Baikal, May 2013

Siberia in the "Spring"

I haven't previously missed the start of CES, and it would have to be something special to take me abroad in the spring, so on 4^th May, Lyndon Roberts and I were off to Siberia, where we met up with Mikhail (Misha) Markovats at a ringing station on the shore of Lake Baikal.  The spring thaw had started, and ice/tree-trunks/other debris had swept down the river, blocking the final part of our access track, so we had to walk the last km or so.  

Accommodation was comfortable, in recently built log cabins (bunk beds and full electrics), and there were separate kitchen and sauna cabins.  Water had to be collected from a nearby well, and the loo was the usual "long drop".  The ringing base was about 1km away on the far side of a meadow at the forest edge. 

On our arrival, the lake was still frozen (thick enough to walk on), with Baikal Seals hauled out next to their breathing holes, but after about a week it started to break up, with ice flows drifting up and down the lake with the wind/currents.  The wind was bitter (irrespective of its direction), but when you found shelter the temperature was quite pleasant.  I think the spring probably only lasts a week or so, as the seasons go straight from winter into summer.  When we left on 19^th, not a single tree had come into leaf, and there were still a few patches of snow on the ground.

There was a single "Rybachy" type trap, though bird movements and the prevailing wind didn't coincide to make for good catching, and we set approx 200m of net, most of the birds were caught in the mist nets, in total 457 of 34 species.  So what were the birds like? for the first week numbers averaged only about 12 birds a day, on 12^th we ringed 150, before numbers dropped again to average about 35 for the rest of our stay.  The species were mainly Buntings - Little (236), Black-faced (12), Pallas's Reed (12) and Yellow Breasted (1), Thrushes - Naumann's (22), Eyebrowed (19), Red-throated (13), Dusky (4) and White's (4), with relatively few Warblers - still a bit early - Pallas's (13), Yellow-browed (3), Hume's (1) and Dusky(1).  Other memorable species (in no particular order) were Red-flanked Bluetail (8), Daurian Redstart (17), Taiga Flycatcher (18), Olive-backed Pipit (11), Siberian Accentor (7), Siberian Rubythroat (5), Brown Shrike (1), Long-tailed Rosefinch (1), Swinhoe's Snipe (3) and Japanese Sparrowhawk (1).  My particular star bird was Pallas's Reed Bunting, Lyndons was Rubythroat, but one of the best memories will be approaching a net thinking that a Sparrowhawk had bounced, and finding the "leaves" to be 10 Pallas's Warbler lined up in the bottom panel.

-Jerry Lewis

Pallas's Reed Bunting

Siberian Rubythroat