Red-billed Chough: Corvids are Cool

Posted on July 11, 2015 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Striking a regal pose after a morning of catching grasshoppers: Close cousins of crows, ravens, jays and magpies and adaptable to both urban and wilderness environs, choughs are common around Ulaanbaatar.

The convention: On the crest of this rocky hill, there were dozens of choughs. A hundred. Maybe more. Many of them were gathered around a cluster of chough feathers near these rocks. A fox? A kite? An eagle or hawk? Some predator had diminished their numbers by one. The entire flock was concerned.

Choughs in dawn light, hanging together, winging their way across the mountains and steppe near Ulaanbaatar.

Urban Birding: First Flight – Isabelline Wheatear Chicks Feeding and Fledging

Posted on June 20, 2015 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Tired of waiting for mom, this isabelline wheatear chick (Oenanthe isabellina) faced the morning sun and achieved its first airborne moments. (11 additional photos.)

Many species of animals are highly adaptable – if given half a chance. Until recently, this construction site in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, was steppe grasslands. Chock full of the abandoned rodent holes isabelline wheatears seek out to make their nests, it was perfect habitat for these passerines.

But as Mongolia’s population continues to grow, the grasslands which once seemed limitless are shrinking. This fortunate adult and her mate successfully reared a pair of chicks in a cavity beneath an old truck tire. Here, safe from the stray dogs that plague this city, and unnoticed in a lot that has yet to be developed, the chicks’ parents have been able to forage the steady supply of grubs and insects their offspring thrive on.

Unfortunately, these will likely be the last wheatears to brood on this lot. On our morning run today, we noticed that the bulldozers have arrived. Yet another apartment building and adjoining parking lot will replace the last remnants of suitable habitat.

We had been observing the adult wheatears in this area for some time. But only on this, the final day the birds were here, did we realize a nest and chicks were in such close proximity. We shot these photos through a locked gate, at a far enough distance that it was a challenge to get clear captures.

At one point we observed an interesting behavior. The chicks were pecking at a piece of plastic. The mother, observing this and perhaps understanding, somehow, that ingesting the plastic could be fatal to her offspring, picked up the rubbish and flew off several meters from the nest before dropping it and returning.

There seemed to be no sating the young birds’ appetites…The adults returned again and again…

With much anticipation…

Their stubby wings and chubby bodies hardly seemed to bode well for flight. Was it out of boredom or hunger – or something even more primal – that prompted one of the birds to begin vigorously stretching its wings?

Suddenly it occurred to us. These little guys are going to fledge, right now!

And just like that…

The female returned for a final look at her empty nest, then caught up with the chicks. They hid behind a a pile of rusted junk, and that was the last we saw of them.

Who would suspect that a a nest of birds was once here, hidden safe and well-fed beneath this rotting tire?

A while later, we encountered this juvenile perched on the ledge of an apartment near ours. Where will they go next year? It’s a question with no easy answer in a world that continues to fill up with people.

Daurian Partridge: Birds of Mongolia

Posted on January 4, 2015 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

We encountered these softball-shaped Daurian partridge (Perdix daurica) in the pre-dawn of a December trip to Mongolia’s Hustai National Park.

Any day we see a new species of bird or other animal is a good day. On a recent three-day trip to Hustai, we had several such encounters. Nothing was any cuter than these relatives of pheasants and quail that would have fit perfectly in our cupped hands.

We startled them, a covey of 14, as they were feeding on seeds on the coldest morning to date this winter in Mongolia. Maybe it was the sub zero (Fahrenheit) temperatures, or the fact that none of us – including the birds – were fully awake. But uncharacteristically they let us hang around and snap a few photos in the blue morning twilight. The orange beard-like feathers and gray side whiskers are part of their fall and winter plumage.

Named for the Daurian region of Russia, the average Daurian partridge is about 11 or 12 inches (28 to 30 cm) from head to tail and weighs around one half to three quarters of a pound (225 to 340 grams). The main part of their diet consists of seeds, which are abundant on Mongolia’s steppe grasslands. Insects and berries also figure into their diet, when available. Partridge are ground nesters, having developed a long-term dislike of heights (such as tree branches) when, Daedalus (father of Icarus of Greek legend) threw his nephew Perdix off the Athena hill in a fit of anger. Not wishing to experience another such fall, members of genus Perdix avoid high places to this day. So the legend goes.

But they do fly, and this is the more usual view of Daurian partridge. Twice, previously, while hiking the Mongolian steppe we’ve had our startled hearts stop in our chests as a thrumming whoosh of wingbeats exploded practically underfoot. Once the birds have flushed, it’s difficult to approach them again, although you can sometimes track them down by listening for their rix, rix, rix, call as they regroup.

Oasis in the Southern Gobi: A Camel-Back Trek

Posted on December 6, 2014 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Brown with October’s cold, a gnarled desert tree frames buntings (possibly Jankowski’s) (Emberiza sp.) near our ger in Mongolia’s southern Gobi Desert .

A few miles south of the Khongoryn Els singing dunes marked our southern-most push into the Gobi.

A herdsman’s goats crowd around a rare source of water.

While driving, we encountered a species of gazelle that was new to us – black-tailed gazelle (Gazella subgutturosa).

The black-tails proved to be every bit as skittish as the Mongolian gazelle we’d been seeing throughout the trip.

After driving through an expanse of mostly sand and rock, we came into an area of small trees, shrubs and tall grasses, evidence of water close to the desert’s surface. The family gers there would be our camp for the next two nights. With water available, one of our first orders of business was good hair shampooings all around. This was to be the closest thing to a shower we had during our eight-day trek, and it was decidedly refreshing.

Jimi Carter and I lug water cans to our ger for impromptu hair washing. The effects of the mini-shower were immediately spirit lifting.

There was a large gerbil warren not far from our camp – and signs that a fox had recently visited it.

For dinner, the appetizers featured steaming bowls of temeni suute tsai (suu – te – tsay) – camel milk tea, fried bread and camel milk aarts. Aarts is similar to sweet, mild cream cheese. It was absolutely delicious, and we had to remind ourselves to save room for the main course – goat with a variety of goat meat sausages.

The sunset that night was, as usual, spectacular.

This was the most spacious and ornately decorated ger we stayed in. Note the bag of aarts – camel milk cream cheese – on the right wall. After breakfast, our host rounded up several camels for our trek to a set of dunes about three miles from the ger.

Decked out in a traditional dell, our driver, Nimka, (foreground) and our host were ready to mount up and lead the way to the dunes.

Raptors use the dunes as perches and hunting grounds. Here a cinereous vulture (Aegypius monachus) executes a take-off…

…and a common buzzard (Buteo buteo) soars above the landscape scanning for prey.

Evidence of a successful hunt. The porcupine-like quills are those of a hedgehog. We found several of these pellets along the ridge of the dune. Birds of prey regurgitate the undigested parts of the birds and mammals they dine on.

Camels tethered below, we ascended a fairly steep dune where we’d seen raptors perched. Although we never did encounter a fox, once again their tracks were present, along with those of hares.

We named our camels for the trek. Here Barbra’s camel, Timmy, hams it up for the camera. (The Mongolian word for camel is teme – hence Timmy the teme.)

Below: Surprisingly lush growths of various seed producing grasses provide forage for the abundant bird and rodent populations, which in turn provide prey for foxes, wolves and the Gobi’s numerous raptors.

In addition to the many buntings and sparrows around this oasis ger, there were times in the early morning when thousands of doves filled the skies.

The Gobi Desert’s Valley of the Lammergeier

Posted on December 3, 2014 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

On our second day in the Yolyn Am Canyon in mid-October, we encountered more ibex such as this handsome billy. The sheer number of raptors was astounding.

Out trusty Russian van slipped through a seemingly impossible passage. Here and there, falcon, hawk and eagle’s nests were perched on ledges along the craggy, vertical walls.

A saker falcon stretches his wings during a morning of hunting.

Small birds and mammals abound in the canyon, providing ample forage for raptors and other predators. On this morning, swarms of wheatears seemed oblivious to this rough-legged hawk, which was probably hoping to score one of the canyon’s many small mammals.

This shy pica had good reason to be on high alert.

Probably a mated pair, these rough-legged hawks were hunting along a spring creek.

young & female ibex yolyn am 2 n

During our two-day journey on foot and by van through the canyon, we saw over 20 ibex.

bull ibex walking downslope n

Bearded, muscular and with iron-like knobbed horns silhouetted against a blue Mongolian sky, this billy cast a baleful eye on us as he calmly passed by.

The shape of the tail and the gold under the chin make it easy to identify this as the Yolyn Am’s eponymous bird – a lammergeier, also known as a bearded vulture. They kept their distance. We have equally blurry shots of the canyon’s golden eagles.

Three-hundred fifty miles (560 km) south of Ulaanbaatar, the Gobi Desert is wild and remote yet accessible. (In Mongolian cyrillic, the “P’s” are pronounced as “R’s” in English.)

Coming next: The famous Singing Dunes – an Ocean of Sand