November 18, 2015


part eleven:

Pit Stop Sumber

text by Abu


( links to previous posts: part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 78, 9, 10 )


Pit stop in Sumber, Jun 2014, © K. Krätzel

Actually, we had not been only once, but three times in Sumber during this trip in June 2014. As this village is the only large settlement in the Far East of Mongolia, it is mandatory to go there, for refueling provisions or for taking gas from the only gas station. And if you want to visit Nömrög Strictly Protected Area you also have to pay the SPA headquarters plus the border police station a visit. Of course we had lunch there, and, on one occasion, even had to seek for a new tyre. Because the administrative visits are well known to always take some time, we even could do some birding in and around the village. Apart from the standard village bird species we found a group of 8 Grey-headed Lapwings including a bird that was sitting on its nest at the nearby river. Another goodie was found even within the village: Grey-streaked Flycatcher. This bird had been heard singing high up in a poplar tree but then ventured down into the remains of a building where the photographers were able to take some decent pictures. Probably all of the few previous reports of this flycatcher from Mongolia are undocumented, and thus the photos presented here might be the first ironclad proof that the species does occur in Mongolia sometimes!


Grey-headed Lapwing
Sumber, Jun 2014, © T. Langenberg


Grey-headed Lapwing
Sumber, Jun 2014, © T. Langenberg


Grey-headed Lapwing
Sumber, Jun 2014, © M. Putze


Grey-streaked Flycatcher
“downtown” Sumber, Jun 2014, © M. Putze


Grey-streaked Flycatcher
“downtown” Sumber, Jun 2014, © M. Putze


For comparison: Dark-sided Flycatcher
“downtown” Sumber, Jun 2014, © T. Langenberg

During the next days we discovered more birds north of the village and even took the first ever in-field photographs (for Mongolia) of a very skilled megaskulker, so come back and see!

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