juv Northern Grey Shrike

text & photos © A. Bräunlich

Recently Terry Townshend, a British birder who is running the fabulous Birding Beijing blog, posted a “Mystery Shrike from Inner Mongolia, China” on the Birding Frontiers website. It soon turned out to be a juvenile Northern Grey Shrike Lanius borealis (or excubitor, see taxonomic note below) sibiricus.

Since there are very few photos of this taxon on the web I post here three digiscoped photos of a juvenile, taken at Jalman Meadows in northern Mongolia's Khentii Mountains.

Juvenile Northern Grey Shrike L. b. sibiricus

Jalman Meadows, Khentii Mts, N Mongolia, 7 Sept 2011

Juvenile Northern Grey Shrike L. b. sibiricus

Jalman Meadows, Khentii Mts, N Mongolia, 7 Sept 2011

Juvenile Northern Grey Shrike L. b. sibiricus

Jalman Meadows, Khentii Mts, N Mongolia, 7 Sept 2011

The forest steppe at Jalaman Meadows where

the L. borealis photos were taken. 7 Sept 2011

taxonomic note

Olsson et al. (2010) discussed the incongruence between the current taxonomy and the mitochondrial gene tree of the Lanius excubitor complex and related species. The concluded that, based on the mitochondrial gene tree the Lanius excubitor complex may be treated as at least six species, L. borealis, L. elegans, L. excubitor, L. lahtora, L. meridionalis, and L. uncinatus, but that other taxonomic treatments are also possible. The paper can be downloaded here.

Compare how similar the Jalman Northern Shrike looks to a young North American Lanius borealis: click here and here. Another indication, in addition to the genetics, that sibiricus should be treated as a subspecies of L. borealis, and not of L. excubitor (if the split is agreed with).

The following taxa of the Lanius excubitor complex occur in Mongolia (comments welcome!):

Northern Grey Shrike Lanius borealis

• L. b. sibiricus breeding in N Mongolia
• L. b. mollis breeding in NW Mongolia

Great Grey Shrike Lanius excubitor

• L. e. homeyeri (includes leucopterus) very rare visitor NW Mongolia

Asian Grey Shrike Lanius lahtora

• L. l. pallidirostis (Steppe or Saxaul Shrike) breeding in drier parts of C & S Mongolia

Japanese Marsh Warbler (top),

Pallas’s Grasshopper Warbler (middle)

and Broad-billed Sandpipers (bottom)

Eastern Mongolia, Jun 2014, © T. Langenberg & A. Buchheim

part one

Introduction

text by Abu

Regular reader s of BIRDING MONGOLIA will be quite familiar with the participants of this year’s expedition to Mongolia’s Far East. All of them had been here previously at least once. In particular, Thomas Langenberg and Mathias Putze had contributed lots of excellent pictures (see here: Mountainbirds and here: Some Eastern Specialities and More). Travelling with those two guys was amazing: they alone took more than 25,000 frames during the trip! Only a very small fraction of them can and will be featured on Birding Mongolia.

Our trip started on 27 May 2014 and we hoped to see some of the late migrants like the different species of grasshopper warbler (Locustella including the former Bradypterus species) or flycatchers of the genus Muscicapa. We also intended to try our luck on waders. After a slow start at the Tuul River in UB, where not a single Phyllosc was seen, we drove to Choibalsan and spent the night at the Kherlen River, but our first real stop was at the famous Buir Nuur.

Here the situation had completely changed. Thanks to the wet summers of 2012 and 2013 the water level had risen by more than a meter. That meant that we had to alter our plans. The 2011 campsite was flooded and we had to choose an alternative site. Lots of lagoons in the south-western part of the lake did not only support a large number of waders, there was a rather unpleasant consequence as well: MOSQUITOS. Millions of them!

Mongolia’s Far East is feared for its strong population of mosquitoes and during our entire stay in the east we were awaited by millions of female gnats wherever we were. After a while, those parts of the skin, which were permanently exposed, did not show any reaction anymore. Unfortunately those parts which were exposed only few times or less per day could not adapt to the presence of the mossies—hence we frequently caught itching at the most uncomfortable body sites.

Bloodsucking sequence, the blood was kindly donated

by Matze Putze. Eastern Mongolia, Jun 2014 © T. Langenberg

Matze and Thom documenting the blood donation.

Eastern Mongolia, Jun 2014 © K. Krätzel

A tent full of mosquitoes.

 Eastern Mongolia, Jun 2014 © K. Krätzel

There is, of course, protective clothing like head nets or our “mossie stopper” gloves. But taking out a Bearded Tit from a mistnet is very difficult with gloves and it is not at all nice without them, especially during a mosquito storm. Every evening we were happily crawling into our tents to get rid of the attacks and only after we had left the east there was an obvious relief.

Proper clothing was much helpful to be able

to concentrate on photographing.

Eastern Mongolia, Jun 2014 © K. Krätzel

My grim face could not deter the mosquitoes

so I had to rely on my “mossie stopper” gloves.

Eastern Mongolia, Jun 2014 © K. Krätzel & T. Langenberg

Wherever we came, the water levels had been distinctly higher than three years ago and there were hundreds of oxbow lakes creating wetlands and swamps. Access to several sites was only possible by walking through damp areas. Sometimes the water level was even too high. This was not the only reason to call this trip “Swamprunner Tour 2014”. One of the few wader species we caught was Broad-billed Sandpiper which is called “Sumpfläufer” in German and which could be literally translated into “swamprunner”. As it is not that often seen in Germany we were much delighted to find more than 40 foraging at Buir Nuur. The subspecies here is sibirica and we will soon publish a larger series of photos of this more colourful subspecies (more colourful than the nominate occurring in Europe). And there will be much more on show: we had a first for Mongolia, several second records, the first breeding record of… for Mongolia, achieved the first in-field pictures of… and lots of fantastic photographs…

…so watch out! We do the same!

Camel eye, Eastern Mongolia, Jun 2014 © A. Buchheim

Migration is going on!

text & photos by Abu (© A. Buchheim)

Can you identify it? see pic 12

Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014

For a birdwatcher the best way to overcome a jetlag is to go birding. And so I did on 3 Oct, just one day after my return to Mongolia. I started at 9 a.m. at the Marshall Bridge near the presidential palace. The sky was brilliantly blue and it was perfectly calm, wind wise. Feather wise I quickly realized that the bushes were full of birds. Most of them were quick in disappearing but until I left the riverbanks at 3 p.m. I managed to get some species on the list. By the time I finished the weather had worsened, with the wind reaching force 5 on the Beaufort scale. It had blown in clouds from the north. Bogd Khan Uul, the huge mountain to the south of Ulaanbaatar, even received some snow. Down at the river I caught a few raindrops only.

Photographing was not only difficult because of the behaviour of the birds but also because not all leaves had dropped. Thanks to the inaccessibility of the site due to high water levels the bushes had obviously grown denser (compare here: twigs, twigs, twigs).

Bird list (39 species)

Mallard c.40 flew along the river
Eurasian Teal 9 flying along with the Mallards
Grey Heron 1
Eurasian Black Vulture a single non-juv. crossing the valley towards Bogd Khan Uul
Eurasian Sparrowhawk 1
Northern Goshawk 1 juv. circling over the slopes of Bodg Khan Uul
Common Kestrel 1
Common Snipe two birds flushed
Oriental Turtle Dove all 6 birds seen well enough had been juv, two more seen, but not good enough to allow aging

juv. Oriental Turtle Dove, Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014

juv. Oriental Turtle Dove, same bird as above

Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014

juv. Oriental Turtle Dove, different bird

Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014

juv. Oriental Turtle Dove, third individual

Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014

Common Skylark c.20 flying around
Grey Wagtail 1
Siberian Accentor c.40 seen and many more heard
Red-flanked Bluetail c.25

Siberian Accentor, Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014

adult male Red-flanked Bluetail

Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014

Red-flanked Bluetail, same individual

Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014

Daurian Redstart c.25
Red-throated Thrush 3
Dusky Thrush 1
Naumann’s Thrush 12
(many more thrushes seen, but left unidentified)
Siberian Thrush one 1cy flushed but not relocated
Pallas’s Warbler about 5 seen and few more heard
Two-barred Greenish or Arctic Warbler 1, only glimpsed
Great Tit 10 (not many)
Azure Tit about 45, as usual very difficult to catch with my camera, some coming incredibly close, down to 0.5 m, that is too close for my lens, though!

Azure Tit, Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014

Eurasian Nuthatch c.10
Common Magpie c.15
Daurian Jackdaw c.60 in a mixed corvid flock
Eastern Rook 110 in a mixed corvid flock
Oriental Crow c.30
Red-billed Chough 2
Common Raven 6
Tree Sparrow c.50
Brambling 3
Pale Mountain Twite 5
Long-tailed Rosefinch most of them heard, only 20 seen

"Pale Mountain" Twite (ssp altaica)

Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014

male Long-tailed Rosefinch, the orangey

colouration is due to the leaves in front of it!

Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014
 

Little Bunting, same as in the first picture

Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014

 Little Bunting, Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014

Little Bunting, Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014

Common Reed Bunting c.25
Little Bunting c.70
Rustic Bunting 1
Pine Bunting c.45
Meadow Bunting c.60
Black-faced Bunting c.15

Common Reed Bunting, Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014

Common Reed Bunting, same bird as above

Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014

Common Reed Bunting, Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014

male Meadow Bunting, Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014

male Meadow Bunting, Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014

Meadow Bunting, Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014

Meadow Bunting, Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014

Meadow Bunting, Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014

Meadow Bunting, same as in previous pic

Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014

Rustic Bunting, Tuul River, UB, Oct 2014