Mongolia Day 3

Left the Mongolica Hotel at 6.45am and headed out on the loooong drive to the Khanbogd Tourist Camp near Dalanzadgad. In fact we drove all day and arrived at the tourist camp at 7.10pm but we made plenty of birding stops along the way starting at a seasonal lake where Pete found our first Pallas’s Sandgrouse stood near the shoreline. The next stop to stretch our legs added a few Small Snowfinches in attendance at a Brandt’s Vole colony. Other species seen on our journey included Stejenger’s Scoter, 3 Citrine Wagtails, and some common wildfowl. Then we drove for a couple more hours until pulling off the road for lunch in the desert, where we were entertained by 5 Demoselle Cranes flying over, 2 Shore Larks, a Dusky Warbler, a Dusky/Naumann’s hybrid and an Isabelline Wheatear.

Isabelline Shrike

Red-throated Thrush

Once in Dalanzadgad we filled up with fuel at a gas station where a Lesser Kestrel and Desert Wheatear were spotted. At a small plantation we had a fine time with 2 Dusky Warblers, Isabelline Shrike, 2 Pallas’s Warblers, 2 Arctic Warblers, Naumann’s Thrush, Dusky thrush, Asian Brown Flycatcher, Taiga Flycatcher, 40+ Hawfinch, 3 Common Rosefinch and a female Beautiful Rosefinch.

Nice views of Arctic Warbler today...

Asian Brown Flycatcher

female Beautiful Rosefinch sp....

The late afternoon was spent in search of Oriental Plover amongst the absolutely awe-inspiring wide-open steppe. We actually found a male plover quite easily after just a couple of ‘stop and scan’ sessions and then manoeuvred the vehicles to get reasonably close views of this stunning bird. 

The one and only mega..... Oriental Plover

And what a bird! It’s one of the world’s iconic species and we found it hard to drive away from, but we had to in order to get to the camp for dinner.