Ili river valley

At the beginning I and Gennady Dyakin shot Peregrin Falcon on the City Hall building at morning time. Further Andrei Kovalenko joined to us and we together made the large circle trip in Ili river valley, where we know some spots of watching Waxwings, hoping to find Japanese Waxwing. Day is frosty, misty at morning but sunny after lunch-time. First spot of our trip (more for show) is the dump near chicken factory in Avat. Here the birds are usual: White-tailed Sea Eagles, Eastern Buzzards, and different Corvids. Further we went by Kuldja road until the turn to Kyrbaltabai village. After turn the road was bad, there was many snow and deep slippery track. All trees such as high poplars and low silverberry and elm-trees are frost covering. In spite of feeling absence of birds we began to noticed them almost shortly after turning: first was one Hawfinch, then flock of Hawfinches, then Blackbirds and Black-throated Thrushes, Greenfinches, Eversmann’s Redstart, and of course today the bird #1 the Red-throated Thrush. Thrush was noticed by Gennady who paid attention not only to unique colour but also to less size in compare with Black-throated Thrushes with which Red-throated Turush were feeding together. I was impressed by deep-red underwing of bird. All above birds were feeding on silverberry-trees.

Further our rout was from Kyrbaltabai to Zhetigen village by wide arc. On roadside open places are crossed by thickets of silverberry. The list of species is always same: Blackbirds, Black-throated Thrushes, sometimes Mistle Thrushes and Eversmann’s Redstarts, many Greenfinches and Tree Sparrows. Significant records: directly near Kyrbaltabai we saw two Stock Pigeons, but when we left the car three Long-eared Owls fly out from the next tree. Further we saw flock of Mallards near well; young bulls were drinking water from well probably they scared Mallards from water. Then we noticed Great Grey Shrike. Further we went to old Kapchagai road and then to the new one.

On the road we noticed the second flock of Waxwings (first one we watched in silverberry thickets over Kyrbaltabai). All birds in both flocks were Bohemian Waxwings. Next spot is the dump near road; there are a lot of birds here, we saw even Gulls but not Daurian Jackdaw. It seemed strange the almost absence of Hooded Crows when the Rooks and jackdaws are a lot.

The last point of trip is Kosozen village where bird catchers some days ago watched the flock (!) Of Japanese Waxwings. We arrived to village close to sunset, not expected to see Waxwings, but wanted to see habitat to the next trips. We found the thickets where probably Waxwing were observed, saw here the female Pheasant, about twenty Sea-Eagles, Eagle-Owl (unfortunately it was at dusk, I could not take photo even the silhouette of bird), Short-eared Owl.

Specially about birds of prey. In addition to White-tailed Sea-Eagles which we saw in a large groups in two spots and also singles in roadside, we also saw numerous Eastern Buzzards, one or two Hybrid Buzzards, female Hen Harrier, one Common Kestrel.