As we continued east from Almaty the air got drier and drier and the landscape got more and more desolate.  We passed a town...

On the fourth day in Kazakhstan I awoke early and, in the drizzlymist, once again birded the grounds of the hotel in Almaty.  The...

Though I have already done a post on the Desert Finch of the Kazakhi deserts I felt that the similar Mongolian Finch (Rhodopechys mongolicus),...

After leaving Big Almaty Lake, the site of our Ibisbill dip, we continued uphill to the Tien Shan Astronomical Observatory where lunch was distributed...

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...

Seeing any bird with the word “Himalayan” in its name is going to be a thrill.  Ditto for any bird named with any variation...

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...

After our two days birding the flat lands near Astana we flew to Almaty late at night and made our way to the Hotel...