Sorbulak

Day is sunny, not like summer day, but warm and without snow. Trip to Sorbulak with Gennady Dyakin and Andrei Kovalenko. First spot is the dump of chicken farm where recently the Steppe Eagles gathered. Today they were here but in less number, about 15-20 (compare with about one hundred in last visit). In addition to Steppe Eagles we watched two Imperial Eagles and two Long-legged Buzzards, latter were not directly in dump but near channel.

In Sorbulak birds are not so visible but much more numerous than in other spots. In water there are Ducks (Gadwalls, Ruddy Shellducks, Goosanders, Goldeneyes) and numerous Whooper Swans which are hearable from a far. Also we watched flying Cormorants, Grey Herons and Great White Egrets (Egrets are much more than Herons). Once in flock of Egrets we noticed one Pelican. Still there are a lot of Gulls, in some places coast is total white of hundreds of Gulls. On the land we saw quite a lot of little passerines feeding in high dry grass and in trees (silverberry). There were many Reed Buntings, Greenfinches, Tree and Spanish Sparrows, Goldfinches, Long-tailed Rosefinches, and also Black-throated and Mistle Thrushes, one Common Starling, Azure Tit. We watched the flock of Bean Geese which are the main target of our trip, but we didn't well look them because they landed directly in the middle of the lake, perhaps in due of car with hunters which three times drove around the lake and regularly shot.

In the Little Sorbulak almost all of birds gathered in the largest reservoir, in all the rest ones there are a lot of fishermen. Saw the common Black-necked Grebes. In addition to latter in water there are Smews, Shovellers, Pintails, Mallards, and other ducks. Birds of prey were a bit. We didn't noticed a single falcon, even Kestrel. Of the large raptors we saw two groups of White-tailed Sea-Eagles in Big Sorbulak, about ten birds in total.

1. Steppe Eagle | Aquila nipalensis

2. Ruddy Shelducks | Tadorna ferruginea

3. Whooper Swan | Cygnus cygnus

4. Gadwalls | Anas strepera

5. Goosanders | Mergus merganser

6. Crested Lark | Galerida cristata

7. Spanish Sparrows | Passer hispaniolensis

8. Northern Reed Bunting | Emberiza schoeniclus

9. Long-tailed Rosefinch | Uragus sibiricus

10. Northern Reed Bunting | Emberiza schoeniclus

11. Gennady Dyakin and Andrey Kovalenko

12. European Greenfinch | Carduelis chloris turkestanicus

13. Azure Tit | Parus cyanus

14. Gennady Dyakin

15. White-tailed Sea-Eagle | Haliaeetus albicilla

16. Mistle Thrush | Turdus viscivorus

17. Siberian Black-backed Gull | Larus heuglini

18. Black-Necked Grebes | Podiceps nigricollis