MONGOLIA DAY 10

Had a bit of a sleep in before leaving this wonderful area and it took until 3.45pm to reach Khangai Mountain. Along the way we saw several groups of Pallas’s Sandgrouse flying around, with a couple groups quite close to the front vehicle. Our lunch stop beside some small pools held a few common species before we continued our journey through ever more impressive habitat. 

A very chilly and windswept Kukh Lake

I did wonder if we could cross this... But we did!

Upon arrival we found another birding group at the usual camping site beside Kukh Lake so drove past them birded a steep scrub-covered hillside where we nailed Eversmann’s Redstart and Siberian Stonechat. 

Eversmann's Redstart

Then we drove back past the partially frozen Kukh Lake and up & around towards the bushchat site, eventually settling on a much more scenically spectacular camping location in the mountains. 

Our campsite tonight...

Cosy dining this evening...!

Here we were greeted by another low-flying Lammergeier. 

Look at that beard...!

Had another fine dinner, with copious amounts of beer & vodka before hitting the sack and suffering our coldest night of the tour.

Mongolia Day 9

Enjoyed a full day around the lake heading out at 5.30am after coffee & cookies - and what a day this proved to be! Heading down just a few minutes to the lake shore, we spent a couple of hours sifting through the multitude of birds seeing all the same species as yesterday.

Greylag Goose was very common

After breakfast we birded the river seeing many more Caspian Terns & Pallas’s Gulls before we spotted a very distant Pallas’s Fish Eagle, so drove around to get a better view, crossing the river twice in order to get decent scope views of what proved to be a pair. 

Whooper Swan

After lunch we had a rest, although Keith and I walked down to the marsh where we added Little Tern, Ruddy Turnstone, Curlew Sandpiper and Eurasian Skylark to the list. Many shorebirds were passing through and we saw 25+ Greater Sandplovers, 20+ Broad-billed Sandpipers, numerous Kentish Plovers, 80+ Little Stints, with a huge flock of White-winged Terns, a couple Gull-billed Terns and Black Terns amongst many other species.

White-winged Tern

Whiskered Tern

The late afternoon session saw us driving to a different marshy area of the lake where a Common Kingfisher was a surprise find. And after birding the lake area quite hard our reward was in the form of a superb rare drake Baer’s Pochard in company with 5 Ferruginous Ducks. This species hadn’t previously been seen here and by uploading the observation onto eBird, other birders and tour groups were able to twitch it. 

The best I could do of Baer's Pochard - phonescoped

The sheer number of birds in this area is quite phenomenal and makes this one of the top sites for birding in Mongolia, although photographic opportunities are not great as most species are a little distant.

Mongolia Day 8

Well last night I lay awake listening to cranes calling, and a various assortment of calls from gulls, wildfowl and waders. Up at 5am and enjoying a coffee whilst scoping the lake before walking along the shoreline noting many of the same species as yesterday before having breakfast. 

Bar-headed Goose was pretty common here

Holbooj Lake

A Tibetan (Lesser) Sandplover and some Pallas’s Sandgrouse were found shortly before we left and headed out on the drive towards our next base at Böön Tsagaan Nuur.  

Pallas's Sandgrouse

Last night's Pacific Golden Plover was still present this morning....

We stopped for lunch beside a wetland but had to take shelter behind the vehicles due to the extremely high winds, but we still managed to scope some Garganey, Red-crested Pochards and other common wildfowl.

 

Once we reached Böön Tsagaan Nuur, a vast Ramsar Wetland, we decided to stay in some cabins rather than camp, a relief for us all as the wind was howling. We drove straight down onto the shoreline to the 2 storey viewing platform and what an incredible number of birds we encountered. All were distant and a scope was required but the spectacle was impressive with a conservative count of 1000+ Great Cormorants, 75 Eurasian Spoonbills, 100’s of White-winged Terns etc etc …. Highlights were a couple Slender-billed Gulls, 30+ Caspian Terns, 4 Falcated Ducks, and at least 9 superb Broad-billed Sandpipers. There were so many birds to scope through but alas no Relict Gull. But lots of great birds and big numbers of common species. Such fun!

Mongolia Day 7

We had a comfortable albeit cold night and were out and about at 5am scanning the opposite mountain where several Altai Snowcocks were picked up easily. We didn’t expect to get better views than yesterday evening but how wrong can you be? For those of us that didn’t walk higher up the valley, an unexpectedly aggressive and inquisitive male flew over our heads twice and gave gobsmackingly unbelievable views for over half an hour, calling away from the hillside opposite and behind us, sometimes at eye-level. Wow!  

Altai Snowcock

We also enjoyed close Common Rock Thrush, Brown Accentor, Pied Wheatear, more Rock Sparrows, Common Rosefinch and a Dusky Warbler.

The unmistakable Lammergeier

And it's joined by a Cinereous Vulture

After another delicious breakfast in camp, we packed up and walked down through the open forest seeing at least 3 Eurasian Wrynecks, Daurian Shrike, Pallas’s Warbler and Barred Warbler before getting picked up and heading off to our next camping site at Holboolj Lake. 

Pallas's Warbler

Along the way we stopped for a group of raptors that proved to be a Lammergeier, Steppe Eagle and Cinereous Vulture all circling low over the steppe. And what a cracking sighting this was.

 

A magnificent Steppe Eagle

We arrived at Holboolj Lake in the late afternoon and what another amazing site this proved to be. Walking south we scanned the vast throng of birds out on the water, picking up a few Pallas’s Gulls, Black-headed and a single Brown-hooded Gull, a flock of White-winged Terns, with a single Black and a Whiskered Tern amongst them. Our major finds were a superb drake Baikal Teal and a female White-headed Duck, with a fine supporting cast of Swan Goose, Bar-headed Goose, Garganey, Red-crested Pochards, 4 Asiatic Dowitchers and the icing on the cake being a female Yellow-breasted Bunting! Not bad eh? 

White-winged Terns showed well today

There were many regular wildfowl, Whooper Swans, shorebirds included a smart looking breeding-plumaged Ruff and Pacific Golden Plover, Citrine Wagtail, as well as Asian Brown Flycatcher and Red-throated Thrush looking out of place on the grassy marsh edge. With fabulous scenery all around, blue sky and a fabulous sunset, watching all of these birds took on an extra dimension and we particularly enjoyed the fine views of the White-winged Tern flock feeding inland of our camp in fabulous light. That night we managed to locate a xx in the thermal camera and subsequently spotlight one at close range.

Mongolia Day 6

After last night’s howling gale it was a relief to find the wind had somewhat subsided this morning as we drove around 10kms from camp towards the impressive sand dunes. A cracking Asian Desert Warbler gave prolonged views and a superb Saxaul Sparrow was scoped, along with other sightings such as Asian Short-toed Lark, Isabelline Shrike,Long-legged Buzzard and a few Desert Wheatears before we returned for breakfast. 

Asian Desert Warbler

We had already decided to leave here and head to our wild camping site at Baga Bogd, a drive that took us until 5pm. The scenery was magnificent as we crossed desert, steppe, canyons and made numerous birding stops.

Not the greatest pic of a Saxaul Sparrow

Our next stop was for a comfort stop and we saw another Saxaul Sparrow and a Cinereous Vulture. A few hours later on our journey we saw several Pallas’s Sandgrouse and enjoyed some fine views, along with more Mongolian Finches. 

Grey-necked Bunting

At lunch in a scenic valley we had amazing views of a Grey-necked Bunting that took some tracking down as we could here one singing but couldn’t locate it for ages, and our sighting of a pair of Lammergeiers at a nest was a tour highlight. Another wow! moment during this incredible tour. 

A bit distant but these phonescoped images aren't too bad...

Around lunchtime in this scenic valley we also found Pied Wheatear, Chukar, Golden Eagle and Common Rock Thrush. Approaching the valley where we were to camp gave us more sandgrouse close to the track and a really low flying Golden Eagle.

Pied Wheatear

Loved seeing this Golden Eagle so low overhead

Once we started into the valley and nearly at the camp we stopped and disturbed a Long-eared Owl from its day roost. We tracked it down to another tree less than 200 yards away and in doing so we also stumbled across a fine Eurasian Wryneck. 

Long-eared Owl

Unbelievably one of our ground crew managed to scope a distant Altai Snowcock, which was greatly appreciated by everyone.

Altai Snowcocks

Baga Bond Mountain - where we saw the snowcocks

Our campsite

The forest near the campsite

With the ground crew setting up camp not far ahead of us we had time to scan the surrounding area and came up with Upland Buzzard, many Rock Sparrows, a Northern Wheatear, and enjoyed some slightly closer scope views of 3 more Altai Snowcocks. Not too shabby huh?