We talked about the visible migration there when we met and exchanged e-mails as the possibility of going started to take root. An organised count was conducted during autumn 2018 with a few British birders spending time there but news came through that there would be no organised count in 2019 as a new road was being built which ran through the counting site. Would it still be worth going if there was a new road or construction work underway whilst we were there?
Having started to think that we might go we were not keen to postpone, especially since the road would still be a problem in future years. We consoled ourselves with the logic that the road construction wouldn't stop the birds from passing on their southerly migration!
Paul checked the counts to establish the best time to go whilst I started to look at flights. There are no direct flights so it was either Turkish Airlines via Istanbul or a slightly cheaper option of Ukraine Airlines via Kiev. We opted for Turkish at £426 return and settled on 17th October to 6th November giving us three weeks. The luggage allowance was 30kg for the hold and 10kg carry on which I just made with telescope, tripod, monopod and cameras and lenses (300mm and 500mm), we also took walkie-talkies which proved there worth whenever one of us left the counting spot and lots of tally counters which were essential.
Details were circulated around friends to see if anyone else fancied the trip and Simon Roddis came forward immediately and we were all set. We just needed accommodation and a hire car. The hire car was fairly easy as there didn't appear to be a huge choice and other birders had mentioned Aznur Car Hire who had an office at Baku Airport. We went for a 4x4 and ended up with a Toyota Rav4 at £775 for the three weeks. We knew that the count in 2018 had used a hotel in Zarat which was very close to the watchpoint at Besh Barmag but we couldn't find details anywhere so contacted Kai Gauger and Micha Heiss of Birding Azerbaijan who kindly made arrangements for us to stay at the apartments in Zarat for US$ 35/day each for full board and put us in contact with Miryusif Mirzazada who proved invaluable in negotiating our way around Azerbaijan.
There is WiFi in the apartment but it was a little unreliable, I had the iPhone XR with a built in second SIM and took out a 30 day contract with GigSky for £40 which was handy, especially for Google Maps when navigating Baku but not essential. Local SIM cards are sold in the airport but we never found out how easy it would be to buy one.
The Azerbaijan e-visa was easy to obtain on-line, there appear to be several sites offering them and we used the official government site. It is good for 15 days but we then had to extend it whilst in Azerbaijan. This sounded simple on the Government web site but in practice didn't work so we had to drive to Baku with the owner of the apartment to register 'at our place of stay' this took 5 mins and cost about £2.50 but could have been difficult without Miryusif's help.
Azeri is the main language but most people seem to speak Russian as well but only the youth appear to speak any English so communication can be a problem, particularly away from Baku.
We landed in Baku at 05:30 on our first morning and quickly organised the car hire from the Aznur desk which was right by the arrivals hall entrance. Money was a slight problem in that you can't get the Azerbaijan Manat in the UK. Simon had Sterling which was easy to change at the kiosk in the arrivals hall. Paul and I used the ATM nearby, there were two and for some reason one would only dispence 200 Manats at a time, about £90 so it took some time to get enough money to get us going. Aznur also asked for cash but in the end accepted a credit card.
Miryusif met as at the airport as he was accompanying us to the apartment at Zarat.
A brief look at a couple of sites close to Baku produced various species, but also left us impatient to know what was happening at Besh Barmag.
The coastal scenery as you approach Zarat is dominated by Besh Barmag and the start of the Caucasus Mountains but the coastal plain also bears signs of man with sprawling power lines and oil wells.
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| At the counting spot - where the new road ends |
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| Coastal developments, plenty pf perches for the Eastern Imperial Eagles! |
It was a huge relief to find that, although various groundworks had been done, the site itself was quiet with no workers present and nothing actually being done. We decided to set up on our watchpoint on the embankment at the northern point of the works. The elevated position here gave us a good all round view of the fields, mountains and sea and was only slightly further north than the main counting spot in 2018.
The watch point looks north over a large area of private land owned by a poultry farm. The land includes three small pools that are part of a sewage treatment plant, a small reservoir (which we never accessed, the man at the farm said we could not go there), and some distant pools with a bridge. All this land is private but the security personnel after checking-out who we were said we were ok to watch the birds in these areas.
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| Besh Barmag watch point and notable habitat |
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| Calandra Larks migrating |
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| Eastern Imperial Eagle - sub adult, probably 4 or 5 years old |
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| Long-legged Buzzard |
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| Blue-cheeked Bee-eater |
There were many Northern Wheatear in the area on the 18th and 19th with 31 seen together on the beach and a dozen on the embankment close to the watch point, so there must have been hundreds along the coast. Amongst the Northern I saw one possibly two Isabelline.
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| Isabelline Wheatear (left) v Northern Wheatear |
This bird was much more like Northern than birds I've seen in the UK or adults in Turkey and I think its probably a first winter. Note the greyer colouration and lack of rusty fringes to the tertials and secondaries, longer tibia, absence of black centred median coverts and the wide space between p5 and p6 is typical of Isabelline (Northern tends to have evenly spaced primary tips on the closed wing).
Our first Little Bustards came on the 22nd October when a total of 47 flew south - this proved to be the highest count of our trip.
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| Little Bustard |
The 22nd also produced a memorable incident when a Calandra Lark being chased by a Merlin took shelter under our car. The Merlin landed briefly on the car, just a metre or two away from us, then moved to a pile of earth some five metres away, before deciding that a bush 15 metres away was a safe distance to watch us from. The Merlin was a stunning juvenile of the pallidus race and looked strikingly different from the birds we see in Britain.
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| Merlin juvenile of the Asian race pallidus |
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| Red-breasted Flycatcher |
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| Siberian Chiffchaff |
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| Penduline Tit of the local brown-headed race caspius |
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| Male transcaspicus Spanish Sparrow with biblicus House Sparrows |
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| Common Redstart P p samamisicus |
On the 23rd October we had a look at the beach and a nearby stream and enjoyed good views of Pallas's Gull and Spotted Crake.
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| Pallas's Gull - 1st winter |
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| Spotted Crake |
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| presumed Caspian Reed Warbler |
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| Caspian Gulls with juv Heuglin's just above the horizon and Pallas's almost highest bird |
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| Caspian Gull - 1st winter |
We saw a few Little Gulls, several Pallas's and one juvenile Heuglin's Gull although we noted quite a few fly-by adult type Lesser black-backed Gulls that must have been Heuglin's on range.
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| Little Gull adult |
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| Heuglin's Gull (L (fuscus) heuglini) juvenile |
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| Pallas's Gull - 3rd winter |
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| Pallas's Gull - adult winter |
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| Black Vulture |
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| Steppe Eagle - juvenile |
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| Eastern Imperial Eagle - juvenile |
At Besh Barmag Mountain we also saw Western Rock Nuthatch, several Black Redstarts and a pair of Blue Rock Thrush of the nominate race ochruros.
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| Western Rock Nuthatch |
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| Black Redstart - male |
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| Blue Rock Thrush - female |
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| Eurasian Sparrowhawk of an indeterminate race |
Most evenings a Little Owl appeared just as we were packing up to go back to the apartment but on a couple of occasions it appeared in daylight. It appeared to be as interested as us in what was passing overhead, I guess he was watching for hunting eagles.
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| Little Owl of a Middle Eastern either indigena or bactriana |
Our first Common Cranes of the trip came on the 29th when five flew south and it was also a good day for Great Black-headed Gulls with 51 flying south and a lone eagle flying high south down the coast proved to be a juvenile Greater Spotted.
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| Common Crane |
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| Migrating Pallas's Gulls with 3 Caspian near the front |
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| Greater Spotted Eagle - juvenile |
Migration kicked in again on the 3rd with 105 Great White Egrets (including a fine overhead group of 86),
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| Great White Egrets |
160 Pygmy Cormorants and an outstanding 20,050 Cormorants, with the late afternoon producing one group after another, some of over one thousand birds and with the flocks often changing shape in a marvellously fluid and sinuous manner.
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| Great Cormorant |
It was also a good day for Wood Larks with 20 heading south.
A first year Eastern Imperial Eagle which flew south had a green colour ring on its left leg and what appeared to be some sort of transmitter on its other leg; we hope it might be possible to discover where it came from.
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| Eastern Imperial Eagle juvenile with colour ring and transmitter or data logger on the other leg |
Pygmy Cormorants were prominent on the 4th with 448 flying south. The 5th November was our last day and produced a star bird in the shape of 20 Black-bellied Sandgrouse powering south over the Caspian Sea.
It also produced a record count of 254 Mistle Thrushes (previous high here was 58), and our first Coot was located amongst the breaking waves. The Coot was unfortunate enough to be spotted by a White-tailed Eagle which hovered above it until the Coot was too tired to dive again and was plucked from the sea and carried to the shore.
Towards the end of our stay Hen Harriers were seen daily, usually flying low over the scrub and sometimes passing quite close.
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| Hen Harrier - probably 1st winter male |
The area around the apartment at Zarat was quite productive with Red-breasted Flycatcher and Siberian Chiffchaff in the garden and Little Owl and Laughing Doves nearby.
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| Apartment garden with the Caspian Sea in the distance |
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| Laughing Dove |
Special thanks go to all the people who helped with advice and information in advance. Miryusif met us at the airport and made sure we got to the accommodation at Zarat safely. He was an invaluable source of information and advice during our trip and thanks to Paul and Simon for their company and bird finding skills.
We did manage to get our hire car stuck on the embankment during the bad weather, so our final piece of advice is to be very careful on the dirt tracks if it rains.
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| Yes...it's definitely stuck! |
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| The final supper |
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| Eurasian Starling with hunting Sparrowhawk just visible upper right |
Besh Barmag is a brilliant place for migration enthusiasts!
Footnote: I understand a count is being organised for 2020, visit birdingaze.blogspot
*daily checklists with photos can be found under the Besh Barmag hotspot on eBird and also on Trektellen. We recorded 146 species during our three week stay.
