Mountains, steppes, horses and horsemen -Kazakhstan!

Left Helsinki in the afternoon of the 1st of May flying with Turkish Airlines (excellent service) via Istanbul and arriving in Almaty, Kazakhstan, the next morning at 6 o’clock (time difference of three hours). Our multi-national Central Asia Birding group, under the leadership of Almaty-based but Dutch-born Machiel Valkenburg, comprised 2 Belgians, 4 Brits and 3 Finns. The team spirit was great throughout the trip, and I believe everybody enjoyed the friendly and good-humoured atmosphere.
Our itinerary followed the average Kazakhstan tour, with a few days spent in the south-eastern highlands, close to the Kirgistan and Chinese borders, followed by another three days on the vast steppes north of Almaty. The southern section was rounded off by a few days in the Ili Alatau National Park mountains above Almaty, where we reached an altitude of 3300 metres above sea level. After the Tienshan mountains we flew north to Astana, for another 4 days in the Tengiz-Korgalzhyn steppes some 120 kms SW of the capitol.
The spring was late and we experienced some chilly and wet weather in the beginning. Later we had sun, but the temps were still low for the season. Many species were late and recorded in below average numbers, but all in all, the diversity was very good and no important birds were missed (one exception: we dipped on White-browed Tit-Warbler in Tienshan; lots of snow still around). On the contrary, we had excellent views of many hard-to-see species and managed to find some rarely encountered birds, like Tengmalm’s Owl and White’s Thrush.
The birds of Kazakhstan are familiar to most people with an interest for Palaearctic birding, but not that many have an idea about the habitats, where the different birds are found. The grandeur of the Kazakh landscape was at least as impressive as the birds themselves, and that’s why I’ve included also some scenic shots with bird related comments.
In case you are interested in experiencing all of this for yourself, why not get in touch with Machiel. He has years of experience in arranging and leading birding tours in his new home country. The tours are competitively priced and professionally lead. There are no four star hotels available along the route, but experiencing the nights and mornings on the steppe near Konchangel in Central Asia Birding’s yurt camp, is something you will remember for the rest of your life.

www.centralasiabirding.com
machiel@centralasiabirding.com

Groups of gorgeous Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters could be seen during the Festival week near Eilat.

Thick-billed Lark, one of the mega-birds to be seen during this year's Eilat Birds Festival week.

After the Festival week I had a few days on my own, visiting first the Nizzana-area, on the Egyptian border not that far inland from the Med coast. I rounded off my tour with a few days by the escarpment above the Dead Sea, hoping for some raptor movement. But again, the weather was very strange, with two days of lead-grey clouds and drizzle, and absolutely no migration at all. Rain by the Dead Sea is very unusual anyway, and the few drops per year that fall here, usually come in winter. But persistent rain in late March is something most unusual. By Sunday morning, on the 28th of March, the skies had cleared and the sun was shining brightly. Everything was boding for a great day, and so it turned out to be. However, in the almost still conditions the flocks of hundreds of raptors flew very high already from the early morning, and by 10am, when I had to leave for the airport, they could be seen as mere specks in the sky, Steppe and Long-legged Buzzards, Steppe and Lesser Spotted Eagles, Short-toed Eagles, Booted Eagles, Pallid Harriers, Sparrowhawks and Kestrels, all rushing back to their breeding grounds.

Both Common Kestrels and Lesser Kestrels (above) could be seen in good numbers during the Festival week. At Yotvata circular fields there was a mixed flock of some 50-60 birds, which gave excellent opportunities to compare the two species side by side.

On Jan 2nd I took it for a ride, on a two-week tour to Ethiopia, where I fired some 12 000 frames in RAW. Coming home and analysing the material I was a bit disappointed at first. Many shots of slowly gliding vultures and eagles, definitely “easy targets”, were soft even in excellent situations. But later I realise it was not necessarily the camera’s fault, but rather the ambient conditions and the settings I had used. I tested a lot with 45 points in the beginning, but the focus works too arbitrarily. Sometimes the focus is on the wing-tip, or somewhere else where it shouldn’t be, rather than on the head and the eye. So forget about 45 points, unless you shoot something small and really fast, like swifts or swallows, then it seems to provide some unexpectedly good results. Also, when shooting in hot climes, the heat blur coming from the hot rising air is sometimes so strong, that it fools the autofocus completely, and not one frame is sharp! This happened when I was shooting a Secretary Bird taking off next to the road. It flew very low across the hot tarmac road, and not one of the frames fired as it crossed the road is in focus! Actually, the same happens, although in reverse, when you are shooting out through the open window of a heated car in bitterly cold conditions. You have to open all your windows well in advance and let the car (and the camera) chill properly, before starting to shoot. The difference is huge!

A few weeks ago, in mid-March, I shot again 6000+ frames in Israel, targeting mostly flying raptors, and now the results were much better. Now I used the central focusing point, sometimes also using the surrounding points, and this seemed to do the work. Even when you sometimes lose the bird from the central focusing area, the focus seems to hold on to it remarkably well. I had several pleasant surprises with birds in one corner of the picture, but in perfect focus! I have also changed my C.FnIII-setting number 2 one step towards “Slow”, which seems to be of some importance.

All in all, the Mark IV appears to perform much better than the Mark III, when it comes to AI Servo autofocus. However, Canon still appears to suffer from certain unpredictable problems with their autofocus. In several situations not one of the frames in a sequence is sharp, even when the situation can be classified as an “easy, straightforward and controlled approach of a slowly and predictably moving subject”. I have had repeated situations of slowly approaching or circling birds, at reasonably close distance, where there is not one sharp frame in the whole sequence, in a situation where I feel the old Mark II would have produced a spot-on frame of each and every one of them. At the moment I have the feeling that the autofocus of Mark IV fails more often, when the subject is backlit, or when it is either very dark or shining white, in other words, when there is little or no contrast in the subject, even if the outline is sharply defined, like a bird against a pale sky. In some of these situations the autofocus just denies to work, but not always. Yet in other situations there doesn’t seem to be anything challenging in the light, and still it struggles. It is this unreliability that drives one nuts. If there is a unique situation, like a rare plumage of a raptor, you need to get results with you’re first attempt, as this is often your only chance. With the old Mark II I knew I would get that picture, but with Mark IV I’m never sure until I check it from the back screen of the camera. Personally, I think that the old Mark II still performs beautifully, and it is by far the most reliable of the EOS1D bodies, when it comes to the accuracy of the autofocus in AI Servo mode. The mark III was a total flop in this respect (I think Canon should give the money back to anyone who demands for it). The Mark IV is far better than the MkIII ever, but I think it still lies behind in AI Servo reliability, when comparing to the old Mk II.

Apart from the problems with the AI Servo autofocus and some other minor remarks, I think the new Mark IV is a great camera. My camera appears to produce images which are too red (too much magenta), but this can easily be corrected later. Maybe also the noise level is higher than I’m used to (even at ISO 400-500), but then, this could be depending on my personal settings. The testing will continue.

Red-rumped Swallow captured by Canon EOS1D mkIV and Canon 500mm f4.0 , handheld and using all 45 focusing points. Israel, Eilat, March 18th, 2010

Short-toed Eagle with MarkIV and 500mm Canon using the central focusing point. Situations like this should come out with a 100% success rate, but even clean subjects like this are sometimes not in focus.

The male hooting in bright sunshine on 12th of March

Eagle Owls can now be seen in central Helsinki. Since a few years back at least three different pairs of Eagle Owls Bubo bubo have settled in central Helsinki, probably attracted by the impressive numbers of feral rabbits in the city parks. Many of the owls have favourite day-roosts, and it is not that difficult to find them if you know roughly where to look. Sometimes they pick the perch for the day just above the heads of thousands of people rushing to and from work. Of course, most people never see them, but even some non-birders know where to look, and add it to their list on most working days. Every now and then the owls even make it to the newspapers or the main TV news.
Half an hour or so after sunset, the owls leave their day perch to go hunting. A few days ago I witnessed one glide out over the traffic, strongly underlit by all the city lights, which gave it an almost ghost-like appearance. I have been keeping an eye on a number of “real” Eagle Owl pairs since the mid-1970’s in an area some 30-40 kms west of Helsinki. These rural Eagle Owls are truly shy and withdrawing, and I could never, even in my wildest dreams, have imagined a future like this. So far only one (unsuccesful) nesting attempt has been documented in 2008, but time will show if the Eagle Owls can adapt fully and start to breed successfully.

Scratching behind the ear-tufts...

Development
I have been to Ethiopia several times, but it is already 4 years since my last visit. During these years a lot has happened. The construction business is booming in Addis (and elsewhere too), the main roads are really good (a truly unbelievable change) and there is a lot more heavy traffic on the main roads. Particularly the road from Addis to the harbour in Djibouti is very busy with heavy and slow trucks, and overtaking is both slow and dangerous. Abandoned, neglected and forgotten by Europeans for over a century (since the glory days of colonialism, really) the Chinese have now seized the opportunity making Africa their “colony”. It is with Chinese money that the roads have been improved and it is Chinese investments behind the tall buildings in Addis. Is this the beginning of a brighter future for Africa, or is history only repeating itself?

Drought
Driving south along the Rift it soon became apparent that the rains had been poor. In this part of Ethiopia there is one wet season from June-July to September-October, but the amount of rain varies from year to year. The ground vegetation was all but gone at the bottom of the Rift, and vast areas looked more like semi-desert than savannah. The crops had been poor and you could almost tell it by just looking at the people. Big herds of cattle roam the dry plains disappearing in clouds of dust and the horizon is dotted with dust devils reaching for the clouds. To me this is the picture of Africa in the dry season.
Another matter of concern in Ethiopia, and in so many other African countries as well, is the rapidly growing human population. The western world is now busy talking about global warming and suddenly the population explosion is no longer an issue?

Deforestation
The population of Ethiopia is now around 80 million, but it has doubled in less than 30 years and has been growing by 2 million per year during this millennium. This is bad news for the environment. The deforestation progresses at frightening speed, and every time you go back you can see the change with you own eyes. This time the worst shock came to me at Wondo Genet, in the foothills of the eastern escarpment of the Rift Valley. Wondo Genet is one of Ethiopia’s famous birding sites, a place where everybody goes (approximately 7degrees 05mins North x 38 degrees 39mins East on Google Earth). It has been famous for its indigenous and well preserved forest covering the rather steep slopes of the valley above the village itself. It is a classic site for endemics like Yellow-fronted Parrot, Abyssinian Woodpecker, Banded Barbet, Abyssinian Oriole, White-winged Cliff-chat and Black-winged Lovebird, but the list of birds is long including species like Spotted Creeper, Narina Trogon, Half-collared Kingfisher, White-cheeked Turaco, Crowned Eagle and Ayre’s Hawk Eagle, Abyssinian Ground Thrush and Sharpe’s Starling, just to mention a few. And now, when I with great hopes started to climb the slope, I could not recognise myself! The forest was all gone! There was not one tree left of the conifer plantation, where Greater Sparrowhawk and Little Sparrowhawk used to breed, but much worse, the whole indigenous forest above it, covering several square kilometres in the past, had all disappeared! At first I thought that it had been harvested for fire wood by the locals, which is the way most of the forests go, but I soon realised, that the scale of the project was far too huge for the locals to manage in such a short time. Also the improved tracks into the forest, with rather fresh tire marks from big lorries, in a place where only foot paths existed in the past, explained it all. The forest had been illegally logged for timber, but nobody seemed to know, or want to know, who by? Still, the fact remains that the bird-rich forest above Wondo Genet is gone for good.

Birds
But, of course, there were brighter moments too. Generally speaking the birding was excellent, as it always is in Ethiopia. Our group added one new species to Ethiopia’s national bird list, when we saw and photographed two Lesser Crested Terns Sterna bengalensis at Lake Awassa, some 700 kms from the nearest sea, where they should have been. At the same lake we also saw and photographed a Eurasian Bittern, which apparently is only the third record for the country (according the new bird atlas by Ash and Atkins).
Other birds worth mentioning were the seven Lesser Jacanas we found on three different lakes, probably reflecting the drought and the drying-out of smaller bodies of water. At least 4 birds were found along a stretch of some 400 metres along Lake Awassa. All in all we recorded 434 species, which is not bad given our route, which did not include the Bale Mountains. Personally I only had one lifer, the Red-naped Bush-shrike, which was found thanks to our guide’s, Merid’s local knowledge.
Ethiopia is a great place for raptors, and we had superb views of 46 different species of raptors, the most memorable being those of African Swallow-tailed Kite, Lammergeier, Verreaux’s Eagle, PygmyFalcon, Eastern Chanting Goshawk, the endemic unduliventer subspecies of African Goshawk, Secretary Bird and African Peregrine Falcon.

This year, the first morning, on Nov 6th, was promising, with a very strong northerly wind. And indeed, everything worked according to plan. The first eagles appeared at around 0945 against the mountains of Jordan. In active flapping flight they were heading straight towards the Eilat Mountains, where I had placed myself for the day. The gale force wind kept them very low, and many birds actually passed below me, while the majority flew at eye level and many so close they would not fit into the frame of my camera! What a treat. During the first two hours 110 Steppe Eagles passed the point, mostly adults. After this the passage got higher and the stream drifted further south and was soon lost against the hazy sky. During these hours I took some 800 shots of tens of different birds, and the conditions could not have been better.

The next day I was back again at the same spot. The wind had dropped to almost nothing, so changes were to expect. During the same three hours I counted a total of 8 eagles, all very high and distant! Not one picture for the day. And no pictures the next day either, when the wind was in the south and the eagles went high again. So different can the days be.

Amazing fall of Siberian Stonechats
If you’re birding in Eilat at this time of year, you should see a few Siberian Stonechats in a week’s tour. So, understandably I got excited, when I found 5 quite close together on the 6th. But this was only the beginning. The following evening I saw 30 different birds, mostly in the so called S Fields east of the salt pans, while Belgian birder Hugues Dufourny (the only other foreign birder in all of Eilat, it appeared!) had counted 40 between the N Beach and the Bird Sanctuary. The next day (8th Nov) was no good for raptors, so I decided to go and look for Siberian Stonechats instead. I counted every bird I saw between the N Beach and the K20 reservoirs, never checking the same area twice. In the evening tally the number stopped at an amazing 129 Sibe Stonechats! Most of the identified birds showed white tail bases, showing them to be part of the more south westerly variegata/armenica –group. Another indicator of this fall of eastern migrants were the 3 Steppe Grey Shrikes, which were also found close together on the 7th. Over the next days most of the birds disappeared, probably continuing their migration to Africa.

In the south I had the opportunity to do some birding, both alone and with Spanish friends, and managed to find some locally good birds, like a Richard’s Pipit and a Lesser Crested Tern. Together with the guys from Migres, we also had two different immature Ruppell’s Vultures, now a regular visitor to the Spanish side of the Straits. Many people come to twitch these birds for their lists, but unfortunately some of the claims, even some of the published photographs, have been of dark Eurasian Griffons! Compare the two species in the image below, where the darkness of Ruppell’s compared to the Griffon is obvious. There is no colour contrast in Ruppell’s between coverts and remiges, which there always is in Griffon, and immature Ruppell’s never show the warm brown colours of Griffon.

Immature Ruppell's left with immature Griffon. Note differences in general coloration and also in colour contrasts. 27th Oct, Pelayo, Algeciras.

For the eagles I was on my own, working familiar areas which I had visited before. Centuries of persecution have turned the Spanish Imperials into extremely shy birds, and perched birds usually take off from a distance of 300 m or more, as soon as the car is stopped. When they fly, they usually go very high, and with the high temps of last week (+30 C on most days!) the heat haze made it impossible to get clear shots at those ranges. If they fly low, they veer off as soon as a human is spotted in their flight-path. They seem to take no risks whatsoever. Three full days with the eagles left me with very meagre results, although I learnt a lot about this very rare and localised eagle, actually one of the rarest in the world. During these days I saw at least 8 different adults, 4-5 juveniles, 2-3 second years and 1 older immature, with more than a dozen birds in some days. But the photographs I managed to get were no more than record shots. The adults were keeping close to their nests, doing some display flying in the early afternoons, but most of the time they were perched in tree-tops. The hunting was mostly done in the mornings, with birds, often the pair together, perched in tree-tops near some open ground with a good supply of rabbits. I even managed to photograph one hunt, where a juvenile Imperial managed to catch a rabbit, but the hunting skills of that bird still need a lot of honing, so clumsy was the attempt. Interestingly, in one of the displaying pairs both birds were just over one year old. However, it is perfectly normal for at least one of the birds in a breeding pair to be in immature plumage.

The opening picture was taken on the last day, when I had in fact given up. Somewhat disappointed with my success, I was already driving away from the core-area, to begin the long drive down to Malaga and the airport, when I spotted three raptors soaring quite low in the direction of the road. Getting closer the first one proved to be a Red Kite, which I was just going to stop for, when I realised that the other two, a bit further up the road, were juvenile Spanish Imperials! A Formula 1-type explosive start to get under the birds in no time, then a panic braking and a quick jump out with the camera ready managed to secure a few shots before the duo slowly circled higher drifting out across the fields.
I am sure this was all arranged by The Sender?

Thanks to Luis Barrios, Alex Onrubia, Antonio-Roman Muñoz, Javier Elorriaga and Juan Ramírez for their friendship and help with various matters, and to Miguel Ferrer and Ignacio Gil de Bernabé Rivero for the successful meeting in Sevilla.

This visit was timed to coincide with the migration of the Lesser Spotted Eagles, which go through Israel in big numbers, both autumn and spring. Israel must easily be the best place in the world to study the plumage variation of this species. On a peak day one can see thousands of these eagles and in the best days up to 30 000 or more Lesser Spots have been counted from one station!

a rather average adult Lesser Spotted Eagle

While waiting for the eagles to appear, you will of course see lots of other raptors, like Honey Buzzards, Levant Sparrowhawks, Lesser Kestrels, Short-toed, Booted, Imperial, Steppe and Greater Spotted Eagles, Pallid and Montagu’s Harriers, and many, many more. Or what do you say about 5000 Black Storks roosting in the Bet-Shean valley, or 45 000 cranes, which soon will be counted in the Hula Valley? Or flocks of thousands of pelicans on migration? All unforgettable experiences, well worth a visit each one of them.

The other reason for my tour was to look for Hume’s Tawny Owl, the least known owls species of the western world, I dare say. This also was a resounding success, with memories to last a life time.

But, of course, none of this would have been possible without the help of Israeli friends. Many thanks must go to Jonathan Meyrav, Dan Alon, Itai Shanni and Liron Ziv for helping with many practical details, and to Barak Granit for his expert help with the owl.

Hume's Owl in the desert W of the Dead Sea