Common Sadpiper (Actitis hypoleucos)
We were accomodated in a village with a potential to hide some song birds! Someone had already seen a Common Sandpiper at a stream on the edge of the village. So me and my dad tried our luck in the morning. And there it was, standing in the grass.
The important thing is to not lose your head!
We then walked through the village, searching for any feathered creatures. We sa some doves, pigeons, swallows, a hoopoe, mynahs, and a blackbird who seemingly lost its head.
Tian Shan mountains and a rocky stream that was home to Brown Dippers
After breakfast we packed our things again and traveled for quite a while went to a beautiful spot in the mountains, though not too high. It seemed to have a lot of Kazachstani people coming here for a trip or for holidays. The landscape was really picturesque.
The stream
We went in a group by the stream looking for a dipper. It didn't take long until someone spotted one. Tha Asian Brown Dipper, looking very much like the European one except for its lack of white on its throat and chest.
Brown Dipper (Cinclus pallasii)
We watched it for quite a while from not too far away. The dipper was very rounded, always doing little squats which made him look really enthusiastic about something. Maybe jumping in the bubbling water?
Brown Dipper (Cinclus pallasii) swimming
We soon found there was at least one more dipper nearby so we spread along the stream, watching them both. The second one was often jumping in the water, sometimes submering, sometimes just swimming on the surface, looking for insects.
Blue Whistling Thrush (Myophonus caeruleus)
We saw other songbirds typical for this habitat - like Grey Wagtails (Motacilla cinerea) or the Greenish Warbler (Phylloscopus trochiloides). The most amazing bird we suddenly saw was a Blue Whistling Thrush (Myophonus caeruleus) that flew high over the stream and dissappeared in a tree. We waited and waited, until it showed up again. We nearly ran after it, looking up, cameras in hand and no one cared that we just marched in a small aisle between two folding chairs on which sat a young couple, obviously on a date.
The boy could hardly believe his eyes, while the girl seemed to be curious and a bit amused. I smiled at her apologetically. We watched the bird fly down the stream and hop on the rocks looking for insects. Someone noticed the bird was actually carrying it under a bridge so we started to suspect it might have a nest there.
Mountain stream
We were watching for a while and then went down from the bridge right to the stream. I forgot who it was that took his shoes of, pulled up his pants and entered the icy water to be able to see under the bridge better. The nest was there, stuck to the wall with three litle Whistling Thrushes waiting to be fed.
We then figured out that if we stepped on two particular rocks and squatted down and looked from the water surface up, the nest could be seen even like that - from a safe distance, though, we wouldn't disturb the blue family. So we took turns like that. Some got their shoes wet a bit, but luckily, we were then on our way back to the hotel.
Place where we entered the stream to look for the Blue Whistling Thrush's nest.
There was a slight problem with the rooms and two-person beds with I think only one blanket. Considering the majority weren't couples, but were males, we did not particularly liked it. So it happened that everyone who didn't want a bed like that got a room of their own, including me. The rooms were nice, even with a bathroom. The only downside was that it was obviously allowed to smoke in there and no amount of ventilating the air through open windows could do much about it.
The hotel also had a beautiful view of the mountains.
View from the hotel
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