Ile river canyon, Almaty oblast.

Trip to Ile river canyon with Madina and Albert Meek from the Netherlands. Due to my business meeting we left the city only at midday time. Day is hot and sunny, probably therefore birds are not so much both in rocks and in steppe. On the one hand it is not so bad; Rosy Starling are not arrive yet, after 10 days or even less these birds filled all around by the permanent movement and sounds; and it will be impossible or very hard to watch other birds. But if be honest I expected to view more birds. Probably not all birds are arrived from wintering ranges. What we saw today? Many Lesser Kestrels, all time some birds are viewable. Many times we saw Rufous-tailed Rock Thrush. The most popular bird of the day is perhaps Pied Wheatear, we saw males and females and once accidentally found the nest. We went by the road and noticed very troubled female, the behavior of which indicated the presence of the nest nearby. I lifted the old rusty iron sheet and we view the nest with six eggs. I move the iron sheet to own place; on the back road I noticed the same female flew from the nest again, so I believed that bird wouldn’t abandon the nest. Also we saw female Craig Martin on the nest and took photos of male sitting near the nest. In the steppe zone the Steppe Lark is only one species we saw, but it was numerous.

1. Rufous-tailed Rock Thrush (Monticola saxatilis)

2. Pied Wheatear (Oenanthe pleschanka)

3. Nest of Pied Wheatear (Oenanthe pleschanka)

4. Nest of Crag Martin (Ptyonoprogne rupestris)

5. Eurasian Crag Martin (Ptyonoprogne rupestris)

6. Lesser Kestrel (Falco naumanni)

7.

8. Albert Meek

9. Madina Dusebayeva

10. Calandra Lark (Melanocorypha calandra)

11. Roller (Coracias garrulus)