Birding trip - Day 2

We got up at 5:30 in the morning, although the sun was already shining it still felt quite early for the Dutch friends, who were still jet-lagged. However once outside everybody was ready for a day birding in the wonderful Kanshengel desert. Beside the more common desert birds, the goal for the day was to find Macqueen's Bustard and Caspian plover. We started the day driving together to a place where we hoped to find Macqueen’s Bustard. With the sun and temperatures rising we had wonderful light and got out of the car on the top of a hill where we had a great view of our surroundings. We did see plenty of Greater Short-toed Larks, brown-necked ravens were flying by and the distance we saw a Montegu’s Harrier. Unfortunately no sign of Macqueen’s Bustards. After scanning the area for about 90 minutes we decided to head back to our base for breakfast. On the way back we did see sandgrouses near the well, it turned out to be 5 Pallas’s Sandgrouses, which let us approach pretty close so we had great views and all could make nice pictures of these beauties. When we drove further we saw a Crested Honey Buzzard flying just ahead of us in our direction. The jeeps were parked in a strategic position and we all got nice views and shots of this beautiful bird. Passing by another well we stopped and saw Ruff, White Wagtail and our first Black-bellied Sandgrouses. Also Barn swallows were visiting to collect mud for their nests. On the way back we passed by a Yurt camp, it turned out Madina know the people running that camp and we were invited for breakfast. The people in the camp were hospital, showed us a Halys viper snake and Lesser Asian scorpion that they catched and kept in old water bottles. These reptiles were released shortly and we made few photo’s of these frightening animals. After we had some good lunch, Madina surprised us with coffee (which was a bit too strong for most our stomachs, but still tasted pretty good).
After breakfast we continued our search for Macqueens Bustard and especially Caspian Plovers and Greater Sand Plovers. Madina decided to stay at the camp to rest and make some calls. After a short drive we saw more Black-bellied Sandgrouses, Brown-neck ravens, omnipresent larks, and a little ringed plover. A hobby sat on the ground and was very well approachable, every now and then flying a bit further but nevertheless we managed to get some nice pictures of it.
Askar, driving one jeep with Marnix and Rene, found a pair of Caspian Plover, and by means of the walky-talky system let Vassiliy, driving the other jeep with Albert, know they were. The Plovers were very quite and we all could make nice pictures of these beauties. We split up again to enhance our chances finding interesting birds. After a while Askar spotted the so much desired MacQueens Bustard, although far away. After warning Vassiliy we tried to come closer, but this bird turned out to be very shy and did not let us approach but flew completely out of sight. Askar managed to get few pictures though.
Continuing the search we did find the Bustard however we did see a couple of Greater Sand Plovers, Spanish Sparrow and Black-bellied Sandgrouses near a well. Also Red-headed bubtings, Bimaculated- and Kalandra Larks were everywhere. We also encountered Steppe Runner and Steppe Agama (2 pretty large lizards). On the way back to the Yurt camp to pick up Madina, we saw a Short-toed Snake Eagle first on the ground and then in the air. Eventually we got to the base camp, picked up madina and headed to our own base camp for the lunch.
Before lunch we explored the area around our base, where there was some old stable and other remnants of a once lovely farmhouse. Plenty of common birds like Indian Sparrow, Lesser- and common whitethroats, Spotted Flycatchers, Hoopoe, swallows, etc. Also Vassiliy found a nest of a Greater Sandpiper, about 150m from our campsite. After the lovely lunch from Madina, we headed to a small village to look for a little owl and Indian sparrow who lived there. We saw few birds on our way there, among them our first Hume’s leaf warbler and common kingfisher along a stream. Arriving to the village, we did find the little Owl, Indian and other sparrows. After exploring a bit we decided to visit another part of the desert with different vegetation. Along the road we spotted nest of Long-legged Buzzard, close to the road in a low tree. The nest contained 3 chickens, the parent were flying around at a good distance as well. In the desert we made a hike, and saw few warblers but they were not easy to photograph, because they were mainly hiding in the scrubs. We did see Sykes warbler, lesser white-throats and Asian Desert Shrike though. After exploring the area for about an hour or 2, we headed back to our camp for diner. At our camp we again explored a bit the surroundings, and beside all common birds mentioned before we found Blue-throat, Common Rock-thrush, Isabelline Wheatear and a hybrid of Turkestan x Red-backed shrike. Madina prepared nice diner again, which we enjoyed with some fresh beers in the sunset. After diner we visited another birders camp, where a befriend ornithologist stayed, to talk about where to find MacQueens bustard, we decided to join their group the next day at 5:30 for the sunrise to look for the MacQueens bustards. After returning to our camp, we managed to get some power from a generator to reload the batteries of our camera’s, downloaded our pictures to a laptop and had a lovely evening, talking about what we saw and the plans for the next day! Around midnight we all went to sleep, for another short night.

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