Armenia 2023 - Part 6

We returned back along the ancient Silk Road heading south west from Dilijan and skirting along the northern tip of the great Lake Sevan. En route we passed an area of roadside habitat consisting of a small stream lined by lots of willows and small conifers.

 

We rather fancied it for Mountain Chiffchaff and were not to be disappointed!

 

Mountain Chiffchaff

 

Despite its obvious similarity to our own Common Chiffchaff, I still found this bird quite charming and interesting. Approaching 'tristris' Chiffchaff both in term of sound and looks but sublty different in its own distinct way.

We pressed on towards our eventual destination of Mount Agarats. Our plan on reaching there was to bird the approach road to the summit of Mount Agarats and then ascend up to and over the snowline the following day before (hopefully) reaching the summit.

We arrived in the area sometime around mid-afternoon.  As we drove upwards the roads narrowed down and the terrain started to remind me somewhat of the Wicklow Mountains. Stone walls, stunted Hawthorns, Junipers and Ash trees and of course sheep! We had a nice couple of hours birding from the roadside. It was cold, clear and silent up there with still the odd little patch of unmelted snow. Highlights included a singing White-throated Robin (more on that later), 3 Caucasian Ring Ouzels (amicorum) and 2 Common / Rufous-tailed Rock Thrushes (see ebird checklist here).

 

Amicorum / Causcasian Ring Ouzel

 

 

We overnighted at the Old Byrukan Guesthouse not far from the Byrukan Astrophysical Observatory, basic but certainly comfortable and the added bonus of a singing Common Nightingale in the orchard below the guesthouse.

The following morning we retraced our steps long the summit road. We spent a little more time in the vicinity of where we'd had a singing White-throated Robin the previous day. Having seen many of these stunning chats on spring passage in Kuwait in 2019, I was eager to see them on territory. 

 

White-throated Robin, Mount Agarats summit road, Armenia

I did record this particular bird singing, its not the best ever recording but I'll include here in any case.

 

We continued our ascent to the summit, thankfully the road had been kept clear as there was still some pretty deep snow en route. 

 

Not looking especially happy but it was more the cold than anything!

At least the road was clear!

Surprisingly 'birdy'

I was really quite surprised by how 'birdy' it was in the snow. Plenty of Water Pipits, Horned Larks, Northern Wheatears and Twite. They presumably find food in the melting snow because they were quite active. Taking photos was a challenge though with such a bright white background.

Northern Wheatear in the snow

'penicillata' Shore Lark

'coutelli' Water Pipit

 

We did encounter some Shore Larks below the snow line.

Shore Lark

Overall a very fine morning birding and kudos to Nick for navigating our car to the summit, it can't have been easy. Here's my ebird checklist.

Returning to lower ground we stopped for lunch and birded a small valley near the Byrukan Observatory where we searched for and found Western Rock Nuthatch (we'd already seen Eastern earlier in the trip). 

 

Western Rock Nuthatch

Back at the car this Hoopoe decided to show well.

Eurasian Hoopoe, Byrukan, Armenia

ebird checklist here

Our final stop of the day was to bird an area for Bimaculated Lark. After a lot of hard searching we managed to succeed in the end, views for me weren't great but good enough to confirm the identification!