Besh Barmag, Azerbaijan 17th October - 5th November

I first heard of Besh Barmag a couple of years ago from long time friend Paul Doherty who brought some amazing bird counts posted on the visible migration site Trektellen to my attention. I'd no idea where Besh Barmag was but then I had no plans to go there but it sounded brilliant!
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.

At the counting spot - where the new road ends

Coastal developments, plenty pf perches for the Eastern Imperial Eagles!

We got to the counting area in the early afternoon on 17th October and had to decide where to count from as the landscape had changed since last year. Quite a bit of preparatory work has been done for the new motorway and a route excavated to just beyond Besh Barmag, ending about 8 kms north of Zarat at 41.007382, 49.218314.
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.

Besh Barmag watch point and notable habitat

The 18th was our first full day and it can only be described as full on, with the three of us kept busy from dawn to dusk. The main movers were Rooks and Calandra Larks with totals of 8,080 and 23,110* respectively.

Calandra Larks migrating

The Calandra Larks just kept coming - every time we thought there was a pause along would come another flock. Other birds included Ruddy Shelducks, Eastern Imperial, Greater Spotted, Steppe and White-tailed Eagles and Long-legged Buzzard.

Eastern Imperial Eagle - sub adult, probably 4 or 5 years old

Long-legged Buzzard

The 17th and 18th also produced our only Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters with calling birds announcing their presence as they passed high overhead on their way south.

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. 

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.

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.

Merlin juvenile of the Asian race pallidus

An area of scrub occupied the area between the beach and the viewpoint and we checked this regularly.

Red-breasted Flycatcher

Siberian Chiffchaff

Here we had Siberian Chiffchaffs, Red-breasted Flycatchers, Cetti's Warbler, Bearded and Penduline Tits, the latter included some of the dark-headed caspius subspecies. As well as Bearded Tits, Robins, Wrens, Blue and Great Tits and House, Spanish and Tree Sparrows.

Penduline Tit of the local brown-headed race caspius

Male transcaspicus Spanish Sparrow with biblicus House Sparrows 

The area also held one or two Common Redstarts of the race samamisicus. The grey shawl on this bird reminded me of a bird I had seen at Spurn in October. Its call was also unlike the nominate races hoo-eet being more of a swee-oo quite similar to Siberian Chiffchaff. The recording is on Xeno-Canto

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.

Pallas's Gull - 1st winter

Spotted Crake

In the same area we found Moustached Warbler and a reed warbler which ought to be Caspian Reed Warbler (A s fuscus) given our location although there was nothing in its appearance that suggested it was not nominate scirpaceus.

presumed Caspian Reed Warbler

There were always gulls on the beach, mainly Caspian with usually a couple of hundred birds present. They were usually well up the beach and you could only get anywhere near them from the car.

Caspian Gulls with juv Heuglin's just above the horizon and Pallas's almost highest bird

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.

Little Gull adult

Heuglin's Gull (L (fuscus) heuglini) juvenile

Pallas's Gull - 3rd winter

Pallas's Gull - adult winter

Besh Barmag isn't especially noted for raptor migration, but we had 52 Griffon Vultures moving south on the 26th October, including a single spiral of 21 birds.Large soaring birds also featured on the 28th when there were 149 Dalmatian Pelicans, 43 Griffon Vultures, 14 Cinereous Vultures, 11 Eastern Imperial Eagles and a single Bearded Vulture. We drove up Besh Barmag to see if we could get better views of the migrating raptors and were rewarded with superb views of Black Vulture and Steppe and Eastern Imperial Eagles.

Black Vulture

Steppe Eagle - juvenile

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.

Western Rock Nuthatch

Black Redstart - male

Blue Rock Thrush - female

We saw Eurasian Sparrowhawks everyday, some very close and one very pale bird that looked quite unlike the nominate race which we saw. Some authorities call the eastern race nisosimilis Siberian Sparrowhawk but I haven't seen anything that looked quite like our bird.

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.

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.

Common Crane

Migrating Pallas's Gulls with 3 Caspian near the front

Greater Spotted Eagle - juvenile

The weather began to deteriorate on the 30th, migration slowed and there was heavy rain on 1st and 2nd November.
Migration kicked in again on the 3rd with 105 Great White Egrets (including a fine overhead group of 86), 

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.

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.

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.

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.

Apartment garden with the Caspian Sea in the distance

Laughing Dove

Presumably the motorway will be completed but we hope that it will still be possible for birdwatchers to gather at Besh Barmag and witness the spectacular migration. It can be a bit of an overwhelming experience - you can look through a telescope and see birds passing at all sorts of distances between you and the far horizon, or you check out some birds high overhead and realise that there are others passing even higher than them.
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.

Yes...it's definitely stuck!

The final supper

The outstanding memories from this trip are many - raptors overhead, the whistling wings of Little Bustards, a large flock of migrant Great White Egrets against a brilliant blue sky, huge flocks of Starlings shape-shifting in response to attacks from a Sparrowhawk.

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.

Estonia Part I - SW Coast to Tartu 20th May to 24th May

Driving north out of Latvia on the E67 just as I thought my Latvian birding was over I noticed a large raptor hovering over the far carriageway that looked interesting. I managed to get off the road and was delighted to see that it was a Rough-legged Buzzard. I had had distant views of a bird at Kolka but it was great to see another. It was distant by the time I stopped and the light was against me but this is definitely a bird I would like to see more of as I head north.
Crossing in to Estonia was another none event with no border controls. During last years trip I was stopped at most Eastern European countries, but that may have been to do with the refugee problems. I drove a few miles up the coast and found a small camp site just south of Kabli, the immediate area had the usual birds Thrush Nightingale, Common Rosefinch, Icterine Warbler plus Chiffchaffs, Willow Warblers and the Whitethroat. It's still a thrill to hear those first three birds singing, any one of which would make for a great day out in the UK.
There was some rain overnight and it was cooler but it soon cleared as I headed for the Nigula Reserve area. On the way I came across a Black Woodpecker feeding in the tree tops. At the top edge of the Nigula Reserve driving on rough stoned tracks I made it in to the forested area and soon heard the repetitive song of the Red-breasted Flycatcher, soon followed by that of its cousin the Pied Flycatcher which is a familiar bird to me in the Derbyshire Dales. After a long walk I finally disturbed a Hazel Hen from the woodland edge but it was soon gone in to the impenetrable forest. A few metres further on another Pied Flycatcher caught my eye then something dark on the tree below, a woodpecker, Three-toed at last. Having missed them in Poland I was delighted and somewhat relieved to see this striking bird here. I managed a few photos but it was never really in the open and moved away from me in to the forest. I've taken the liberty of removing some of the branches which obscured the bird using Photoshop, I'm sure the woodpecker won't mind.

Three-toed Woodpecker - female

I moved on the main entrance to Nigula bog and immediately heard Wryneck calling, then the tapping of another woodpecker. It was beautiful habitat, wet deciduous woodland with lots of dead trees.

Nigula Bog

I stood for a while, expecting Great Spotted but no it was White-backed feeding near the base of a tree. It's so much easier trying to photograph them low down rather than in the tops of the trees like me first in Poland.

White-backed Woodpecker

There were lots of dragonflies emerging along the board-walk involving several species but haven't put a name to them yet.

Dragonfly awaiting id

At the tower hide an adult White-tailed Eagle was circling in the distance and it was a beautiful view across the bog which stretched for miles. I decided not to walk the full circuit of the bog and headed off to the Haardemeesste area (having had no vowels in Poland they certainly make use of them here!).
Two Corncrake calling close to the road sounded like they were only a few metres away but after sitting for 30 minutes I had seen no sign of them. They were calling next to a small occupied cottage and I could imagine that their incessant rasping call could get a bit irritating, but not for me and I'll be listening for more over the next weeks.
I searched a few locations where Citrine Wagtails occur but was unable to find one. This is a bird I want to see so it's a little frustrating that I've had no sign at three or four sites I've checked, perhaps they are not back yet?
Time to move on and I headed inland to the Tartu area. The roads here are excellent with few vehicles on them. The general speed limit is 90km/hr reducing to 70 in some areas and 50 in the villages and there are a lot of speed cameras. I'm happy to cruise along at around 80km/hr and the distances are not huge in Estonia so it's a pleasant drive. I stopped off first at Karevere, a well known lekking site for Great Snipe. The exact location of the lek depends on how wet the meadows are so I would have to return this evening to see if I could locate them. From Karevere it was a short drive to another well known birding site Ilmatsalu Fish Ponds. Thrush Nightingales, Common Rosefinch, Icterine Warbler and Wryneck, the usual suspects but still great to see or hear them. Plus, there is a colony of Little Gulls, at least a dozen Black Terns and three pairs of Red-necked Grebes. 
It had started to rain and was looking very grey as I drove back to Karevere and by 7pm was raining hard. I'd met a group of three English birdwatchers at Ilmatsalu and they turned up at Karevere about 9pm. I've seen very few bird watchers so far which is slightly surprising as I am visiting popular birding locations. I was busy sorting photos and wasn't paying too much attention to scanning for the Great Snipe given that it was still raining but a short while later one of them came back to say that they had found the lekking site and there were 5 or 6 birds displaying. The birds jump up and down in the grass in quite a comical fashion so are visible, at least when they jump from a distance. I had a quick go with the camera but the light by then was terrible but enjoyed watching the lek which was not a bad view through a telescope.

Just about proof that I saw the Great Snipe!

I stayed in the area overnight and checked the local wood first thing in the morning; 3 Red-breasted and 1 Pied Flycatcher singing but nothing else of note. Following the rain it was a misty start to the day but wasn't going far to a series of ponds at Aardla SE of Tartu. It was cool, only about 7 Centigrade when I was walking another area for Citrine Wagtail but this time successfully. A male was calling from a low bush, he did a short flight and chased another male. I saw at least three males and eventually came across a female which as luck would have it was building a nest close to the road. The light was still poor but I had finally found the Citrine Wagtails and was happy to sit and watch them from the warmth of the van.

Citrine Wagtail - male top female below

The usual suspects were in the area plus a nice male Marsh Harrier and a distant Lesser Spotted Eagle. There were supposed to be pools for waders but all these areas looked to have dried up some time ago and the only wader I saw was a fly over Curlew. 
I drove around the lake area and had nice views of a Red-necked Grebe,

Red-necked Grebe

whilst watching it I heard a repeated call that turned out to be a Hobby, two birds were chasing each other at high speed and appeared to be very agitated, I think it was anger rather than ardour which was the cause of the fracas.

Hobby - adult and 1st summer I think

Penduline Tits were quite common and could be heard calling from the reedbeds and neighbouring bushes.

Penduline Tit - male

I'd planned to try for the Great Snipe again and returned to Karevere but there were several cars of fishermen driving around so after a lucky view of one flying that was disturbed by a Marsh Harrier I decided to head back to the coast to explore the Haapsalu/ Matsalu area.
This is the route taken so far.

Route completed so far and approximate schedule for the rest of the journey