Mongolian Bird Watching Club established

Long awaited, the Mongolian Bird Watching Club (MBWC) has started its activities for birdwatchers finally. The club's activities are led by Ganhuyag, a graduate student at the National University of Mongolia (NUM), who is keen to learn about birds and active in bird watching. At the moment, the Wildlife Science and Conservation Center (WSCC) is supporting the Club with logistics and bird books etc. Recently WSCC received several pairs of binoculars and a spotting scope, donated to MBWC from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the partner of BirdLife International in the UK. Currently members of the Mongolian Bird Watching Club are all young people from different fields. I would like to encourage everybody to support this Club and its young members and enjoy bird watching together.

In the past few weeks, the Club members made several trips to Tuul River and Bogdkhaan mountains near Ulaanbaatar. Last time, on 24 February 2008, the club members watched birds in some green spots of Ulaanbaatar. They visited gardens near the Ecological Education Center, the Government Building, the garden south of Sukhbaatar square, and the Central (Nairamdal) Park. The day was warm but not very sunny. Birds observed included a good number of Bohemian Waxwing, Eurasian Hawfinch, Common Redpoll, Azure Tit, Lesser-spotted Woodpecker, and Long-tailed Rosefinch. Also Carrion Crow, Common Raven, Eurasian Magpie, Eurasian Tree Sparrow, pigeons, House Sparrow, and Great Tits were observed at every place visited. Aditionally there were 4 Red-throated Thrushes in the garden north of Government Building.

Nyambayar of WSCC helped the Club to create a web blog. It is online now and you can visit it here: http://mongolbirdwatchclub.blogspot.com. It is another nice informative web page like Birding Mongolia. Currently, the website is in Mongolian language only.

Members of the MBWC birding the Tuul river.

Information provided by Nyambayar Batbayar

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This is a most welcome development. Excellent! Congratulations and good luck with all forthcoming activities of MBWC!

Axel