UB Ponds: full day!

19 September 2016

text & photos by ABu

Not without reason this site is called “green ponds”

by my fellow Mongolian birdwatchers

UB, September 2016

Ulaanbaatar has a traffic issue. Several traffic experts had been invited by the city government and they all have come to the very same conclusion: it is neither the number of cars nor the total length of all streets and also it is not the parking situation that causes traffic jams almost everywhere. Instead the experts identified the mindset of the drivers as the main reason. Apparently, smart people in the city government understood that it would take too long to change the mindset of a whole country—this would be possible by a combination of measures like education, law enforcement and high fines, according to the experts-and put driving restrictions by the license plate numbers into effect. That means that our car is not allowed to run on Mondays, roughly in the time between 08:00 and 20:00 hrs.

To avoid fining I left our home at 06:30 hrs in the morning and drove across the city to UB ponds where then I had to stay the whole day-good for me! I returned after my full day at the site well after 20:00 hrs.

This time I used a different strategy to get pictures of the birds: Instead of restlessly wandering around and chase up all birds I stayed all day laying underneath a bush on the water’s edge and waited for the birds to come. The first things which came were no birds but several rain showers (actually also containing hail stones making the first part of my stay quite unpleasant) so I mainly had to keep my gear dry. Photographing anyway wasn’t possible during the first hours of my visit because of the thick cloud cover. Only after a few hours it slowly started clearing up and I could achieve some pictures. The wind increased during the day and in the afternoon it was blowing from the south at c. 5 Bft (29-38 km/h). All day I witnessed a permanent stream of raptors flying or even migrating southwest. By doing so the lower flying birds caused quite a stir among the ducks and waders allowing me to get some flight pictures as well. The most numerous raptors were Black-eared Kites and I stopped counting when the number had risen to 450 in the early afternoon. I had missed too many chances for taking pictures by focusing too much on counting the raptors.

Some of the flying ducks can be found in the pictures. Compare their respective underwing patterns.

For example, the underwings of Northern Pintail and Baikal Teal are completely different whereas their respective upperwings are quite alike. The underwings of Baikal and Common Teals do not differ so much but note the former’s broader white trailing edge and the darker leading edge. Baikal Teal is a little larger as well.

Northern Pintails underwing

UB, September 2016

Baikal Teal, underwing

UB, September 2016

Baikal (slightly bigger and in the lead) and Common Teals in flight

UB, September 2016

Baikal Teals landing

UB, September 2016

Baikal Teals, upperwing

UB, September 2016

Birdlist (66 species)

Greylag Goose a family of 2 adults plus their single juvenile
Ruddy Shelduck c170
Mallard c70
Gadwall c105
Northern Pintail 18
Northern Shoveler 35
Eurasian Wigeon 9
Common Teal c260
Garganey 1
Baikal Teal 22, sometimes all together
Falcated Duck 1

Eurasian Wigeons, underwing

UB, September 2016

A flock of Northern Shoveler and a Gadwall

UB, September 2016

Common Teal

UB, September 2016

Common Teal and Baikal Teals

UB, September 2016

Baikal Teals

UB, September 2016

Baikal Teal

UB, September 2016

Baikal Teals, Part of the flock when they were all together

UB, September 2016

 

Baikal Teal

UB, September 2016

Common Pochard c50
Tufted Duck c30, still some chicks partially in downs
Common Goldeneye 10

Common Goldeneye

UB, September 2016

Common Goldeneye

UB, September 2016

Common Goldeneye

UB, September 2016

Common Goldeneye

UB, September 2016

Goosander/Common Merganser 1
Great Crested Grebe 1
Eastern Little Grebe (ssp poggei) 1, supposedly the same I saw before

Adult female Tufted Duck

UB, September 2016

Tufted Duck, a partly downy chick

UB, September 2016

2 fully grown juv. Tufted Ducks

UB, September 2016

Great Cormorant 15, only 3 adults
Grey Heron c. 60
Black Stork 2 + 4 migrating south
Osprey 1 migrating south and too far away to be aged
Booted Eagle 1, pale morph
Black-eared Kite I counted 450 but easily there were several hundred more on the move after I had stopped counting them
Eastern Marsh Harrier 2
Upland Buzzard 2
Common Kestrel 1
Peregrine Falcon, ssp. calidus one 2cy
Saker Falcon 1
Eurasian Hobby 1
Eurasian Coot 30
Common Moorhen 4 adults, 3 juveniles and 3 pulli

Eastern Little Grebe

UB, September 2016

Eastern Little Grebe

UB, September 2016

Eastern Little Grebe

UB, September 2016

Eastern Little Grebe

UB, September 2016

Pacific Golden Plover 1 juv
Northern Lapwing c25
Spotted Redshank c45
Common Greenshank 6
Green Sandpiper 1
Common Snipe 4
Red-necked Phalarope 2 juv
Mongolian Gull c25, only 3 juv
Black-headed Gull 5
Oriental Turtle Dove 1

Eurasian Coot

UB, September 2016

Eurasian Coot

UB, September 2016

Eurasian Coot

UB, September 2016

Mongolian Horned Lark 3
Barn Swallow c200, all I could check belonged to ssp. tytleri
Richard’s Pipit 1
Red-throated Pipit 5
Olive-backed Pipit 1
White Wagtail c20, including a flock of 5, consisting only of the ssp. ocularis, 1 juv leucopsis and the rest baicalensis
Grey Wagtail 7
Daurian Redstart 7
Red-throated Thrush 2
Dusky Warbler 5
Pallas’s Warbler 2
Yellow-browed Warbler 7

Pale morph Booted Eagle

2cy calidus Peregrine Falcon

UB, September 2016

The same Peregrine

UB, September 2016

Great Tit 5
Azure Tit 22
White-crowned Penduline Tit 1
Common Magpie 6
Daurian Jackdaw 19
Oriental Crow 10
Eastern Rook c20
Common Raven 8
Red-billed Chough c25
Long-tailed Rosefinch 2
Little Bunting 6
Rustic Bunting 1

Juvenile Spotted Redshank

UB, September 2016

Juvenile Spotted Redshank

UB, September 2016

Northern Pintails, would you have recognized them?

UB, September 2016

 

Juv. Pacific Golden Plover

UB, September 2016

Out of the blue I heard a Pacific Golden Plover call and I imitated its calls. After a few seconds the bird—a naive juvenile—dropped down in front of me and was intensely looking for what it thought to be a companion. It soon realized that it had fallen into my audio trap and left right away.

What a fantastic day! The perfect final before going back to work and sorry for no songbirds this time!

CU next time so please keep visiting us at Birding Mongolia!