Kazakhstan 2024 - Astana and the northern grassy steppe

First views of Kazahkstan as we descended into Astana

In June 2024, myself and Nick Watmough took a two week long birding trip to the central Asian country of Kazakhstan. Our trip started from Heathrow airport with a Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul. A tight turn-around in Istanbul followed before boarding a second flight to the new capital of Kazakhstan, Astana. We arrived mid morning and transferred to our hotel via taxi where we sensibly grabbed a few hours of sleep before heading out to the nearest ebird hotspot, a large urban pond on the southern edge of Astana (Small Taldykol Lake).

Urban birding in Astana

Ready to bird despite the jet lag

We spent several hours here and despite the mosquitoes we enjoyed nice views of Paddyfield Warbler (making up for our less than satisfactory views at Armash last year), Citrine Wagtail, Western Yellow Wagtails ('beema' or Sykes's Wagtail), Bluethroat ('pallidogularis'), Siberian Stonechat ('maurus') Northern Wheatear, White-headed Duck, 'Steppe' Gull ('barabensis'), Common Tern, Marsh Harriers and Purple Heron. See eBird checklist here

Citrine Wagtail - Astana, Kazakhstan

'Steppe' (barabensis) Gull - Astana, Kazakhstan

Paddyfield Warbler - Astana, Kazakhstan

We returned to our hotel and availed of the Steak house restaurant on the ground floor before heading to bed early in readiness to be picked up at 6am and driven out to the 'grassy steppe' for the first full part of our Kazakhstan oddessy.

Meat-fest!

We were based at a small guesthouse in the village of Khorgazhin, about one hour thirty minutes south west of Astana. 

Our plush accommodation in Khorgazhin village

Ideally placed to explore the vast grassy steppe where our target species would include such gems as Black Lark, White-winged Lark, Sociable Lapwing, Black-winged Pratincole, Demoiselle Crane and Pallas's Gull. A guide / driver had been arranged for us and he expertly navigated our way around the steppe ensuring that we were able to see all the species we had hoped for. Each day Alexandr picked us up from our guesthouse at 6am, we were given a packed breakfast and headed out onto the steppe in his 4x4 to search for our target species. We would usually bird until about lunchtime whereupon we would be dropped back to our guesthouse for lunch and rest before being picked up again around 3pm to bird until 6 - 7pm that evening. This worked well as it helped to avoid the heat and afternoon lull in bird activities and gave us both a mid-afternoon rest. 

It was hot and humid out on the steppe - these horses had figured out how to stay cool

We connected with our first target species, Sociable Lapwing, on the first morning. A flock of about 50 birds, all adults, most likely failed breeders and indicating sadly a poor breeding season possibly due to heavy rains earlier in the year. 

Sociable Lapwing, Khorgazhin, Kazahkstan

Black Larks were plentiful in areas of short grass, with White-winged Larks seeming to prefer slightly longer. Despite their abundance they were tricky to photograph even from the car, despite careful approach, the second you'd wind the window down and point a lens they would be off. I did really like watching their display flight though, which reminded me of a mixture between European Nightjar and European Storm Petrel. We fared better on the last day though following heavy rain before dawn which meant the birds were present but less active and flightly (although rather soggy looking!). Other plentiful species on the northern steppe included Eurasian Skylarks and Western Yellow Wagtails ('beema' or Sykes's Wagtail).

Black Lark

Black Lark

A slightly soggy White-winged Lark

'Skyke's' (beema) Wagtail

Black-winged Pratincoles were a little less easy to find but we did eventually happen across a small party of obliging individuals. 

Black-winged Pratincole

Alexandr also brought us to see a very nice colony of breeding Pallas's Gulls. I may have seen one in Bulgaria way back in 2009 but had not ticked the species, there was no doubting it this time.

Pallas's Gull

Pallas's Gull mobbing White-tailed Eagle

Raptor-wise we had several Pallid Harriers, one very smart male and this female that flew alongside the car for long enough to get some reasonably sharp shots. 

Female Pallid Harrier

A single Steppe Eagle perched on a pylon was a fine sight and Marsh Harriers were present in good numbers. 

Steppe Eagle

Demoiselle Cranes were another target species that seemed to just come across from time to time rather than going to specific locations to see them. 

Demoiselle Cranes

Unfortunately the large wader flocks had already moved through so wader species were thin on the ground but we did have a large flock of Eurasian Curlews (failed breeders returning?), Little Ringed Plover and Marsh Sandpiper.

Eurasian Curlew

Little Ringed Plover

I have to mention the shear abundance of midges there were out on the steppe. If you wound the car window down for a minute then the car was full of them. If you stood outside then pretty soon they were in your eyes, ears mouth and nostrils. On the plus side there's clearly very little use of organophosphates on the steppe and whilst it was uncomfortable I'm not complaining! Alexandr had a good solution, a small dab of baby cream kept them at bay as they hate vanilla! I had no baby cream on me so needed to innovate! 

On our last evening we enjoyed nice views of a Booted Warbler complete with fledged young. This was to be very useful as two days later we would encounter Syke's Warbler (also with young) and with Booted Warblers fresh in our minds it was very easy to see and even note the significant differences between the species. 

Booted Warbler

There was also a smart and obliging 'maurus' stonechat in the same area. 

Siberian 'maurus' Stonechat

We birded until lunchtime on the last day and were then picked up and brought by taxi back to Astana airport for a flight south to the old capital of Almaty.