Western Mongolia – Bayan-Olgii

Lammergeier

Lammergeier

Last week I spent five days in Bayan-Olgii in western Mongolia. I had meetings with other NLM employees living there, but there was also time to go out birding. The Bayan-Olgii region differs quite a lot from the rest of Mongolia. The area in mostly inhabited by Kazakhs, who speak a language quite similar to Turkish – and to my surprise I was able to understand quite a lot of what the locals were saying. And I even met five people who spoke fluent Turkish – making communication easy as pie.

Siberian Stonechat

Compared to warm and green UB Bayan-Olgii was more like fifty shades of brown. And it was cold. One day we even had snow in town – and minus 6 celsius during the nights.

Ortolan Bunting

Hill Pigeon – common in the city center

I managed to get out a few times. On the second day I took a drive with Jan Ingve – and Norwegian friend living in Bayan-Olgii. We visited the area west of the city where we saw Ortolan Bunting, Siberian Stonechats, 50+ Hume’s Warblers, Daurian Partridge, Mongolian Gulls, Masked Wagtails, Lammergeier, Cinereous Vultures, Black Kites in their hundreds and a few Upland Buzzards.

Masked Wagtail

Masked Wagtail

I also visited Tolbo Lake and Tolbo Nuur southeast of Bayan-Olgii. The area between the city and the lakes is Altai stone desert. There were not many birds around except for hundreds of Mongolian Finches and Rock Sparrows at some draining channels along the road. Pied, Northern and Isabelline Wheatears were also present.

Pied Wheatear

Rock Sparrow

Mongolian Finch

Mongolian Finch – hard to get in Turkey

At the Talbo Lake there were Grey Herons and White Egrets, scattered Ruddy Shelducks and loads of Brandt’s Horned Larks.

Ruddy Shelduck

Talbo Nuur was another story. A conservative estimate of 20.000 waterfowl were present. Most common were Tufted Ducks and Common Goldeneyes, but Common Pochards, Red-creasted Pochards, Garganeys, Teals, Pintails, Bar-headed Goose, Great Creasted and Slavonian Grebe were also present. But the ducks were mostly eclipse, so who cares…

Bar-headed Goose

Red-necked Phalarope

I had to be back in Bayan-Olgii, so I didn’t have so much time scrutinizing all the birds – which would have revealed more good stuff for sure. But the ducks were very shy even when approaching by car. A small surprise was a Red-necked Phalarope at the sea-shore and a fly-by Steppe Eagle.

Steppe Eagle

We also visited a real eagle-hunter outside Bayan-Olgii. He had lot’s of things to tell. When asked about Snow Leopards he said that the Tavan Bogd area further west was better than closer to Bayan-Olgii. But both Lynx and Palla’s Cat were present in the vicinity. In fact he had recently caught a Palla’s Cat with his Eagle – and off he went to show me the fur. His father was also a famous eagle-hunter and had won the first price in the Eagle-festival earlier. But sadly he passed away last year.

Eagle Hunter and Wolf

Wolf

Mountain

He also explained that he mostly catches foxes and marmots, but wolves can also be caught with the eagles. But only eagles that have been caught as nestlings will attack wolves. If the eagles have been caught later and have been reared by theirs parents they will never engage with a wolf.

The eagle hunter had a wolf chained outside. He explained that he uses to catch a wolf puppie or two and keep it/them till winter when he kills it and sells the fur. By the way he also had a Saker…

After visiting the eagle-hunter we drove up in the mountains. At 2800 meters I found a female redstart-type. I don’t know what it is for sure…

Other birds and mammals included Marmots, White-winged Snowfinches, Hill Pigeons and Upland Buzzards.

White-winged Snowfinch

One thing that surprised me quite a lot was the number Hume’s Warblers. Even in Bayan-Olgii there could be up to 10 birds present in a single garden. I saw hundreds of Hume’s Warblers and only one single Yellow-browed during my stay.