Tien Shan Highlands

Short two-days trip to Tien Shan highlands with Sanzhar Abdikhalyk and Sergey Kolenov. We went from the city in Friday August 26th, almost at midday. After one hour we arrived to Chimbulak and then continued our trip on foot. Weather was mostly sunny; the little rain was only once. Birds are a bit because mid-August is a time out of breeding season and day activity. But Sergey had first time watching birds: Lammergeier, Altai Accentor, and Yellow-billed Chough. Also we heard but not saw White-winged Grosbeak. Once we tried to attract Black-throated Accentor by sound record, two birds flew and hid into the little spruce-tree, one bird was adult Black-throated Accentor, another one wasn’t id. To Mynzhilki we arrived at 6pm, sun hid over the slope of the ridge. It was still light, but it was also obvious that we'd had time to rise to T1 station before nightfall. We didn’t want to go and set up the tent in nightfall, so we had dinner and went to sleep.

Night was warm, temperature wasn’t below zero. We woke up at 5am, had breakfast and at 6am started to T1. It was light but the first sun’s rays became in the canyon about at 8am. In this time we arrived the station T1. On the road (before the sunrise) we saw Himalayan Snowcocks, Wallcreepers, and Water Pipits. On moraine where we recent years watched Brandt’s Rosefinches (our main target) there were many birds, but they were other birds which we were going to watch. Brandt’s Rosefinches were already not present, apparently they flew away, because we twice noticed already wandering flocks of Plain Mountain Finches (common bird of highlands). There were many Stonechats, Water Pipits and Black Redstarts. And of course, Red- and Yellow-billed Choughs were always visible and hearable. I watched the yellow-billed Choughs flew to our backpacks in searching of food. Before today I watched the same Chough’s behavior on Kosmostation area. At 11am the birds activity decreased, and we started to return. On the back road we watched very confiding Brown Accentors, and once again noticed the Lammergeyer. Also we tried to attract the birds but unsuccessfully.

Arriving to Medeo me and Sergey went to look for Blue Whistling Thrushes. We watched two adult birds and the nest with 4 white eggs; it’s strange to the end of August. Need to control this nest next two weeks.