Mongolia Day 2

The day started at 5.30am with coffee and cookies in the dining tent before we walked a few hundred metres into the forest once again where we witnessed up to 8 displaying male Black-billed Capercaillies. When I say the day started at 5:30am, it started a bit earlier as I lay awake in my tent after a decent night’s sleep as I was woken by the clicking capercaillie display that sounded like it was right beside me. Amazing! Anyway, we spent another 2 hours marvelling at these behemoths of the forest, as they displayed at various spots maybe 20 metres away from us. 

Black-billed Capercaillie

It’s not a lek like Black Grouse, but each individual male calls from allocated territorial spots that do seem fluid and can be encroached upon by other males. We moved slowly and quietly from male to male, perhaps within a radius of half a kilometre or even less. The male could obviously see us coming and continued to call, not blinking an eye at our approach. Sometimes he’d walk a little away but continued to call. It was an utterly brilliant experience and it’s very rare to spend so long on just one bird. But everyone was in agreement at how utterly fantastic this was. A male Taiga Flycatcher was also seen, along with Red-flanked Bluetails and Olive-backed Pipits. We returned to camp for an excellent breakfast after which the camp was packed up by our excellent ground crew, whilst we sat looking at the view, or wandered around the nearby hill where Blyth’s Pipits were occupied in their parachute display songflight.  

 

Leaving here we drove to Gun Galuut Nature Reserve, a series of lakes that were full of birds. We could not find the previously reported Relict Gull but had a fine time sifting through all of the birds present. The first and largest lake held a great assortment of widespread wildfowl such as Ruddy Shelducks, Garganey, Gadwall, Eurasian Teal, Eurasian Wigeon, Common Pochard, Tufted Duck, Common Goldeneye and even a female Smew. More importantly, several Stejneger’s Scoters were present and looked mighty fine in the scope. A pair of Whooper Swans were here too, along with both Slavonian (Tufted) and Black-necked (Eared) Grebes, and groups of Demoiselle Cranes were stood at the shoreline. Shorebirds were not numerous and only a few species were present, although 8 summer-plumaged Spotted Redshanks looked rather sexy! A flock of 30+ White-winged Terns suddenly appeared and a Black Tern was spotted amongst them. The next lake was only a couple of hundred metres away and had many of the same species as well as Common Shelduck, many Pied Avocets, Temminck’s Stint, and our first Mongolian Lark. 

The third lake was very different, hosting some dense tussocky vegetation and muddy margins. This is where White-naped Crane nests and we enjoyed fine scope views of a pair, with one on the nest. Puje picked up 2 Asian Dowitchers amongst a group of Black-tailed Godwits and we spent a while admiring them in the Swarovski scope. 

We enjoyed better views of Stejneger’s Scoter here, as well as seeing Northern Pintail, Shoveler, Eurasian Wigeon, Little Ringed Plover, Terek Sandpiper, Vega Gull, Common Tern, 6 Eurasian Spoonbills, Citrine Wagtail and Asian Short-toed Lark. We enjoyed lunch here before walking a few hundred metres across to a smaller lake where a drake Falcated Duck posed beautifully. All too soon it was time to leave and we had a drive of several hours back to Ulaanbaatar and the famous Mongolica Hotel, where we arrived at 5.15pm. This gave us just enough time to see a couple pairs of Amur Falcons, which had recently arrived and were nesting in some old magpie nests nearby. A flock of White-cheeked Starlings were pretty impossible to miss, as were the numerous  Hawfinches. We keyed in on our two main targets of Azure Tit and Siberian Long-tailed Rosefinch and had fine views of both, whilst other notable sightings included Bar-headed Goose, Daurian Jackdaw, Asian Brown Flycatcher and 2 female Common Rosefinches. What a day!