It's a steep learning curve for me on this trip, lots of new things encountered in the last few days and no doubt more to come. Pleasingly we have got to grips with one of the two potential new birds for me on the trip, my fifth lifer of 2010. Migration is in full swing, raptor passage is especially good, but many of the passerines are hard to find and may already have gone south.
Yesterday I finally unblocked Caucasian black grouse (my most wanted chicken). Had three males scooting about on the other side of a valley above Bakuriani just after dawn. My fourth time in habitat, so this bird was becoming very important! Whilst we watched we counted no less than 8 pallid harriers flying from roost on the slopes above us and heading over the pass and south. Mega! [Image nicked from BirdLife website]
Another new thing yesterday was a colony of social voles (Microtus socialis) up on the hills beyond the Javakheti Pass.
One of our target species above the Javakheti Pass was the impressive Colchicum speciosum. The supporting cast here included huge flocks of hundreds of twite and a few shorelark.
Rana macrocnemis - a new amphibian for me. Hundreds of tiddlers along the shore of Lake Tabatskuri yesterday.
Today we walked in the Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park. Here we encountered Aeshna mixta in enormous numbers, some clearings having 500-600 hunting individuals as the sun dropped.
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