Waterbird photos needed

B. Nyambayar is making a waterbird photo identification poster for soum (district) and aimag (province) veterinarians and environmental officers as part of FAO/USAID funded avian influenza project. The poster will be double sided and will contain colour plates that consist of some 30 of the most common birds that can be found at lakes and other wetlands of Mongolia, such as cormorant, gulls, shorebirds, cranes etc. He needs good photos of the following species. The poster will be used at local level avian influenza surveillance by local people. So, if you have photos of any of the species listed below he would appreciate your contribution to this important project. Photographers will be acknowledged in print on the poster.

Great Cormorant
Great crested Grebe
Common Goldeneye
Mute Swan
Greylag Goose
Bean Goose
Grey Heron
Mallard
Garganey
European Wigeon
Northern Pintail
Northern Shoveler
Gadwall
Green-winged Teal
Common Pochard
Common Crane
Black-winged Stilt
Pacific Golden Plover
Kentish Plover
Spotted Redshank
Black-headed Gull
White-tailed Eagle
Pallas's Fish-eagle

Please contact Bnyamba at magicnet.mn for more information

Hybrid Red-throated x Black-throated Thrush

B. Nyambayar has sent the photo of a male hybrid Red-throated x Black-throated Thrush, take at the little park just to the north of the government building in Ulaanbaatar on 2nd March.



The superspecies Dark-throated Thrush Turdus [ruficollis] consists of the allospecies Red-throated Thrush Turdus [ruficollis] ruficollis and Black-throated Thrush Turdus [ruficollis] atrogularis.

next MBWC outing, 16 March 2008

Erkhem shuwuu ajiglagchidad,

Ta bukhnii ajil turul, hicheel surlaga sain baigaa gedegt itgej bna. Manai ene udaagiin aylal 2008.03.16-nd 10:00 tsagt Baigali Orchnii Yamnii uudend uulzaj Tuul goliin khundiin shuwuudiig ajiglakhaar yavakh bolno. Ta bukhen khotsrolgui ireerei.

Saikhniig husiye,
Huyagaa,

Dear participants,

We hope you all are well. Our next trip will be to the Tuul river. We are meeting in front of the Ministry of Natural and Environment of Mongolia at 10:00 o'clock on 16th March 2008. Please come on time.

Best regards,
Huyagaa

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

______________________________________

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

Axel

BirdLife News Round-up: February 2008

A pair of Critically Endangered Sociable Lapwings was observed to fly more than 5,000 miles, from Kazakhstan to central Sudan, where they have been spending the winter (Sociable Lapwings tracked to Sudan, 27 February).

This, and other intersting conservation related news can be read at BirdLife International´s round-up for February 2008.

Raptors Conservation (journal)

Dear Colleagues,

The Raptors Conservation 11/2008 - The Newsletter of the raptors of the
East Europe and North Asia ISSN 1814-0076 (Print), ISSN 1814-8654
(Online, PDF 9.6 MB) is available from:

http://ecoclub.nsu.ru/raptors/RC/

Contents

Editors - 3
Events – 5

Raptors Conservation

Matsina A.I. Short Review of Techniques for Preventing Electrocution of Birds on Overhead Power Lines. - 10

Karyakin I.V. Lines-Killers Continue to Harvest the Mortal Crop in Kazakhstan. - 14

Levashkin A.P. Monitoring Results of Nestboxes for Ural Owl in the Bogorodsk Region of the N.Novgorod District, Russia. – 22

Raptors Research

Karyakin I.V. The Greater Spotted Eagle in the Volga Region, Ural Mountains and Western Siberia. - 23

Bakka S.V., Kiseleva N.Yu. The Greater Spotted Eagle in the N.Novgorod District. - 70

Zhimulev I.F., Ananko N.G., Andreenkov O.V., Kosterin O.E. Distribution of Nests of Birds of Prey in Akademgorodok of Novosibirsk and its Vicinities, Russia. – 73

Short Reports

Bakka S.V., Karyakin I.V., Moskalik L.N. The First Record of the Osprey Breeding on the Electric Pole in Povolzhye, Russia. - 76

New Publications and Videos - 77

Best wishes,
Igor Karyakin
__________

Previous issues of this excellent journal, with all articles in Russian and in English, can be downloaded as PDF files from the website listed above. Several papers were dealing with birds of prey in Mongolia and adjacent regions in Russia and China.

Axel