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The Chiffchaff Phylloscopus collybita is an abundant species with an impressive global range that stretches from the West of Europe across Siberia to Russia’s far East, just falling short of reaching the Bering Straits by a laughable 800 kilometres, a fact one individual apparently found too awkward to bear. As its scientific name plainly shows, [...]

During the course of a business trip to western Kazakhstan in early April I flew from Germany to Aqtau, right at the coast of the Caspian Sea. The job assignment was to head inland the following day for a week of monitoring birds and reptiles, which goes to show just how hard some of us have [...]

When I was in Kazakhstan way back in May there were several species of lizard we spotted that I have neglected to write about for 10,000 Birds, which is a shame because they are pretty cool lizards, as most lizards tend to be.  Three of the four were spotted near one of the two waterholes [...]

Charyn Canyon, sometimes spelled Sharyn Canyon, is very large canyon in southeastern Kazakhstan, a couple of hundred kilometers east of Almaty, near the Chinese border.  The eighty kilometer-long canyon is sometimes referred to Dolina Zamkov, or “Valley of the Castles” because some of the oddly shaped rock formations look like battlements and towers.  On our [...]

The four days I spent in Kazakhstan, though they sped by while I was experiencing them, now seem to be nearly endless in the amount of material about which I have to blog. Though I have already written about the first waterhole we stopped at on our final day, the cool finch we saw there, [...]

It is time for yet another series of photos of a bird hanging out at a waterhole in Kazakhstan.  This time the Grey-necked Bunting (Emberiza buchanani) gets the honors, and, let me tell you, it deserves them.  Not only did this bird take two water baths in full view at relatively close range when the [...]

On the last day on Kazakhstan as we drove from oasis to oasis, birding spot to birding spot, I was amazed at how variable and beautiful the landscape was.  On one ride in the van of a little over an hour we went from semi-desert to some hilly country back out to flat desert steppe.  [...]

As we continued east from Almaty the air got drier and drier and the landscape got more and more desolate.  We passed a town that was almost completely abandoned in the midst of scrub vegetation, and the most common living things we saw were livestock, though how anyone raises animals in such an inhospitable place [...]

On the fourth day in Kazakhstan I awoke early and, in the drizzlymist, once again birded the grounds of the hotel in Almaty.  The birds were essentially the same as the day before but I did add Common (Red) Crossbills to my Kazakhstan list when three flew in and perched at the top of an [...]

Though I have already done a post on the Desert Finch of the Kazakhi deserts I felt that the similar Mongolian Finch (Rhodopechys mongolicus), sometimes known as the Mongolian Trumpeter Finch, deserved its own blog post as well.  These shots were taken at a completely different waterhole than where the Desert Finches were drinking and [...]

After leaving Big Almaty Lake, the site of our Ibisbill dip, we continued uphill to the Tien Shan Astronomical Observatory where lunch was distributed and everyone wandered off in ones and twos and small groups to eat and bird where they wanted for the next hour or so.  I wandered off with Thomas Griesohn-Pflieger, editor [...]

Big Almaty Lake, about thirty kilometers south of the city of Almaty, is a glacial-fed lake situated at just over 2,500 meters in the Tien Shan Mountains.  During the summer it reflects the three peaks that surround it but when we visited in May it was still largely frozen.  The river that feeds the lake, [...]

Seeing any bird with the word “Himalayan” in its name is going to be a thrill.  Ditto for any bird named with any variation of “Rubythroat.”  So seeing a bird that combines those two words, the Himalayan Rubythroat, is pretty amazing.  Seeing that bird well, singing repeatedly from exposed perches in decent light while you [...]

After the pre-breakfast birding whetted my appetite for some seriously good birds I couldn’t wait to get up into the the snow-capped Tien Shan Mountains that we could see from the grounds of the Hotel Altyn-Kargaly in Almaty.  The Tien Shan Mountains, which run east-west and straddle southeastern Kazakhstan, northwestern China, and pretty much all [...]

After our two days birding the flat lands near Astana we flew to Almaty late at night and made our way to the Hotel Altyn-Kargaly in the dark.  Before passing out and sleeping like the dead some of us tracked down a Eurasian Scops Owl that had been tooting away at us when we arrived, [...]

Blackbird singing in the dead of night, Take these broken wings and learn to fly. All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise. Blackbird singing in the dead of night, Take these sunken eyes and learn to see. All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to be free. [...]

After our excellent time at the Korgalzhyn State Nature Reserve we bid a fond farewell to its gorgeous grassy terrain and made our way to a location where Sociable Lapwing were known to breed.  Now, seeing Sociable Lapwing, a species that is critically endangered and thought to number roughly 11,000 individuals, would be a treat [...]

During the two days spent out in the steppe in Kazakhstan I couldn’t help but notice the sheer number of flowers that dotted the grassy steppe.  It seemed that anywhere one looked some kind of flower, whether it was an iris, a tulip, or something else, was blooming.  So when we were on our way [...]

As an American birder I don’t get to see wagtails very often at all.  In fact, the only time I have been so fortunate to see wagtails were in October of 2007 when I was in Germany and just recently on the trip to Kazakhstan.  Sure, wagtails will show up and breed in Alaska but [...]

There is so much more to tell about the Kazakhstan trip but I am very glad that I have finally managed to make it to day two of the four day Kazakhstan trip.  Having barely slept the night before our one-night stay at the Korgalzhyn State Nature Reserve I was anticipating hitting the bed in [...]