Wednesday 19 September 2012

Bird watching at Korgalzhyn State Nature Reserve, Kazakhstan.

Came back from Korgalzhyn State Nature Reserve, yes, my study area. The wetland and lakes are drying out. Small Tengiz dried out completely. This is due to absence of snow last winter and poor, ignorant water management upstream of the Nura river. Few our scientists such as ornithologist Koshkin A.V. do care about the situation and write up to the water managers every week but of course! no body hears them.

Anyways, I went there to attend a field camp organized by ACBK http://acbk.kz/en/  for young ornithologists, birdwatchers and nature enthusiasts. I was happy to meet our young scientists full of energy, ideas and willingness to keep our nature with its biodiversity alive. Really interesting people!

Bird watching is relatively new for Kazakh people but we do have people who like to observe birds and now they are happy to be called as birdwatchers. However, not surprisingly for me, I found out that if one likes to observe birds and do observe birds almost every day, sometimes rescues injured birds/animals and doesn't earn money out of it, is considered as a mad person among of people around and even one's relatives. We had such "mad" person in the camp of ACBK who was so happy to meet and see us-"mad", similar to him people. And there are a lot of us, who simply love the nature.

Photos of some birds we saw , identified and observed: 

     Great Egret (Casmerodius albus)

      Red-necked Phalarope (Phalaropus lobatus) in winter plumage.


 Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus). Curious one.


    Red-crested Porchard (Netta rufina)

This Common ChiffChaff (Phylloscopus collybita) was cought, ringed and kindly demonstrated to us by our ornithologist Koshkin A.V.  Many thanks!

and ...released!
Dalmatian Pelican (Pelecanus crispus)

Great Egret (Casmerodius albus)
White Wagtail (Motacilla alba)


Thanks a lot to ACBK http://acbk.kz/en/  for the opportunity to get skills of bird watching and actually use the received skills straight in the field of Korgalzhyn State Nature Reserve!





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