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.

Spurn 3rd to 6th October

Made our annual 'Leeds Birders' trip to Spurn in October, I decided to go a couple of days early which proved to be a good decision. A Booted Warbler had been found on 1st October and ringed early on 2nd but not seen for the rest of the day, fortunately for me it was re-found on the morning of the 3rd in the field full of sunflowers by Southfield Farm. It was on view when I arrived though towards the middle of the field. It was feeding low down but kept landing on top of the sunflowers then flying a short distance and occasionally flying further. I hung around and eventually it flew directly towards me and landed in the bush a few metres away before moving on to the fence. Great views and my 3rd seen at Spurn.

Booted Warbler

Caught up with Yellow-browed Warblers on Vickers Lane, Easington and in Kilnsea plus a flyover Lapland Bunting over the Wetlands, also Merlin there and a Great White Egret south over the Triangle - was that my first at Spurn?
Friday the 4th produced a 3W Caspian Gull on the Wetlands and I managed 4 Yellow-browed Warblers out of 16 reported in the recording area.

Caspian Gull - 3rd winter 

The 'Leeds Birders' started to arrive in the afternoon before dinner at the Crown & Anchor and a few beers and exchange of news of our families and various birding travels. Mick Cunningham was a late arrival and missed the photo shoot!

In the foreground Roger Barnes (left) and Johnny McLoughlan with behind from L to R Paul Doherty, Vaughan Lister, Martin Quinlan, Me and Richard Hart

Saturday got off to a good start with a Barred Warbler in the bushes opposite Driftwood then Yellow-browed Warbler at the Crown & Anchor followed by 6 Bearded Tits dropping in to Corner Field.

Bearded Tit

A female type Common Redstart in Big Hedge looked interesting with a grey shawl and slight pale wing panel, possibly the eastern race samamisicus?

 

Common Redstart

An 'eastern' type Lesser Whitethroat was in roadside bushes by Sykes Field (5 were seen that day and one definite Siberian trapped). Finally a Snow Bunting showed well on Beacon Lane along with a dozen Redwing and several Brambling along the track.

Snow Bunting

Sunday rained all morning, I sat in the Scrape Hide and was rewarded with a Jack Snipe bobbing in the gloom before heading for home late morning only to hear that a Little Bunting had turned up in the same area after I left and then a Siberian Stonechat by the Crown & Anchor. 
Another great Spurn weekend!

Jack Snipe

Tarifa - 15th to 21st September

Pam and I returned to Tarifa in September, flying to Gibraltar for a change and a shorter drive. All was going to plan until an announcement that heavy cloud over Gibraltar might be a problem. As we flew down the Spanish Mediterranean coast the Captain announced that we would have to land at Malaga from where a bus would be arranged for the transfer to Gib. We landed and taxied to some far off part of the airport, waited for 20 mins then the Captain announced we were now cleared to land at Gibraltar so up we went again and finally landed at our intended destination, 3 hrs late including take-off delays at Manchester. Still it was only a short drive to Tarifa from here. We hired a car from Espacar at La Linea so we left Gibraltar on foot and soon found the man with our car in the designated underground car park.
Arriving in the town we saw a few Honey Buzzards heading out over the Straits, our first Spotless Starlings and a couple of Turnstone down by the Castle.
Los Lances the following morning produced 25 Kentish Plover, 7 Knot, 3 Whimbrel and 40 Calandra Larks with a few distant Audouin's Gull in the distance on the beach. Moving on to Cazalla there were a few raptors on the move in a light SW wind ; 35 Short-toed and 31 Booted with 30 Black Stork and 23 Pallid Swifts, not a bad start.
The following morning I started again at Los Lances and was just negotiating the collapsing footbridge when a Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin flew from the side of the bridge and landed in some scrub by the side of the river. The first I have seen in Spain, I walked back along the bridge and found a track close to the river and had brief views again as it flew out a landed on the top of a bush before diving in. Brief but reasonable views but no chance of a photo.
The wind was picking up a blowing a decent force 4 or 5 easterly so I headed up to Trafico where the birds appeared to be following the valley and heading just inland of the coastal watch point so I moved to the dirt track crossroads about 1km inland. Here birds were passing very close, mainly Booted Eagles (120) with a few Short-Toed Eagles and Black Kites. It provided a good opportunity to get photos of the variation in underparts colour in the Booted.

Colour variation in juvenile Booted Eagle

Moving back to the coast at La Pena had had the chance to have a good look at some of the larks on the hillside most were definitely Thekla but there also appeared to be 1 or 2 Crested. Having taken some photos I went back down to the beach near Los Lances where I had seen Crested earlier in the day to get some comparison photos. 

Thekla (left) v Crested Lark

Not the best comparison with a rather tatty Crested Lark but it shows the long curved culmen of Crested v the straight and shorter culmen of Thekla. I think it's sometimes easier to compare the shape of the culmen rather than the straight lower mandible of Crested with the slightly convex lower mandible of Thekla often quoted in books but this is more apparent in the photo below.. The breast and flank streaking of Thekla is also very obvious in this photo and is more restricted to the upper chest in Crested (see photo below).
In the afternoon I went up to La Pena and counted 12 Thekla and 2 Crested Larks allowing further comparison.

Thekla (left) v Crested Lark

In a reasonable flight view the orangey underwing of Crested Lark is usually fairly apparent compared with the greyish underwing of Thekla.

Thekla (left) v Crested Lark underwing

In the strong winds I went down to the beach to have a look at the Yellow-legged Gulls flying around the causeway to Tarifa Island. The birds were coming close and providing some good photo opportunities.

Yellow-legged Gull - moulting to 1st winter

The following day we went to La Janda which was very disappointing. Cotton appears to have been planted in many of the areas that used to be rice and the whole area is very dry, consequently there were very few herons, egrets or water birds. I did manage a single but distant Black-winged Kite, a distant juvenile Bonelli's Eagle, just two Montagu's Harriers and a more obliging juvenile Woodchat Shrike.

Woodchat Shrike juvenile

I made a few visits to the wooded valley by the Castle in Tarifa which leads up to El Olivar. It held a few common migrants such as Garden Warbler, Whitethroat and Blackcap and I also heard one of the few remaining Common Bulbul calling but failed to get any photos.

On the 19th we met our good friends Richard and Janet Hart, he and I went up to Cazalla which produced an amazing flock of 300 Alpine Swift, 62 Short-toed and 26 Booted Eagles plus singles of Spanish and Bonelli's Eagles.

Alpine Swifts

Spanish Eagle juvenile

The following day we went to Barbate, not an area I have visited too often but it proved to be a good choice, we went up the southern edge of the lagoons and soon found at least 6 Stone Curlew and a decent group of Calandra and Short-toed Larks in the neighbouring fields probably 40 or 50 Calandra and a dozen Short-toed. Audouin's and Yellow-legged Gulls were preening on the islands with at least 19 Audouin's. Several juvenile Woodchat Shrikes were sat along the fence posts and in the final patch of trees there appeared to be something of a fall of migrants with 2 Pied Flycatcher, male and female Redstart, Willow Warbler and at least 3 strikingly yellow Iberian Chiffchaff.

 

Iberian Chiffchaff - juv/1st winter

I came back the following morning when there were over 250 Calandra and 75 Short-toed Larks but only single Iberian Chiffchaff and Pied Flycatcher remained in the wood but a Tawny Pipit was an addition to the trip list.
Returning to Tarifa we drove the Santuario Road stopping for an hour at the high point. Several Griffon Vultures appeared in the distance drifting towards us and as they came closer one turned out to be an immature Ruppell's.

Ruppell's Vulture

It circled at some distance drifting north with the Griffon's but was soon lost to sight.
On my final morning I returned to Los Lances, crossing the listing wooden bridge and whilst looking at a Stonechat was surprised to see a small trip of 7 Dotterel sat in the field.

Dotterel

Our light back from Gibraltar was uneventful and it was certainly a much shorter drive then flying from Malaga so worth considering.

Back to Spurn 2nd - 4th September

I've recently gone through all my old birding notebooks, I have a lot, dating back to the early 1970's with just a few gaps over the subsequent 40 odd years! One thing that's very apparent over that period is how many good birds I have seen at Spurn. In the last couple of decades I've only visited once or twice a year but it still provides a large slice of the more interesting birds I see in the UK in a typical year. 
Anyway I had a few days there in early September and even in less than ideal weather conditions I saw a decent range of species.
A White-rumped Sandpiper had been present for several days when I arrived and since there was a good range of other species at Kilnsea Wetlands where it spent most of it's time this seemed like a good starting point. 

White-rumped Sandpiper

Fortunately, it was still present but remained distant most of the time. There was a good selection of other waders with Curlew and Wood Sandpipers, Black-tailed Godwits and Spotted Redshank. 
The Dotterel which spent most of its time on the humber made a brief appearance that evening but I got reasonable scope views the following morning in front of the Crown & Anchor.

Dotterel - juvenile

The following morning I came across it with a large flighty group of about 800 Dunlin on the beach by Easington Lagoons.

Dotterel in flight

I was lucky to come across a juvenile Water Rail on the Canal which came far enough in to the open for me to get a photo.

Water Rail - juvenile

With 75 species on Monday and 85 the following day I was very pleased with the trip despite the lack of migrants.