I’ve recently returned from the most extraordinary trip to Tajikistan in Central Asia, an expedition that I and a team of colleagues made for… well, I can’t say precisely what for, but I will say that it involved field research on enigmatic, alleged large mammal species.
Caption: a Tajik (non-passerine) bird montage, and a map showing Tajikistan’s location (go here if you need a larger version). East of Uzbekistan, south of Kyrgyzstan, west of China, north of Afghanistan. Images: birds by Darren Naish; map (c) Google maps.
I’ve longed to go to Central Asia for years but haven’t had the funds or opportunity, so this really was a dream come true. While there, I looked for wildlife, as is my want. And, naturally, I saw a good many birds, and that’s what I’m here to talk about now. A disclaimer is that I only ever have the opportunity to engage in what I call ‘fly-by’ birdwatching, by which I mean that everything is opportunistic, not ‘targeted’. No trips out to special birding places, no use of an accompanying guide, and no accruing of lists of hundred of species. Just the viewing (and photographing) of species that happen to be in the right place at the right time. One day I’ll do things right, but that day hasn’t arrived yet. It might, nevertheless, still be impressive how many species I get to see: an indication of how rich and diverse bird life still is, and how even non-specialized, non-dedicated visits can result in great luck if you’re paying attention.
Some necessary preamble. What to do when preparing to go see birds in Tajikistan? These days, I have a camera and lens (a Canon EFS 500D, with a 55-250mm lens) that’s reasonably good at photographing objects tens of metres away. Alas, it’s not great at landscape shots, meaning that I’m also using a Fujifilm FinePix S4200 (a good bridge camera) and my phone (Galaxy Samsung S9), which has an excellent camera. A consequence of constantly juggling three cameras is that I can’t also use binoculars since I only have two hands.
Caption: key tools… a moderately decent camera, a field guide… and my note books too. Image: Darren Naish.
A key item needed should you wish to identify birds is a field guide. The good news is that the region is well-served by one in particular: Raffael Ayé et al.’s 2012 Birds of Central Asia (Ayé et al. 2012). I had it on me at all times, and I fully recommend it.
What is Tajikistan like as a place to look for birds? Tajikistan is landlocked, mountainous and elevated (it’s mostly over 3000 m above sea level), highly rural, and with a low human population of less than 10 million. Arable and livestock farming dominate the land: orchards were common in the places we visited, and sheep and goat farming and bee-keeping were everywhere. A human impact on the landscape was present everywhere. Livestock were everywhere (don’t forget that this includes domestic honeybees) and trees across many places had been removed.
Caption: an indication of what the landscape is like in the Karatag Valley of western Tajikistan, the region where we did much of our fieldwork. Image: Darren Naish.
Caption: more mountainous terrain in western Tajikistan, this time the infamous Anzob Pass in the Fann Mountains. Image: Darren Naish.
Having said that, Tajikistan was everything I’d hoped for, this being my first ever trip to any of the Asian ‘stan’ nations. It was a place of ridiculous mountain vistas, high and jagged, sometimes snowy, peaks, abundant raging rivers and forested slopes. The region we were in (the north-west) is temperate at altitude and subtropical in general, with mixed deciduous woodland across most of the countryside and coniferous woodland above 1500 m. Add all of this together, and it sounds like a place where you’d expect gallinaceous birds like partridges, abundant hawks, eagles and vultures, arid-adapted birds like sandgrouse and bustards, and open-country and waterside passerines like shrikes, larks, chats, dippers, pipits and finches.
Caption: more mountain porn. I took thousands of photos. These peaks are above the Romit Valley. Image: Darren Naish.
Familiar birds, birds of the water. Ok, let’s get to it. Two bird species were seen repeatedly at most of the locations we went to, namely White wagtail Motacilla alba and Spotted flycatcher Muscicapa striata. The area’s partly arable, well-watered, partly wooded habitats seem ideal for them. On commensal species, House sparrows Passer domesticus and feral Rock pigeons Columba livia were seen in Dashunbe, the capital and largest city in the west. Oh, I must avoid discussing the status of ‘Rock pigeons’/’Rock doves’ in Central Asia…. boy are things complicated (Stringham et al. 2012).
Caption: I think that these are all Spotted flycatchers; three of among many I saw. Images: Darren Naish.
Eurasian collared doves Streptopelia decaocto and Laughing dove S. senegalensis are additional pigeon species frequently seen in and around towns and villages in the region. I saw the latter but not the former. Common mynas Acridotheres tristis were also seen in towns and villages just about everywhere we went. I haven’t spent enough time in Asia for this to be a familiar bird and hence went to some trouble to photograph the birds I saw.
Caption: an urban Laughing dove that was comfortable wandering about a restaurant in search of food. I initially identified this bird as a Collared dove, in which case the black ‘collar’ that the species is named for would have to be concealed. Thanks to reader comments, I now think that the shape and reddish hue demonstrates that it’s a Laughing dove. Image: Darren Naish.
Tajikistan is landlocked, and the lakes we visited didn’t have notable mudflats or adjacent muddy shores. Partly for these reasons, we didn’t see much in the way of seabirds, wildfowl or waders, though a single wader was seen close to streams and pools in the Karatag Valley: the Common sandpiper Actitis hypoleucos. Two were seen, both walking around pools and also in flight. A ‘mystery wader’ seen flying past our Karatag Valley campsite, always at great speed, was likely the same species. It was very white ventrally (including on the tail) and with very dark wings, and my thoughts when photographing it was it was too white and too dark to be Common sandpiper. UPDATE: nope, this wasn’t another Common sandpiper, but a Green sandpiper Tringa ochropus, with the solid black wings being the main giveaway. Thanks to Tom Worfolk for this identification. We didn’t see any grebes, pelicans, herons or cormorants.
Caption: sandpipers of the Karatag Valley. The bird on the right is certainly a Common sandpiper. The blurry one on the left probably is too… but is it? UPDATE: it’s a Green sandpiper! Images: Darren Naish.
Birds of gallinaceous and columbiform sort. On gallinaceous birds, I saw a group of female See-see partridges Ammoperdix griseogularis running near the road in the barren, rocky surrounds of the Fann Mountains on our way to Lake Iskanderkul. A captive Chukar Alectoris chukar was encountered at Labidjay, near the Karatag River.
Caption: the Chukar is the only Alectoris species that occurs in Central Asia, though it’s polytypic, with around six subspecies recognized across the region. I don’t know why this one was being kept in a cage, and it obviously wasn’t being kept in a cage that’s at all adequate for its wellbeing. Image: Darren Naish.
Having mentioned pigeons above, I should add that Wood pigeons Columba palumbus were seen on several occasions when away from towns. They sometimes looked much like European wood pigeons, but a wood pigeon I photographed in flight in the Karatag Valley looked different, with olive-brown on the upper surface of the wing. I thought for a while that it might therefore be the east and south Asian subspecies C. p. casiotis… but no. That animal has a buff patch on the side of the neck, not the white one typical of C. p. palumbus. While poorly known here in the west and mostly reported in low numbers, C. p. casiotis has recently been shown to be relatively abundant in some Asian countries (Dangaura et al. 2023).
Caption: a montage of bad pigeon photos (I mean that the photos are bad; I’m sure that the pigeons were quite amicable). The two on the left are Rock pigeons/doves, though the little crest on the bird at upper left is interesting, and I presume a fluke caused by ruffled feathers. The big pigeon at right looks more brightly coloured than I’d expect for a Wood pigeon but does appear to be typical of the species. Images: Darren Naish.
I didn’t see any owls but did hear one while out at night in the Romit Valley. I didn’t record it and don’t remember the sound well enough to work out which species it might have been.
Raptors! I had high hopes of seeing some of the numerous accipiters, Buteo hawks and eagles that inhabit Tajikistan, and in the end I was slightly lucky, but… only slightly. While sat at camp in the Karatag Valley, a brownish, mid-sized accipiter flew directly in front of me while in pursuit of a Carrion crow. It had heavily barred ventral plumage, dark primaries and at least four narrow transverse bands on the tail. These features show that it was a juvenile Shikra Accipiter badius, a first for me. Incidentally, I would have thought that a Carrion crow was outside the range of prey for this species, but the behaviour I saw sure looked like hunting, and the crow was turning and diving as if its life depended on it.
Caption: a fast-flying accipiter hawk – a juvenile Shikra – in pursuit of an Eastern carrion crow Corvus corone orientalis. Image: Darren Naish.
Caption: at left, the best image I was able to get of the Shikra as it flew past our camp. At right, a bad photo, but one that shows the evasive manoeuvres the crow was undertaking and the fact that the Shikra was actively pursuing it. Images: Darren Naish.
Tajikistan is home to at least seven eagle species. While close to the jagged peaks above the Romit Valley, we watched a large eagle soar and wheel about among the clouds. I assumed that it was a Golden eagle Aquila chrysaetos – which does occur across Tajikistan as well as in the surrounding nations – but could it have been an Eastern imperial eagle A. heliaca, another big species that occurs across the region too? The latter has a proportionally shorter tail, a straighter trailing margin to the wing, and holds its wings in a flatter pose than the Golden. Looking through my photos, I see a longish tail that makes me think Golden eagle.
Caption: there’s something inescapably melancholy about the sight of an immense lone eagle, soaring in the cold, cloudy, grey skies at massive altitude. I doubt the eagle feels that way though. Images: Darren Naish.
Finally, what about vultures? I really hoped to see Lammergeier Gypaetus barbatus – one of my favourite birds, and a species I never have seen in life – but no luck there. A distant griffon was seen flying over some rocky hills as we were driving to the capital near the end of the trip. I hoped it would be a Himalayan griffon Gyps himalayensis but the brown (rather than near-white) underwing showed that it was instead a Eurasian griffon G. fulvus, a species I’ve seen at pretty close range in Spain. Whatever, I was very pleased to see it.
Caption: Old World vultures are among my favourite birds. The Eurasian griffon is, to date, the only species I’ve seen in the wild. Image: Darren Naish.
Woodpeckers, bee-eaters, hoopoes. Woodpeckers and kin (the piciforms) and the rollers, kingfishers, bee-eaters and their kin (previously lumped together as coraciiforms) are united within the Picocoraciae…. wow I hate words with too many vowels. What’s Tajikistan like for birds of that sort?
A single woodpecker occurs in the region, the White-winged woodpecker Dendrocopos leucopterus. This is very similar to the Great spotted woodpecker D. major, a species I see on regular basis at home in the UK, but differs in having so much more white on the closed wing. I saw (and heard) individuals on many occasions at several locations but was mostly unsuccessful in photographing them: their flight is too fast, and when observed in trees they were usually too veiled by twigs and leaves to allow direct line of sight. Some passable photos of a foraging individual were taken in an orchard at Hakimi, a village to the east of Dushanbe.
Caption: I saw White-winged woodpeckers often, but this bird was the only one for which I had unobstructed views. The black (rather than red) nape shows that this is a female. Image: Darren Naish.
Caption: more woodpeckerage, showing an out-of-focus bill and eye on the out-of-focus head. I deliberately included the apples in the third photo so we can be sure that the bird was foraging in an apple tree. Images: Darren Naish.
European bee-eaters Merops apiaster were abundant across the region and I saw them on numerous occasions, often hunting and catching bees. I wonder what local bee-keepers think of them. Despite talking to many local people I never thought to ask. The only ones seen at close range – typically perched on electrical wires – were witnessed while I was in a vehicle, so all my photos are of birds seen across distance. Very frustrating. I also saw Eurasian hoopoe Upupa epops, both on the ground and in flight. No good photos, only hilariously bad ones.
Caption: bee-eaters have an unmistakeable profile in flight. And the Common bee-eater (and others species too, I’m sure) has a colour scheme that’s extremely recognisable even at distance. The bird at left (from the Karatag Valley) is living up to its name and has a bee in its bill. Images: Darren Naish.
Caption: this photo is bad, but at least you can tell that it’s a hoopoe. Well, I think you can tell. Image: Darren Naish.
Falcons. Moving now to that group of predatory birds that are not closely allied to other predatory birds – I’m speaking of falcons – I had reasonable luck. Tajikistan has a diverse falcon assemblage: at least two of the larger species (Peregrine Falco peregrinus, Barbary F. pelegrinoides) occur there, as do Common F. tinnunculus and Lesser F. naumanni kestrels, Merlin F. columbarius and Eurasian hobby F. subbuteo.
A somewhat surprising, unusual falcon was seen perching on the stone-covered bank of the Kafinigan River in the Romit Valley. It was big, stocky, pale, finely barred on its light grey ventral surface and seemed to lack a dark mask. My thinking at the time (and still) is that it was a Saker F. cherrug, which is interesting as this is a species whose range in Tajikistan is marked with question marks in the field guide (Ayé et al. 2012). It definitely was present in the country in the early 20th century and migrant birds were reportedly still being captured for falconry as recently as the 1990s (Dixon 2009). The camera resolutely refused to focus on it (it was lightly raining at the time, which can mess with the autofocus function), so no photos.
Kestrels of undetermined species were seen while on the road. A pair of distant falcons seen high above us in the Romit Valley, sometimes landing on a rugged cliff-face, were thought (on account of a dark mask) to be peregrines. However, the photos I got revealed that they were a bit smaller than you’d expect for peregrines, and red underneath the tail. This means that they can only have been hobby, which is said to be common across the region (Ayé et al. 2012).
Caption: poor photos of Eurasian hobby seen in the Romit Valley of western Tajikistan. Image: Darren Naish.
That brings an end to this discussion of the non-passerines I saw in Tajikistan. 16 species: not bad, but not great… though let me remind you again about fly-by birding. Here’s a table…
Ok, we’ll end things there for now, since next we come to the elephant bird in the room: the passerines or perching birds. I saw many, and sometimes got useable photos of them… though mostly I did not. Tune in next time! For previous articles on birdwatching in far-flung locations, see…
To the Sahara in quest of dinosaurs (living and extinct), December 2008
From Morocco, with larks, babblers, gazelles, owls and GIANT DINOSAUR BONES, December 2008
Birding in Brazil: a view from suburban Rio de Janeiro, June 2013
Birdwatching in Suburban China, May 2019
Suburban Birdwatching in Queensland, Australia, November 2019
Birdwatching in Oregon, June 2023
Refs - -
Ayé, R., Schweizer, M. & Roth, T. 2012. Birds of Central Asia. Christopher Helm, London.
Dangaura, H., Tiwari, V., Chaudhary, S., Dangaura, K. D., & Chaudhary, A. 2023. Record numbers of Common Wood Pigeon (Columba palumbus casiotis) observed in western Nepal during December 2022. Nepalese Journal of Zoology 7, 60-64.
Dixon, A. 2009. Saker Falcon breeding population estimates. Part 2: Asia. Falco 33, 4-10.
Stringham, S. A., Mulroy, E. E., Xing, J., Record, D., Guernsey, M. W., Aldenhoven, J. T., Osborne, E. J. & Shapiro, M. D. 2012. Divergence, convergence, and the ancestry of feral populations in the domestic rock pigeon. Current Biology 22, 302-308.
