Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan May 23—Jun 06, 2009
Related Trips
This was VENT's first venture exploring this fascinating and remote part of our world—the heart of Central Asia in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Kazakhstan is a huge country—the 9th largest in the world—four times the size of Texas, but with just 1/16th of the population. Everything here is on a vast scale and the great variety of habitats is awesome. Huge expanses of subtly differing flat steppe grasslands merging into sandy and stony deserts, dotted here and there with saline and freshwater lakes and marshes, make a superb visual impact. Traveling for hours through such remarkable landscapes gave us a real sense of the enormous size of this seldom-visited heartland of Asia. In total contrast to the flat expanses of steppe were the towering snow-capped peaks and flower-rich alpine meadows of the Tien Shan Mountains. We traveled above the snowline to over 10,000 feet in this colossal mountain range—peak after peak, ridge after ridge extending for hundreds of miles into even more remote areas of this Himalayan offshoot—far south and east into totally off-limits and unexplored regions of the Pamirs, Pakistan, Kyrgistan, and China.
We recorded 260 species of birds during our trip—an extremely good result—finding most of everything on our "wish lists," plus a lot more that was less expected. The list of birds includes some very flashy, spectacular, range-restricted, and scarce species to make any birder's mouth water. The actual experience of seeing them was a delight—birding in such an exciting environment, seeing so many species so closely, and finding out where these rarely seen species occur and what they truly look like as breeding birds rather than tattered vagrants. It was such a thrill to see comparatively widespread species in fine summer-plumage: Spotted Redshanks, Little and Temminck's stints, flocks of Red-necked Phalaropes, and those amazing and bizarre multi-colored Ruffs at leks, displaying their frills in courtship.
Our list of really great birds seen included McQueen's Bustard, Sociable Lapwing, Pallid Harrier, and Black, Bimaculated, and White-winged larks displaying far out on the endless steppe grasslands. Lakes and marshes held Dalmatian Pelicans; White-headed Ducks; superb colonies of Great Black-headed Gulls; Black-winged Pratincoles; Demoiselle Cranes; White-winged Terns; Paddyfield, Blyth's Reed, and Booted warblers; Azure Tits; and Black-headed and White-crowned penduline-tits. The more truly desert-like habitats cut through by mighty rivers in rocky gorges hosted Himalayan Griffon; sandgrouse; Sykes's and Asian Desert warblers; Pale-backed Pigeon; White-winged Woodpecker; Pallid Scops-Owl; Saxaul Sparrow; Pied, Desert, and Isabelline wheatears; Desert Finch; Gray-hooded, Red-headed, Meadow, and Chestnut-breasted buntings; Rosy Starling; Turkestan Tit; and Pale Sand Martin.
The magnificent Tien Shan Mountains were a staggering backdrop to such sought-after, attractive, and enigmatic birds as Ibisbill; Himalayan Snowcock; Brown Dipper; Black-throated and Himalayan accentors; Blue Whistling-Thrush; White-tailed Rubythroat; White-winged, Blue-headed, and Rufous-backed redstarts; White-browed Tit-Warbler; Songar Tit; Fire-fronted Serin; Plain Mountain-Finch; White-winged Grosbeak; Red-mantled Rosefinch; and Sulphur-bellied, Hume's, and Greenish warblers.
Uzbekistan is a country famous for its ancient historical sites along the Silk Road at fabled Tashkent, Samarkand, and Bukhara. The stunning architecture and intricate adornments of mosques, minarets, and medrassahs are world-class, inspirational, and jaw-droppingly beautiful. We deliberately left this spectacle until last so that we had the bulk of the wonderful birding behind us, allowing us to concentrate and finish on this phenomenal cultural "high"! However, Uzbekistan had its own very special last ornithological thrills in store: White-tailed Lapwing, Lammergeier, Persian Nuthatch, Hume's Lark, Rufous-tailed Scrub-Robin, White-throated Robin, Finsch's and Variable wheatears, Eastern Orphean Warbler, Asian Paradise-Flycatcher, Yellow-breasted Tit, and of course, the remarkable "roadrunner" of Central Asia—Turkestan Ground-Jay, out in the parched expanses of the Kyzyl-Kum Desert.
I think all participants were pleased with what they found. Far from backward, hostile countries that some may have anticipated, there were excellent hotels, a good infrastructure, decent food, friendly people, and incredibly helpful and competent ground agents and expert local guides personified in Victoria Kovshar, who guided us so effectively and with such good humor to just about every bird we desired in Kazakhstan.