Chimbulak, Kimasar, Mayak.

It’s feeling of the last day reminding summer: sunny and warm in city, some persons are even dressed in shirts. But in mountains day is sunny but cold especially in shadow where I was frozen very quick though was warmly dressed. There are always much of birds in the spot where Andrei and Gennady previously watched birds. Perhaps because here is logging, therefore a lot of severed branches in which possible to hide and to find insects. When we arrived to spot we immediately noticed flock of Black-throated Thrushes, Grey-headed Goldfinches, two Red-rumped Rosefinches and the Black-throated Accentors moving inside branches. Then we attracted to sound the Songar Tits, Goldcrests, but particularly successfully the Coal Tits and Treecreepers. One of Coal Tits landed to stamp between me and Gennady so close that bird didn’t fit to frame of Gennady’s camera. After Tit flew away Gennady reached out and easy touched the place where Tit sat. Two Treecreepers came to sound too and began to feed in the next trees. These birds are very quick, always in moving, and prefer to be in shadow, therefore we decided to attract them to open place. This action was partial successful, Treecreepers moved to sound and even were in semi-shadow trunks but no one time landed to the stamp located in sun. I saw Songar Tit pecked the seeds from the cones previously pearled by Nutcrackers, I watched this action some times before today. When we were taking photos of forest birds the flock of Yellow-billed Choughs fly down and soar above the viburnum tree, one of birds landed to tree and pecked the berries but other ones not do it. When we came down to tree all Choughs including bird perching on tree flew away. Then we reached Chimbulak and tried to find Three-toed Woodpecker which was many times observed here by other watchers. But we didn’t find not only Woodpecker but spruce-trees with any signs of Woodpecker’s presence. But we watched Yellow-billed Choughs again, Carrion Crows, flock of Pine Buntings and Coal Tits again.
 
Then we went down to Kimasar. We have only one target here – the White-bellied Dipper. It is very easy to find it because Dipper never left the cascades of river. But it was not so easy to take photos of it because we could not to approach to Dipper to short distance. It was strange because all the time here is a lot of people. In addition to Dipper we saw here the Wren, Bramblings, and Eastern Buzzard. After Kimasar visiting we have some free time, the sun was still high, and we were going to visit the grove near Mayak where Madina took photos of White-winged Woodpecker. However due to traffic jam we reach the grove not so quick but this spot was interesting. In the field hundreds of Rooks (one partial albino) and Magpies looked for food, also we saw Hooded Crows and Jackdaws. Above the fields Kestrels and Sparrowhawk were flying, once we flushed the Goshawk from the tree. Andrei guessed of its presence by the shouts of Magpies. The high grass fields can be interesting to winter birdwatching. Here we twice flushed the Pheasants. We didn’t find Woodpecker but saw some Great and Azure Tits, and we didn’t expected more because darkness were coming quickly. Also I was surprised by the frequency of the arriving of aircrafts (which were arriving very low). It was feeling that aircrafts arrived every 3-5 minutes. When we were near Mayak at least ten aircraft arrived. But neither humans nor birds pay attention to aircrafts.

But my today birding is not finished. During the evening jogging I twice saw Quails. First one was flushed by the car, bird landed in the flowerbed with roses. I was absolutely sure where Quail landed and was going to run for camera, but the next car flashed Quail again, it flew out and I didn’t try to remember the point of landing. The second Quail was flushed by humans. Poor birds were flying from one point to another perhaps, because this time (9pm) there is a lot of persons with dogs, but the latters specially flushed Quails all time.

1. Black-throated Thrush | Turdus atrogularis

2. Red-mantled Rosefinch | Carpodacus rhodochlamys

3. Coal Tit | Parus ater rufipectus

4. Black-throated Accentor | Prunella atrogularis huttoni

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6. Common Treecreeper | Certhia familiaris tianschanica

7. White-bellied Dipper | Cinclus cinclus leucogaster

8. Wild Apricot

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11. Partial Albino Rook | Corvus frugilegus