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!

A juvenile hybrid dabbling duck

text & photos by ABu

When I was birding the UB Ponds on 15 Sep 2016 a strange looking duck caught my eyes. It was within a small flock of Baikal Teal and somehow resembled them. But the duck also differed from the Baikal Teals in a few points. It was clearly bigger and also longer. The general coloration was paler and it had a kind of diluted Baikal Teal’s face pattern. Its bill was longer and showed much more grey than can be seen on young Baikal Teals, which usually show only a small grey triangular patch on the base of the bill sides. After I had taken the record shots below, the flock slowly swam away to disappear behind the bushes and I could not relocate the ducks, so the two pictures here are all we got.

Back home I checked the photographs on the computer screen. This more or less convinced me that my initial field ID was right (as right as it can be with these hybrids when the parents are not known for sure): Northern Pintail x Baikal Teal. To get the opinion of experts I contacted Osao and Michiaki Ujihara, authors of this book, and they swiftly replied: a juvenile hybrid Northern Pintail x Baikal Teal. Generally this hybrid combination is quite well known and is recorded every now and then, but—according to the Ujiharas—juveniles of this combination have not yet been documented anywhere so far.The only illustration of a female of this hybrid is a painted female in their book. Males are also known because they are much more obvious and hence more often found.

My thanks go to Osao and Michiaki Ujihara for their expertise and to Nial Moores of Birds Korea who draw my attention to this hybrid combination many years ago.

Juvenile hybrid Northern Pintail x Baikal Teal with Baikal Teals

UB Ponds, September 2016. © Andreas Buchheim

Juvenile hybrid Northern Pintail x Baikal Teal with Baikal Teals

UB Ponds, September 2016. © Andreas Buchheim

BirdingMongolia Review #2

Osao Ujihara & Michiaki Ujihara 2015:

An Identification Guide to the Ducks of Japan

Among the community of worldwide gull watchers the name Ujihara is strongly connected to their brilliant website about gulls (see sidebar for a link) and to all, who wondered why there had been no updates since a while, here comes the answer: The authors, Osao Ujihara and his son Michiaki Ujihara, have switched from gull studies to studying ducks, and on 2 November 2015 their new book “An Identification Guide to the Ducks of Japan” (ISBN 978-4-416-71557-4) has been released. It is written in Japanese and “westerners” might wonder whether it would be worth buying it. To cut a long story short: Yes, buy it!

My statement probably needs some foundation which will follow below.

Both authors have studied ducks in detail for 30(!) years now. Mostly, they observed wild individuals but captive birds of known age had also been scrutinized. Several online galleries had been used widely during the preparation of this book and the authors have travelled to North America to complete their knowledge about ducks. As being well-trained from many years of gull watching, they were sharp-eyed enough to discover even a new field mark to tell Eurasian Teal from Green-winged Teal. This new criterion for the ID of these notoriously difficult-to-identify twin species can, of course, be found in the species account of their new book.

The book contains details on the plumages of no less than 46 species of duck, including Lesser Whistling Duck, Common Shelduck, Ruddy Shelduck, and even Crested Shelduck. This means that all species ever been recorded (or claimed) in Japan are dealt with on a total of 303 pages.

Page 4 to 15 serve a s a quick guide by showing all species standing and in flight, in male and female plumages so that a quick glimpse to these pages will lead the observer to the (hopefully right) species account. The introduction (p 16 to p 30) treats the general layout of the species accounts, duck topography, the development of the plumage from duckling to adult with lots of photographs, examples of plumage aberrations, and much more.

The species accounts give the Japanese, scientific and English names of the species. A distribution map informs about the species’ breeding and, if not resident, wintering ranges. This is followed by a text (useless if you cannot read Japanese) which informs about the general features of the species, its distribution, habitat, behavior and voice before a detailed description regarding the identification of each plumage is given.

Despite the fact that the text is of little use to westerners, for the ID process, the main parts are the illustrations and photographs anyway. Each species has been painted by the authors and the illustrations are both very modern and accurate (means you can even trust the colour of the irides!). All that is needed for a thorough duck ID and hence also for any kind of related research, is shown and one even can tell the differences between different feather generations.

Some of the photographs from the Baikal Teal chapter

© O. Ujihara & M. Ujihara

Illustration of the plumages of Falcated Duck

© O. Ujihara & M. Ujihara

Illustration of the plumages of Baer’s Pochard

© O. Ujihara & M. Ujihara

Each chapter (apart from the one about the probably extinct Crested Shelduck) is also accompanied by three (species that are very rare in Japan: Lesser Whistling Duck, Cotton Pygmy Goose, Steller’s and Common Eiders, Barrow’s Goldeneye) to 30 (American Wigeon), but usually 8 to 10 photographs. In total, 639 photographs have been published, of which only 40 had not been taken by the authors (all those used by other photographers are quoted below each photo). Almost 90% of the pictures are from Japan and c14% of the shots show captive individuals.

Illustration of the plumages of Common Goldeneye

© O. Ujihara & M. Ujihara

Captions for illustrations and photographs likewise contain plumage abbreviations in English, so all readers will be able to understand what the respective picture is all about. Whenever necessary, feathers important for either identifying the species or the age or the sex of the bird in question are shown in additional illustrations and/or photographs.

Intermingled between the species accounts readers will find additional chapters, i.e. about male-like plumaged females (p 157 to p 163) or about the many duck hybrids which are shown in paintings as well as photographs (p 147 to p 156 for dabbling ducks plus p 296 to p 300 for diving ducks).

As a conservationist I would have liked a more thorough treatment of hybrids between the critically endangered Baer’s Pochard and other species, as it seems increasingly likely to come across such hybrids. However, hybrids are unprecedentedly well covered by this book and with this set of excellent illustrations of “pure” birds it should be possible now to track down the odd hybrid carrying genes of Baer’s!

As the book shows rare species for European and American readers, buyers from both continents will surely benefit from purchasing it.

There is, of course, a major caveat: The text is in Japanese and this will be a bit discouraging for Non-Japanese birdwatchers. With a little cross-referencing it should however be possible to navigate through the vast information given. Nowadays it should be possible to put an English version on the market, especially as the book is currently only available for Kindle (c28€/c30US$). This is a well made book which deserves a much wider distribution and an English version would guarantee this.

Congratulations to the authors! And a heartfelt Thank You for their permission to show the title page and illustrations from their book here!

If you are interested, please go to Amazon Japan.

Unfortunately, the paperback version of this book is already out of stock and it is unclear when more will be printed.

Andreas Buchheim

Redecision reloaded

text & photos © Andreas Buchheim

In the morning of Saturday, 12 January 2013 I was picked up by members of the Mongolian Birdwatching Club for the Asian Waterbird Census 2013. We arrived at the UB Ponds at about 10 a.m., parked the four cars near the small bridge and started—to see nothing. There was too much steam rising from the sewage stream and the only waterfowl we saw—yes, it is more than nothing—were two flying Ruddy Shelducks and a male Mallard. Quickly it was decided to delay the count until afternoon and check-out the area below Songino Khairkhan Uul first.

On our way we did not see much, apart from several flocks of the local Horned Larks (brandti). In one of the flocks we could find even an individual belonging to the northern subspecies flava, a long expected addition to my UB winter list. The area itself had, OK, almost nothing on offer, but we managed to find a group of 15 Azure-winged Magpies, a single White-backed Woodpecker, two Great Spotted Woodpeckers, two Eurasian Nuthatches, several Mealy Redpolls, a Hawfinch and a Great Tit, not much for an area like this. There was neither a single thrush nor a Bohemian Waxwing something that didn't come unexpected—no fruits, no fruit eaters (see my October post). Luckily some Common Ravens found an immature White-tailed Eagle for us. As no one was satisfied we concluded to skip the waterfowl count and go birding elsewhere instead. After a short discussion about going to Nukht Valley or not, it was decided to give Zaisan Valley a try, mainly because of the large flock of Pine Grosbeaks that had been seen earlier (see here) and because of the fact that Nukht Valley is now totally fenced off for the public and open just only for the upper class.

The parking lot at the uppermost tourist camp in Zaisan Valley was full of cars when we arrived but somehow we could squeeze in our cars somewhere and—had some tea. During the tea break we saw two each of Azure and Great Tits. Obviously the valley is very popular with hikers, at least during the weekends. Two Pine Grosbeaks were quickly found in the lower part of the valley but further up we found about 30 more, unfortunately they were feeding high up in the trees.

Pine Grosbeak, probably a young male,

Zaisan Valley, Ulaanbaatar, Jan 2013

Pine Grosbeak, female, this one was together

with the bird in the photo above,

Zaisan Valley, Ulaanbaatar, Jan 2013

Although the valley was crowded there were groups of Eastern Marsh Tits, a single Willow Tit, several Eurasian Nuthatches, Eurasian Jays (brandti) and Spotted Nutcrackers, mainly because there are two table-like rocks where the hikers are putting food for the birds. We spent some time for photographing but the light was already poor (no sun from 2 a.m.) and we opted for a last site, preferably to witness our second sunset for the day.

Eastern Marsh Tits at the upper bird table,

Zaisan Valley, Ulaanbaatar, Jan 2013

Eastern Marsh Tit, Zaisan Valley, Ulaanbaatar, Jan 2013

Willow Tit, this bird went totally undetected until

I checked my photographs. Zaisan Valley, Ulaanbaatar, Jan 2013

“the dagger”, Eurasian Nuthatch digging for nuts,

Zaisan Valley, Ulaanbaatar, Jan 2013

The same bird had success, soon,

Zaisan Valley, Ulaanbaatar, Jan 2013

At our final birding site, the riparian bushland east of the marshal bridge we flushed two Long-eared Owls which were real experts in disappearing in the bushes. We searched for birds but could not find many, just a single Long-tailed Rosefinch—a stunning male, a Great Tit and an Azure Tit. Although the Tuul Gol had some open stretches, they did not host Dipper or Solitary Snipe, so the search must continue. This could due to the presence of dozens of people who had driven across the frozen river and spending the afternoon in the sun. After a long and almost birdless day, the members of the Mongolian Birdwatching Club as well as the members of the Mongolian Academy of Science (MAS), the guys of Nomadic Expeditions and I went home. This trip was partly sponsored by the Wildlife Science and Conservation Center of Mongolia (WSCC). Thank you guys, it was nevertheless nice to go out birding with you!

Winter art on the Tuul Gol, Ulaanbaatar, Jan 2013