Text & Photos © Max Baumgarten
My name is
Max and I study Biodiversity and Ecology (M.Sc.) at Greifswald University (Germany). I am currently
conducting the field work in Azerbaijan for my master thesis with the
title 'The breeding bird communities of the western parts of Azerbaijan and their response to human alteration'. In the first two weeks (in April) I tried to get an overview of the study area,
which stretches from the Lesser to the Greater Caucasus. In the beginning of my
field work I focused on the ‘early’ species, such as woodpeckers, tits and
other resident birds. Most of these species are found in forests and mapping
them sometimes proofed to be difficult as most forested areas are on steep
slopes and far away from any infrastructure. In general, most accessible places outside protected areas, either
forests or steppe habitats, are unfortunately grazed or otherwise used and finding more natural places appears to be difficult. Nevertheless, the sampled forests hold almost all species known from
home (Germany) including some additional goodies like Semi-collared Flycatchers
or Booted Eagles.
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| Jays look
different in the Caucasus (atricapilla subsp.) |
 |
Woodchat
Shrikes arrived at the end of April
|
As forests
cover only a fraction of the study area, I spent most of the time in
agricultural land or in steppes. A cultural landscape, as every central European
conservationist dreams of, is still present here on a large scale and
sometimes it feels like a travel back in time. Thanks to this circumstance Rollers, Hoopoes, Quails, Motague's Harriers
and other elsewhere rare farmland birds are a common sight and spending a day
without seeing/hearing them is almost impossible.
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| She doesn't
care. Displaying Lesser Short-toed Lark. |
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| Rock
Sparrow giving it all |
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| Rollers are
common, but Rollers on natural vegetation are rare |
 |
| Isabelline
Wheatears are nice photo models |
Among the
breeding birds I was able to find new breeding pairs of rare breeders such as Lesser-spotted Eagle or Eastern Orphean Warbler. Maybe even
the first breeding record of Common Crane
(Grus grus lilfordi) for the country? One bird was observed in Qarayazi
State Reserve, on 29 April, which is very late for a migrating individual. Additionally, the bird was very small and only weakly coloured around the
head that hints for the eastern subspecies lilfordi, which breeds in eastern Turkey.
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| Lilford
Crane in Qarayazi |
 |
| Secretive Eastern
Orphean Warbler |
 |
| Black
Vultures can be encountered throughout the area |
Besides my
actual field work I always had an eye on bird migration, which took a while to
start and is more obvious since mid-April. Nice species such as Black-winged
Pratincoles, Pallid Harriers and up to five subspecies of Yellow Wagtails could be
observed. Keeping an eye on the wagtails produced a presumed White-headed
Yellow Wagtail (Motacilla flava leucocephala), which is a vagrant in the WP and only rarely recorded.
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| White-headed Yellow Wagtail or just a very pale beema? |
 |
| Yellow Wagtail (thunbergi) |
 |
One of
hundreds of migrating Black-winged Pratincoles
|
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| Keen birders watching Black Vultures and Imperial Eagles |
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| Dramatic landscape |
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| Türyancay river |
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| Will this be a Rosy Starling Year? |
Stay tuned
for what’s going on in the best month of the year!
