Kazakhstan

Steppes and Forests of Central Asia

May 22 - June 7, 2011

Reservations and prepayment are required on all Ventures. Your place on this Venture will be reserved when your deposit of $300 has been received. Please make your check payable to VENTURES, Inc. and send it to this address or call the office with your VISA or MasterCard #. 

Limited to 10 participants.

• Venture Description

• Price & What's Included

• What We Hope To See

• Itinerary

• Registration and Terms & Conditions

Venture Description

Cost of Kazakhstan Venture $TBA per person double occupancy from Almaty, Single supplement: $TBA (Not available in Yurt Camp) Price includes:  All internal air and land transportation, all accommodations, meals, service charges & gratuities (except for leader & local guide), information packet & bird checklist, leader/guide service throughout Not included: Air to Almaty, alcoholic beverages, and any items of a personal nature     Some of the Birds we hope to see   Pallas’s Sandgrouse, Ibisbill, Sociable Lapwing, Caspian Plover, MacQueen’s Bustard, Himalayan Snowcock, Himalayan Griffon Vulture, Lammergeyer, Blue-cheeked Bee-eater, White-winged, Bimaculated, Black and Calandra Larks, Azure Tit, Wallcreeper, Himalayan Rubythroat, Guldenstadt’s  Redstart,  Pander’s Ground-Jay, Rose-colored Starling, Severtov’s Tit-Warbler, Red-fronted Serin, White-capped Bunting, and many more Southeastern Kazakhstan offers endless steppes, lakes, rivers, and pine-covered mountains. Because of the centralized geographic location, birds indicative of both the Oriental and Western Palearctic regions can be found. From the stony deserts near the former capital, Almaty (Alma-Ata), to the Tien Shan Mountains close to the Chinese border, the variety of landscapes will amaze and the birding is nothing short of spectacular. Even their names evoke the rugged landscape and remote mystery associated with this part of the world. Many of the birds we will be seeing are little known and indeed, very rare vagrants to Western Europe. Birding tours are new in Kazakhstan, and we are among the first US-based tours to spread our wings to explore this part of the world. Accommodations are comfortable, yet simple and food comprises mostly of good locally prepared foods. Bring your sense of adventure and join us for a real interesting exploration of the birds and scenery of Kazakhstan.

Leader: Mark Welford

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What We Hope To See:
Pallas’s Sandgrouse, Ibisbill, Sociable Lapwing, Caspian Plover, MacQueen’s Bustard, Himalayan Snowcock, Himalayan Griffon Vulture, Lammergeyer, Blue-cheeked Bee-eater, White-winged, Bimaculated, Black and Calandra Larks, Azure Tit, Wallcreeper, Himalayan Rubythroat, Guldenstadt’s  Redstart,  Pander’s Ground-Jay, Rose-colored Starling, Severtov’s Tit-Warbler, Red-fronted Serin, White-capped Bunting, and many more

  Cost of Venture

$TBA per person double occupancy from Almaty, Single supplement: $TBA (Not available in Yurt Camp)

Price includes: All internal air and land transportation, all accommodations, meals, service charges & gratuities (except for leader & local guide), information packet & bird checklist, leader/guide service throughout.

Not included: Air to Almaty, alcoholic beverages, and any items of a personal nature.

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Itinerary

You need to take a flight from London to Almaty that leaves in the early morning of May 21, so you don’t have time to catch the flight if you arrive from the US that morning.  You may want to come into London on May 20 and spend the night.  There’s a great little country hotel near Gatwick Airport where you can relax, walk and enjoy some local birding before we head out. You can also fly from Amsterdam or Ankara. The costs for this overnight and meals are not included in the cost of the Venture.

Day 1 (Sunday, May 22)          

After arrival at the Almaty Airport in Kazakhstan, we will load up and leave for our hotel which located in the Ili Alatau National Park. We can start birding immediately or have a rest after our long flight. Hume’s Leaf-warblers and Red-fronted Serins occur in the vegetation around the hotel and if we’re up to it, we’ll head to a different part of the Park which is good for Meadow Bunting, plus there’s a good chance to see 4 species of Vultures, (Lammergeyer, Griffon, Eurasian Black and Himalayan Griffon) as well as hear (and maybe see) European Quail and Corncrake.

Night at Tau-Samal Guesthouse, Almaty

Day 2 (Monday, May 23)                 

We’ll leave early this morning around 7AM heading east towards the Chinese border. We will bird en route hoping to see a good selection of Shrikes, Warblers and raptors. After about 3 hours we will arrive at the Kokpek pass where we have a good chance to find White-Capped Bunting, Blue Rock-Thrush, Rufous-tailed Rock-Thrush, Hume’s Whitethroat, Rock Martin and Saker Falcon. After lunch at Kokpek pass we will continue on to Tashqarasu for Pied (vitata) and Desert Wheatear and a possible Pallas Sandgrouse. This will be a long day so it will be a pleasure to get to our hotel- where there is a good chance for the stunning Azure Tit.

Night at Hunting Lodges 

Day 3 (Tuesday, May 24)                

After leaving the hotel around 7:30, we will start the day between Masaq and Borandasu for Pallas Sandgrouse, Desert Finch, (Asian) Crimson-winged Finch, Mongolian Finch and Desert Warbler (nana sub-species). Many desert species will be possible as we pass the Charyn River and the impressive Charyn Canyon, where we will stop for lunch. We will then head in a southerly direction towards the Kyrgyzstan border with stops in the village of Temerlik for warblers, birds of prey (Golden Eagle, Lesser Kestrel, Saker Falcon), before getting to our hotel in the early evening.

Night at Hunting Lodges

Day 4 (Wednesday, May 25)           

Should we have missed Pallas Sandgrouse the day before, we will have an early start again to search for this amazing bird in the area between Masaq and Borandasus. We will stop by the Sogety plains for Desert Finches and Lesser Kestrel, before stopping at Barthogay Lake. We hope to be back in Almaty by 6 PM in time for a good shower, dinner and an early night in readiness for our adventure into the Taukum Steppes the following morning.

Night at Tau-Samal Guesthouse, Almaty

Day 5 (Thursday, May 26)               

We’ll leave the hotel early again at 7AM, with our first stop being at a colony of spectacular European Bee-eaters, with chances for European Roller and Indian Sparrow. Our first major birding stop will be at Sorbulak Lake, where can expect our first Hen Harrier, Paddyfield and Great Reed Warblers, White and Dalmatian Pelicans, Collared Pratincole and White-tailed Eagle.  A stop at the famous Sorbulak Dam should produce thousands of Rose-colored Starlings, before departing for Bozoy where we will briefly search for Caspian Plover, Macqueen’s Bustard and White-winged Lark. Our next stop is in Aydarty for Warblers in the village trees and bushes, with a possibility for Long-tailed Shrike. We should arrive at our traditional Yurt Camp in the early evening.

Taukum desert is probably one of the best spots in the world for typical steppe and desert-species. The landscape has little relief and the vegetation does not grow higher that 75 cm. Here we will have good chance to find Caspian Plover, Greater Sand-Plover, Macqueen’s Bustard, Steppe Eagle, Imperial Eagle, and Bimaculated, White-winged, many thousands of Short-toed and Calandra Larks. Because there are no facilities at all in this part of Kazakhstan, we plan to set up a luxurious traditional Yurt Camp with staff and a professional cook.

Day 6 (Friday, May 27)          

It’s up again with the birds this morning as we head out to the artesian wells at 5AM for Caspian Plover, Greater Sand Plover and Sandgrouse.  Driving in a westerly direction from Qanshengel, we’ll make a lunch stop at a place with petroglyphs for Eastern Rock Nuthatch. Both White-winged and Bimaculated Larks are possible in the surrounding steppes and we’ll keep our eyes open for Steppe Eagle and Steppe Grey Shrike. If we have enough time we’ll drive past Aqsugek to Alakol Lake for Great Black-headed (Pallas’s) Gull, before returning to our camp in the evening.

Night at our traditional Yurt Camp

Day 7 (Saturday, May 28)               

Today will be devoted to any species we have missed over the past few days. After lunch in the camp we can go towards Aydarly. This is like Konshengel a small village with many trees. In this dry desert birds use it as a stopover. Good birds included in 2008 included Oriental Honey-Buzzard, Pacific Golden Plover and an East Siberian Wagtail. We may go to Bozoy again to look for Macqueen’s Bustards. We also have the opportunity to spend a little of today relaxing.  Night at our traditional Yurt Camp

Day 8 (Sunday, May 29)

The Yurt Camp was our favourite place on our last tour, so we will have an extra day enjoying the desert, visiting oases and looking for any species that we may have missed during the past few days.           

Night at our traditional Yurt Camp

Day 9 (Monday, May 30)                 

We depart early to look for Black-crowned Penduline Tit at Topar lakes, where it’s also possible to find Shikra, Sykes’s Warbler and Ferruginous Duck. Our next stop will be the Turanga Populus diversifolia) forest near Zheltoranga for Yellow-eyed Dove, White-winged Woodpecker, Turkestan Tit, and Saxual Sparrow. A stop at a Muslim cemetery near Zheltoranga could also produce Pied Wheatear and Saxual Sparrow. On our way back to Almaty, we’ll make a stop at Bereke for Blue-cheeked Bee-eater. It may be a late arrival back in Almaty this evening.

Night at Tau-Samal Guesthouse, Almaty

Day 10 (Tuesday, May 31)      

Because of the late arrival from Taukum the night before, we will depart a little later today. Our destination is the Observatory, accessible with four-wheel drive vehicles. We’ll make stops along the way for the amazing and enigmatic Wallcreeper, Blue Whistling-Thrush, Brown Dipper, Blue-headed and Eversmann’s Redstarts, and Grey Wagtail. We may have a chance for European Three-toed Woodpecker in the forests!! Lunch will be at the Observatory where we will walk around the camp looking for Rosefinches, Himalayan Rubythroat, and White-winged Grosbeak.

Night at the Astronomical Observatory

Day 11 (Wednesday, June 1)  

We’ll start the morning with another walk around the Observatory before breakfast looking for more mid-elevation species. After breakfast we will climb higher to the Cosmos Station, with our targets being Guldenstadt’s Redstart, Brown, Himalayan Accentor and Black-throated Accentors and a good chance for Himalayan Snowcock. We’ll return to the Observatory for lunch.

After lunch we’ll head to Big Almaty Lake to look for the wonderful Ibisbill. Both Sulphur-bellied Warbler and Severtov’s Tit-Warbler occur in the area, so we will carefully search the juniper shrubs near the observatory.

Night at the Astronomical Observatory

Day 12 (Thursday, June 2)

Today is for finding any species that we missed at Big Almaty Lake or Cosmos. If we missed Guldenstadt’s Redstart at Cosmos, then we’ll head back to try again as Cosmos is probably the best spot in the world for this beautiful bird. If not we may go after the Ibisbill again. We should arrive around 7PM at the hotel in Ili Alatau.

Night at Tau-Samal Guesthouse, Almaty

DAYS 13-15 (Friday, June 3- Sunday, June 5)

The next few days are spent near Astana. The flight takes about 2 hours so our arrival will be just before noon. After arrival we will depart for the Kurgulzino National Park where we will be birding for 2 full days with a professional birding guide from the park. Main targets in the area of grass steppe are Bluethroat, Black Lark, White-winged Lark, Sociable Lapwing, Terek Sandpiper, White-headed Duck and Pine Bunting, as well as an excellent selection of water and landbirds.

Day 16   (Monday, June 6)

This morning we will drive back to Astana where we shall have our Final dinner before departing for the airport for our flight back to Almaty. We can either spend the night in Almaty or connect with our ongoing flights home.

Day 17   (Tuesday, June 7)

Due to weather and other conditions, this itinerary is subject to change.

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