year's great success, I decided to organize another long-weekend trip to Turkey. With my current family status I am unable to go for longer trips, so E Turkey was again the ideal choice for a low-cost, short-distance but high-quality birding destination. I got valuable advice from good friends about planning the trip - thanks Silas Olofson, Emin Yoğunrtcuoğlu and Michael Opitz!

Early in the morning of Thursday June 20th I flew out with my brother Gidon and with Amir Balaban, first to Istanbul and from there to Van. We hired a pre-booked car (Avis) and headed off straight away.

Our first stop was at a nice wetland in the NE corner of Van Gölü, where a river crosses the road near the village of Karahan,  38.937552° N   43.660620° E. We had no info about this site but the short midday was very productive. Several Paddyfield Warblers were singing, with some Moustached and Great Reeds as well. We weren't able to see the paddies, but I'm sure that a visit at proper time of the day would produce good views. Other good birds there were Bearded Reedlings, Black and White-winged Terns, and Baillon's Crake.

From there we drove on to Serpmetaş / Caldiran Lava Fields ( 39.183091° N  43.908898° E). Near there we checked a nice meadow that had some Black-headed wagtails and one Citrine, and a nice-posing Hobby:

Around the lake it was nice and sunny, but as we started climbing up the weather deteriorated. When we reached the impressive lava fields it became very cold, wet and windy - far from ideal birding conditions. In fact we saw very little on the lava fields - only some Rock Sparrows and the ubiquitous Northern Wheatear:

We pushed on from there and arrived near Tendürek mountain pass pretty late. We had a productive stop at the edge of a huge lava field north of Soğuksu ( 39.256291° N  44.045836° E). The sun came out for a few minutes and we saw some good birds there - brief views of 6-7 Mongolian Finches (WP tick #1) and 2 Crimson-winged Finches (they're difficult to photography in Turkey too). I was very pleased with a family of White-winged Snowfinch - lovely birds and another WP tick for me. They showed really well as the parents were feeding two young, and the male was still singing and displaying.

White-winged Snowfinch - 1cy

Crimson-winged Finch

Amir

From there we drove on to Iğdir. On the way we drove right on the border with Iran - very impressive landscape there; wish I could go there. We stayed overnight at Hotel Imparator - good value with good rooms and free wifi. We were completely knackered after a sleepless night, so no night activity apart for some juv Long-eared owls screeching from the poolside garden - very nice.