There’s no cock like snowcock
A decade ago, Oxon-birding friend Tom Bedford made a solo trip to the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia, and raved about it as a birding destination: high quality, localized birds in stunning mountain scenery (blog here). At the time regular direct flights had only just commenced from UK and it was under-visited by British birders, so he even upgraded his blog into an article for Birdwatch Magazine. When I moved to Abu Dhabi, only a short 3.5 hour flight away, I put it high on my list of places to go birding in spring.
Early May seemed to be the optimal time, and so I booked a short, sharp trip, 2-6 May, as a birthday present to myself. Initially I was expecting to go alone, because my Abu Dhabi birding pals have all “done” Georgia already. But, knowing how much SMR Young likes Black Grouse, and how much better the craic would be with a great mate, I suggested it to him, and was surprised but delighted that he was keen to come and made the necessary arrangements (even though travel from UK to coincide with my pre-booked dates was not trivial).
There are number of great birds up here in the mountains, but a few stand out as being targets for most birders because they are much harder – or impossible – to see elsewhere in the world: Caucasian Grouse, Caucasian Snowcock and Great Rosefinch. A few other mountain specialists like the superb Guldenstadt’s (White-winged) Redstart and Fire-fronted Serin I had seen in the Tien Shan mountains near Almaty in June (blog), but I was not going to turn down the chance to see these again! Then throw in “familiar” European A-listers like Wallcreeper and Lammergeier, and just a few days could yield a high quality list. I also had one other target, not from the mountains, but in the hills near the capital, Tbilisi. Twenty-seven years ago, as a novice and nor very serious birder, I went on holiday with Nikki to Lesbos, where Kruper’s Nuthatch was on my radar. I spent one morning searching the pine forests of the centre of the island, but of course, I dipped.
Fri May 2, Steve flew in to Tblisi a few hours earlier than me, and picked up our car. By the time I arrived he’d already been out birding and pinned down a Kruper’s Nuthatch site! It was great to see his smiling face as he strode over the arrivals hall as I waited for a SIM to be fitted to my phone. This would be our first foreign birding together in nearly 7 years 😳. The older I get, the less time seems to pass between trips, even though they are much less frequent these days.
Immediately we were heading north, skirting Tbilisi to the east trying to avoid the worst of the traffic. We cruised past dozens of characterless soviet era concrete apartment blocks for 40 minutes before we finally cleared the city, when the road turned up into the very beautiful, steep, forested, valley of the Aragvi. It’s only 168km from the airport to the village of Stepantsminda (and only another 15km to the Russian border) but 150km worth at least is single-lane, starting slow, and getting slower and steadily worse in condition, clogged with seemingly endless trucks heading for Russia. We stopped a couple of times, notably at the Gudauri Viewpoint, a high altitude tourist spot, where a 15 minute break yielded our first mountain species, Red-billed Chough, Black Redstart and Ring Ouzel.
The remaining 30km to Stepsminda/Kazbegi, over the Jvari Pass, peaking at 2395m a.s.l. took more than an hour as we picked our way through potholed roads, degraded by awful winter conditions and heavy traffic, and past a 20km tailback of the trucks heading into Russia. But after checking into our hotel and winding our way through steep, poorly maintained backstreets of Kazbegi to the lower slopes of Mt Kuro, within minutes we were grilling our first lifer: Caucasian Grouse. We’d pulled up at the first ebird hotspot on Mt Kuro a few minutes earlier, really just on a scouting mission for tomorrow morning, but as we arrived a group of German birders called out that there was a single male grouse on a snow patch about 1km away. A black bird on white snow was not too difficult to pick out, even at that range, and the view of the bird with its distinctive long lyre-tail, giving a silhouette like a saucepan, was distinctive and surprisingly good. A further km along the road up the Kuro slopes, the bitumen runs out and we walked a short way to a viewing point (the second Mt Kuro ebird pin) where we would spend several hours over the next few days, scouring the terrain for cocks. Today it was just about knowing where to go tomorrow. A bar in the town for celebratory beers was a bit lacking in atmosphere, but the restaurant we found afterwards served hearty mountain food, and with more beer to wash this down, we were very content with our first day.
Today, May 3, was my birthday! I had high hopes for celebratory lifers, but it turned into one of my least successful birding days ever, and one of my worst ever birthdays. It started inauspiciously with our host — who had agreed to a very early breakfast — seemingly grumpy at having to get up so early (and probably hungover, given the dinner party she seemed to be hosting when we had returned the previous evening) for her “bird boys”, as she called us. It was cold, dark and windy up on the Mt Kuro slopes. Immediately we found a small flock of Fire-fronted Serin, but it was ominously silent on the mountain where I had been expecting to hear the plaintiff curlew-like song of Caucasian Snowcocks. In intermittent rain, a small crowd gathered over the next hour or so — a tour group with a local guide and couple of other independent birders like ourselves — and Steve was able to pick out Caucasian Grouse for the group in one of the early clear spells. I managed a short phone-scoped video of its “popping” display.
Eventually we heard a distant song of Snowcocks, but the weather seemed to be deteriorating and it was frustrating to look across the valley to the Gergeti Trinity Church and see the mountains opposite in sunshine, even as we endured wave after wave of dark clouds, some even bearing hail. A scruffy sub-adult Lammergeier cruised through, along with a couple of Griffon Vultures, and some bold Northern Wheatears posed on nearby rocks, breaking the monotony of constantly scanning back-and-forth across the slopes, hoping the weather would clear (it didn’t).
I was growing frustrated at constantly having to keep wiping raindrops from glasses, scope and binoculars, and the act of regularly removing and replacing gloves to perform simple tasks like extract the lens cloth from its protective plastic bag, meant my hands got colder and colder, and my fingers began to numb. Meanwhile, I was also concerned about my camera, having stupidly failed to bring a dry-bag with me to keep it safe. I returned to the car to put it away; it would be no use in poor light and for birds admitting scope views only. As I trudged back up the hill Steve was coming down. He’d decided that he, too, needed to warm up and we agreed a 30min break for coffee was in order. Fatal mistake, of course! The reasonable looking roadside hole-in-the-wall cafe was not yet open and after a decidedly mediocre instant coffee back at the hotel, we returned to the mountain-side to the news that the tour group had found a single, distant snowcock, and were preparing to leave. Typical 🙁
After another unproductive hour with now just the two of us scanning, and with no singing from the cocks, we adjourned to the lower part of Mt Kuro. The weather was a little better, and the morning warmed up. In the buckthorn I had my only birthday lifer, Mountain Chiffchaff, then we trudged up the slope, slowly but steadily in the thin mountain air, following the songs of at least two Snowcock that were singing near where we’d had the grouse yesterday. As they continued to call, and feeling sure now was our moment, we were drawn higher and higher towards the cliffs and ridges, scrambling over steep, stony, tussocky ground. But again we failed to find the singers.
It’s seemingly easier to find cocks on hillsides in Britain than Georgia
The gen from everyone we spoke to, was that there were no Rosefinches around in the lower part of the valley. I’d been concerned about this watching the ebird lists over the previous week — despite being prime-time for tour groups, and consequently many, many eyes on the ground, the last Rosefinch report on ebird was from 28th April, 5 days ago. With Rosefinches unlikely, we realised our next priority, therefore, should be the stunning Guldenstadt’s Redstart. We chased around in the car to several nearby sites where there were recent ebird pins — the “sea buckthorn plains of Mt Kuro”, the pretty village of Sno, the Terek River far below the road to Russia — but lacking more specific gen we ended up at several wrong locations. Eventually we canned that idea and headed up to the famous landmark, Gergeti Trinity Church. We walked a little way along the trail, finding some more Fire-fronted Serin, but had insufficient time, nor the fitness, to undertake the 6 hour round trip hike to the snowline that would give our only chance of Rosefinches.
After a decidedly unsuccessful day, we found ourselves back at last night’s restaurant for a pre-dinner beer. When we got chatting to some young Australian birders, our pre-dinner beer turned into another round of drinks, and then into a full meal and bottle of decent Georgian red. During the meal I exchanged messages with birding mate Martin Kennewell, who I realised from recent ebird records was leading a BirdtourAsia trip here. He’d left yesterday, and was now in southern Armenia, but provided some excellent up-to-date gen. The craic had been good, but the birding a bit shite: not how I hoped or imagined I would be celebrating my penultimate birthday before the big one (when I will officially be old).
Come 6.30 the next morning we were back on the slopes of Mt Kuro, and mercifully, the weather seemed to be rather better. I’ll cut the suspense — it was much, much better day today! We called in at the lower stop and managed to find, almost immediately, a few male Caucasian Grouse, one of which performed its popping, jumping display, and a pair that faced off briefly.
On the higher slopes we were joined by yesterday’s tour group, who, although they’d ticked off the Snowcock yesterday, had returned because their views were distant and silhouetted. Within minutes we had found another Caucasian Grouse and realised that this male was following at least one female around. We had excellent scope views of both.
We continued to scan all of the slopes, both near and far, for Snowcocks which today were singing earlier, probably encouraged by the better weather conditions. At about 7.30 Steve announced calmly that he had one! He directed us to look up to a distant snow patch where a Caucasian Snowcock was silhoetted. I managed to follow his directions to scope the spot, and detected the movement just in time to lock on for tickable views before it walked below a small ridge and was never seen again. Later, the tour leader picked up some closer birds. They were still distant, but now close enough that I could enjoy an unequivocal view with some plumage detail, and grab a small amount of digiscoped phone video. A pair of Rufous-tailed Rock-thrush put on a show as we were making our way back to the car after a much more successful snowcock-vigil this morning.
The hole-in-the-wall cafe was open as we cruised through the village, and we picked up a coffee and some baked goods before driving to the dam, where the tour group said they’d had both Redstart and a Wallcreeper yesterday. We walked down past the dam to a promising looking area of buckthorn scrub. Almost instantly Steve exclaimed he had a Guldenstadt’s Redstart. I scanned the tops of the bushes, and there, shining bright like a red and white beacon, was a cracking Guldenstadt’s! We spent a further hour here, walking some grassy trails in amongst the bushes. Now we were relaxed having found the three key gettable targets, we had some outstanding birding: within 2-3 minutes of Steve commenting it looked ideal for a Red-backed Shrike, sure enough one flew across the path and posed nicely. Also Lesser Whitethroat, a few Common Redstart, White Wagtail and Water Pipit. A distant soaring accipiter attracted out attention, and I banged out some photos. I didn’t think any more about this bird, until a few days later, once I had processed and uploaded to ebird, did Steve realise that my pics showed the diagnostic dark wing tips of Levant Sparrowhawk, a lifer for both of us. Up at the dam wall we failed to find a Wallcreeper, but a White-throated Dipper added to the quality birds for the trip.
We grabbed lunch at a decent restaurant that also benefited from having the most friendly waitresses we’d come across, then headed to a spot that Martin had recommended, the Pansheti Swimming Pool. This turned out to be an excellent move, and we realised this is where we should have come yesterday for redstarts. On the rough drive from the village to the grassy, swampy plain with the pool on the west bank of the Terek River, we immediately found a pair of Lesser Grey Shrikes, then the first of about a dozen Red-backed Shrikes. Steve and I split up, working different parts of the buckthorn scrub. He managed to find another couple of Guldenstadt’s Redstart which I never got onto, but otherwise we saw a similar array of species: Willow Warbler, Common Redstart, Water Pipit, Dunnock, Winchat. When I observed a pair of majestic Cinerous Vultures I called him on the phone: “Look up: there’s a Black Vulture directly above your head!”, and then a short while later he returned the favour having just found a Black-headed Bunting. By the time I had walked 400 hundred metres to find him near the pool, it had flown off into denser bushes. But when we split up again again chasing migrant warblers, I purposely hung around the spot he’d seen it originally, and was rewarded when a burst of gold landed on a bush just a few metres in front of me — a cracking (lifer) male Black-headed Bunting.
What else to go for? It would be nice to connect with Wallcreeper, which I had last seen in Spain 20 years ago! We drove about 15km back towards Tbilisi where the young Australians had had Wallcreeper the previous day, and which ebird showed to be a regular spot, with sightings each day for the last week or more. We scanned the cliff-face for at least 30 minutes (observing a Griffon Vulture, Eurasian Kestrel, Steppe Buzzard, Jay, Black Redstart and Fire-fronted Serin) before I heard a whistle from further up the track. Steve had got one! It took me a while to get on it, so well camouflaged is the grey bird on the grey, shadowed rocks, but when I finally did land my bins on it, I confirmed what Steve had already announced — it was a cracking, black-throated male Wallcreeper. While Steve raced off to get his camera (his parting words were ominously threatening — “Stay on it”) I strained my neck to stay with the bird, not daring to switch to camera in case I lost it. Inevitably just as he returned it flew fast across the cliff face and out of sight, in the direction Steve had just walked. Fortunately his eagle eyes were able to pick it out again and although it was now much higher up the cliff, I was able to rattle off various small-in-frame and high-iso, but at least in-focus, pics. Shortly, it was joined by a female and we heard for the first time the high-pitched song as the male displayed for the female.
Very content with our day’s work, we called in at a cellar door to have a glass of red overlooking the plains we’d birded earlier. When the waitress pointed out that the price of whole bottle was not much more than the two glasses we’d ordered we needed no further convincing. The food here, though looked a bit fancy for us, so we freshened up back at the hotel and then settled in to our lunchtime restaurant — the one with the friendly waitresses — for a simple meal and a nightcap. I would pretend that this day (“star wars day”) was my real birthday celebration.
The morning of 5th May was our last in the area. The weather had turned poor again, and we were grateful that our key targets were all now in the bag. A brief scan from the lower viewpoint to Mt Kuro yielded another couple of Grouse, and we then walked up into the scrub chasing pics of Mountain Chiffchaff. In fact the first warbler I photographed was a lifer Green Warbler, which we realised as I reviewed the photo in the field; we could clearly see the wing-bar, a diagnostic distinction from Willow Warbler (of which there were also a few around). By 9.30 we were on the road back to Tbilisi.
The traffic was mercifully a lot lighter on the return trip over the pass — it seems the trucks build up during the day — but the weather was poor and we saw very few birds. Once down into the valley we finally encountered some sunshine, and cruised the remaining 120km to our hotel in old Tbilisi, arriving at around 1:30. I had chosen a hotel in old Tbilisi for two reasons: first it was on the right side of the city for our next birding; and second, because it seemed to offer the most opportunities for a last evening out. Location-wise this worked out well, but this particular hotel was not my finest choice. It was cheap, but poorly run by a Basil Fawlty-like character. We had a cup of tea on the terrace, with a lovely view over Tbilisi, waiting for our room to be ready for check-in at 2pm, but when it was still being made up at 2 we lost patience and headed out west of the city to the site for Kruper’s that Steve had checked out three days ago.
We birded at 41.66920, 44.65577 in a lovely pine forest for two hours. Mid-afternoon it was quiet, but with patience and persistence the birds all came to us in the end, with great views of the main target, Kruper’s Nuthatch, a small, distinctive and charismatic nuthatch. My initial views were high up in poor glaring light, after it had disappeared for 10 minutes and I was worried this would be all we got, it returned to close by and over the next hour at least two birds worked trees all around us, apparently unconcerned by our presence. As we went to leave we found another close to the road right where we had parked. At least four Green Warblers flitted about in the leafy canopy (as leaf warblers tend to) and again up by the road we located a pair of Mountain Chiffchaff that called softy and regularly in a manner more like Siberian than Common, helping with our ID. A Green Woodpecker called but we never located it, but a bolder, louder yapping alerted us to something bigger and I saw a fabulous Black Woodpecker fly in and land out of sight. It did not stick around and we both saw it fly powerfully through the pines and out of sight.
We’d been lucky with the weather, because once we were done birding it clouded over, and by the time we’d returned to Tbilisi and were freshening up before dinner, it started pissing down with rain. While we waited for the rain to abate we had a few beers in the bar of the next-door (rather better) hotel, then found an upmarket restaurant for some fancy Georgian fare and more quite good Georgia red wine.
Our final morning was a “reserve day” which I had built in for a final crack at Kruper’s Nuthatch if we still needed it. But of course we’d got it yesterday, so we ended up having a late (by birding standards), leisurely breakfast, and spent time at the Ponichala Reserve, which — according to ebird — is the second most birded site in the country. This is a fabulous woodland and wetland reserve on the outskirts of Tbilisi, and we had two brilliant hours birding here.
The water and reedbeds were surprisingly quiet, no singing acros, but we noted Great Cormorant, Little Egret, Purple Heron, Marsh Harrier, a squealing Water Rail. We failed to find any Pygmy Cormorant which are regularly reported from here (and would have been a lifer), though Steve found a few when he returned later in the day after dropping me at the airport.
But in the woodland and in the trees and bushes alongside the water migrants were heard and seen everywhere, with 30 or more European Bee-eaters, a flock of a dozen Golden Oriole, a few Spotted Flycatchers, numerous Red-breasted Flycatcher (all female unfortunately), a fly-through Egyptian Vulture and couple of Lesser Grey Shrike. Nightingales sang from the dense bushes on the forest floor, and woodpeckers were everywhere. We heard a few Green Woodpeckers, then saw a GS/Syrian type whose ID we could not nail down before it disappeared into a nest hole high above the track. Later we had great views of a definite Syrian Woodpecker; not, strictly speaking a lifer, since I ticked this off in Austria, but I only had flight views back in 2006, and my field notes from that day would probably not be enough to convince any rarity committee, so this was one of my main targets this morning. Today I got unequivocal photos to go with the excellent views. I also had my best ever views of both Middle-spotted and Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. A Levant Sparrowhawk was a superb lifer for both of us. That is, until days later when we finally realised that the soaring accipiter in the Terek Valley was one. Still, the views this morning in lovely light were rather better!
Steve dropped me at the airport for a mostly painless check-in, and once through security I decided on a final beer as I waited on my departure. Overall, a great trip, with top birds, incredible scenery and excellent craic.
The full ebird “report” is available here .
