Short two-days trip to Tien Shan highlands with Sanzhar Abdikhalyk and Sergey Kolenov. We went from the city in Friday August 26th, almost at midday. After one hour we arrived to Chimbulak and then continued our trip on foot. Weather was mostly sunny; the little rain was only once. Birds are a bit because mid-August is a time out of breeding season and day activity. But Sergey had first time watching birds: Lammergeier, Altai Accentor, and Yellow-billed Chough. Also we heard but not saw White-winged Grosbeak. Once we tried to attract Black-throated Accentor by sound record, two birds flew and hid into the little spruce-tree, one bird was adult Black-throated Accentor, another one wasn’t id. To Mynzhilki we arrived at 6pm, sun hid over the slope of the ridge. It was still light, but it was also obvious that we'd had time to rise to T1 station before nightfall. We didn’t want to go and set up the tent in nightfall, so we had dinner and went to sleep. Night was warm, temperature wasn’t [...... read more ]

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Since I didn’t go out of the city I decided go to the Republic Square to watch birds. Especially today is Sunday, it means there are not many cars on sidewalks. In addition now is the start of the season of the migration of the little birds.I arrived to Square at 8am and saw that cars now banned parking on sidewalks! Now cars banned not only to park but to drive by sidewalks too! Fantastic! It means I can watch birds on my favourite Republic Square not only in weekend but in weekdays too. I don’t believe to this great news!In a good mood I walked about three hours. I didn’t see any special one, all the birds are common to this season which I can named the “Time of the Little Brown Birds”. The most of birds I watched are members of Sylvidae family: Common and Lesser Whitethroats, Barred Warblers, Blyth’s Warblers and different Leaf Warblers. All of these little and plain birds mostly feed and stay into the bushes. To identify the bird in bush need to watch mostly to the style [...... read more ]

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Recent ten days I was out of Almaty, this time autumn came to the city. A lot of rooks became in city’s parks, Hume’s Warbler, Spotted Flycatchers appeared in squares and gardens. I watched the Sparrowhawk tried to catch Flycatcher but unsuccessfully. On the glade with young fir-trees Red-backed Shrike and Stonechats were feeding. [...... read more ]

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Two days in Shihezi the city at two hours road from Urumqi. Shihezi is is a sub-prefecture-level city. Population of Shihezi is about 600 thousands people, very large city in our understanding. In Shihezi there are birdwatchers very well knowing and photographing birds. We had two-days birding with Xu Jie and Lu Min. August 11. First day we visited Moguhu and Daquangou Lakes. Moguhu is known as the place where Glaucous Gull was recorded first time in XinJiang. By the way this record was followed the series of records in Southern and South-Eastern Kazakhstan: Chardara reservoir, Chimkent, Sorbulak reservoir. There are many birds in Moguhu, we visited some sites and added more and more birds to our trip list of birds. Common species: Caspian and Pallas’s Gulls, Black-headed Gulls, Great Egrets and Grey Herons, some Ducks, Northern Lapwings, Common Redshanks, Black-winged Stilts, Kentish Plovers, once the flock of Common Snipes. Near the coastal line and in lake vicinity we recorded Rollers, [...... read more ]

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The day of coming back to Urumqi. But in first we visited Bosten Lake the second in size lake in China. The lake is large and is tourist attractions. Tourists visit lake by tickets; for local people there is rest zone with Aqua Park. But we interested birds of course. We visited two sites on the coast and some birds were observed from the car’s windows. In the first site we watched Pale Sand Martins, Barn Swallows, and House Martins. All species are usual but the subspecies could be unusual. Especially we viewed House Martins some of which were dark-brown tinged on rump, throat and flanks. But probably it is fresh plumage only. The interesting fact: juvenile martins asked the food from parents sometimes yet flying for them. One of adult martins flew into the nest with the insect in beak, at once the juvenile bird flew to it and asked the food. From the side it looked as one martin flow to nest, asked the food and flew out.The birding in the second site near Aqua Park was very active. [...... read more ]

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We woke up before sunrise and went to XinJiang Ground Jay. Morning time we are dressed to sweaters. Sanzhar waited violent heat and several times said that we are in the one of the hottest places of the world in the middle of the summer. But we are dressed to sweaters. I think it’s better than suffer from the heat. Lord loves us, recent two day there were rain and cloudy weather. After arriving to the desert we watched the brood of White-winged Woodpeckers; four birds (two adults and two juveniles) moved from the pole and wires to tamarix and back. Juvenile White-winged Woodpecker can be unknowingly identified as another species because it has large red crown and almost all white wings. After Woodpeckers photo shooting we dispersed in the desert. I found Ground Jay quite quickly. This time I approached to jay slowly; Jay was busy, pull the green caterpillar from the reeds. When Jay noticed me it show concern but not run away. Jay didn’t leave caterpillar, was taking it a beak then was [...... read more ]

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Went to south with Lee Tao and Liang Yong. Weather is rainy and cold, but the road is long, probably the weather in final destination will be sunny. On roadside I noticed Mynah and said about it to our local friends. They said that Mynah is rare but occurs to east almost to eastern border of XinJiang. It’s surprisingly to me. In fact Mynah expands to east! I thought it expand from east to west direction, but it in fact expand from south (from India) to Kazakhstan and then to east (along Ile river) and to west.Tien Shan bypass road runs between rocks, ascent and descent are slightly observable. Sanzhar said that local landscape is not similar to our Tien Shan with green forests and grass. Here is very very dry. We saw only Ravens, no other birds. Our friends said that they some time watched migrating Scaly Thrush in the river in this dry mountains.Arrived to Taklamakan desert. Road in desert runs along the river (or channel), there are green fields on road sides. But it is illusion, the [...... read more ]

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Yesterday I found out that Azure-winged Magpie breeds in Urumqi. This Magpie’s breeding range expands to westward but in Urumqi Magpie was introduced by people. In China there is a good tradition to release birds into the wild. Especially Magpies, because Magpies is a symbol of a luck. Releasing Azure-winged Magpies formed some colonies in total up to hundreds or even thousands pairs. The Urumqi’s population is isolated from the expanding from east main range. Red-billed Blue Magpie also present in Urumqi but rare. And not a problem to find Azure-winged Magpie. Birding is started at 7.30 am local time (5.30 by Amaty time). We had breakfast in cafe and began to search Azure-winged magpies. We drove by the blocks with large trees and looked for birds in top of trees. In first block we watched only common Black-billed Magpie. But in the second point (the city cemetery) we found Azure-winged Magpie immediately, one bird perched on the dry branch on elm and other ones were not visible but [...... read more ]

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The first day of our (with Sanjar Abdikhalyk) trip to XinJiang. Our main targets are birding and meeting with Gou Jun, Allan Linn and other members of XinJiang Birwatching Society. Today morning we started birding in Wutonggou, the protected area in desert landscape like the national park. Wutonggou is opened to visitors, we saw the group of students and teachers went by trail. We drove to territory by cars. Landscape is very similar to Kazakhstan’s deserts. Sand hills, saxaul trees. Forest is not so dense therefore landscape is ligher, but desert is same to Southern Trans-Balkhash area or to Kyzylkum desert. The list of birds is same too. Oriental Turtle Doves, European Bee-eaters, Yellow-eyed Pigeon (present but we didn’t watch), Lesser Whitethroats, many Crested Larks. Here is the eastern border of breeding ranges of some European speces such as European Bee-eater, European Roller, European Nightjar, Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin. Unfortunately there are a bit of birds in sands, most [...... read more ]

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