February 17, 2011

Mongolian Bird Watching Club’s
Ulaanbaatar waterbird census

Members of the Mongolian Bird Watching Club, led by N. Tseveenmyadag have observed and counted wintering birds in the area of Umkhii lake (“UB ponds”) and Songino Khairkhan Mountain, to the west of Ulaanbaatar on 22 January 2011. 26 species, totalling over 1000 birds were the final tally:

Ruddy Shelduck 163, Mallard 157, Goldeneye 3, Cinereous Vulture 12, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker 1, Great Spotted Woodpecker 3, White-backed Woodpecker 1, Common Magpie 14, Azure-winged Magpie 22, Red-billed Chough 51, Carrion Crow 9, Common Raven 46, Bohemian Waxwing 400+, Great Tit 8, Azure Tit 13, Horned Lark 40, Eurasian Nuthatch 2, White-cheeked Starling (Grey Starling) 1, Red-throated Thrush 2, Eurasian Tree Sparrow 60, Siberian Accentor 1, Common Redpoll 26, Arctic Redpoll 3, Hawfinch 30, Eurasian Bullfinch 9, and Pallas’s Rosefinch 2.

Remarkable is the winter record of White-cheeked Starling (with photo on the website linked below).

For the full report (in Mongolian), including maps and photos click here.

1 comment:

egor_13 said...

Good results!
However, it is strange to get so few Goldeneyes.

Grey-cheeked Starling is cool!

Some days ago, we got a wintering Chaffinch male at L Baikal near Listvyanka. Not the first winter record of the species at all, but the first well-documented and well-photographed one. NB - none wintering Bramblings ever late than ib the early December some years ago.