Going to try for Russian Desman? 
Chlidonias Goes To Asia, part three: 2013-2014
- Thread starter Chlidonias
- Start date
Going to try for Russian Desman?
That's a mouth-watering species right there!
If he gets to see one of them then I will be extremely jealous. If he gets to see one of the species I know he's looking for then Dave you will be green with envy... 
(Trust me on this one! )
Oh, the African manatee already made me green
Oh, the African manatee already made me green
And that wasn't even in the wild...
No, not my scene.
Yes.
No, I prefer being alone.
No, I hate other backpackers. The older ones are usually alright, and you get a few younger ones who are clued-up, but most backpackers are complete ******. Listening to them talking to each other makes my brain bleed.
could someone find out how to get from Ulan Baatar to the Sharga (and) Mankhan Nature Reserves in Mongolia, to save me search times. I hadn't actually thought about saiga to be honest, and I suspect there's no easy way to get to them without expensive tours but otherwise I may be able to fit them in. Saiga would be pretty cool.
nanoboy
Well-Known Member
Meet many ladies but prefers to be alone?
Lame!Yeah, the stereotypical backpacker gives other backpackers a bad name. My image of them is long hair, earrings, duffell bag, old shoes... oh wait!!
Yeah, the stereotypical backpacker gives other backpackers a bad name. My image of them is long hair, earrings, duffell bag, old shoes... oh wait!!
lol
I imagine the young ones to just be dumbass teens just winging it and almost totally clueless. That shall probably be me one day which a bit of wildlife mixed in there!
~Thylo
nanoboy
Well-Known Member
I did a solid 15 minute search but I couldn't find anything useful. I'm not very good at these searches though, so maybe someone else might find something.
1193 km give or take
nanoboy
Well-Known Member
lol
I imagine the young ones to just be dumbass teens just winging it and almost totally clueless. That shall probably be me one day which a bit of wildlife mixed in there!
~Thylo
I imagine them to look like hippies, have bad body odour, and always talking a bunch of left-wing crap about saving the world and protecting the environment. Oh wait...
There is a backpackers hostel near to where I work in the Melbourne city centre, and backpackers are always smoking on the sidewalk next to the "no smoking" sign. The girls are always waif-thin and have dreadlocks, despite being white.
The only way I found is by renting a 4x4 and set up the expedition yourself. Though this would need quite some planning and I m not sure you have the space for that. Also I would not do it on my own as the terrain is quite challenging.
BTW are you travelling in Russia itself by train?
I found some birds today.
When googling yesterday trying to find if there was a tourist information centre in town (there was, in the marine terminal building) I discovered that last year the Russians had built a whacking great bridge across to Russky Island, which is why I couldn't find the ferry building because now people get there on the bus! The bridge isn't hard to miss: it's so big that it can be seen from pretty much anywhere in town. I went to the tourist information centre where, seeing it's a tourist information centre, the lady at the counter only spoke a little English (instead of none). Poor lady couldn't understand half of what I was trying to ask her, but I did discover which stop the buses to the island leave from and which numbers they were (15 and 29, in case you're wondering). I couldn't find anything about how to get anywhere else with some forest though.
I went to the bus stop after trying to find out some other things elsewhere to no avail, and there was a number 15 sitting there. I asked the driver if he went to Russky Island and he said “Russky? Da” so I assumed he did. I wasn't entirely convinced, especially when the bus stubbornly kept going in the opposite direction to the bridge, but eventually it went round a big U-turny road and I could see the bridge ahead. All was looking good until the bus veered off to the left and headed away from the bridge again, then came looping back round to approach it, then veered off in another direction. It was doing my head in, this. But finally the bus made it on to the bridge and I now only had the wondering if it would pass anywhere that looked good for birds. Most of the island appeared from the bus to be a tangle of highways rolling between newly-built run-down buildings (a Russian speciality it seems). But soon it was passing a patch of low forest that looked not too bad, so I jumped off as soon as there was a stop and walked back along the highway until I found a track. So far there had been no birds (at all!) but in the forest I did find bazillions of mosquitoes. Every time I stopped moving a wave of them would appear from nowhere and surround me.
I could hear birds so I knew they were around. The first ones to appear were marsh tits which were a new species for me, and later they were joined by Eurasian nuthatches and a white-backed woodpecker both of which I'd only seen for the first time last week in South Korea. An eastern crowned warbler bounced around in the trees for a bit. Then there was a long stretch of nothing. I had a look by the beach but found only tree sparrows and a distant crow which I think was probably a large-billed crow. But then while walking back along the road away from the beach I came across a seep at the edge which had a constant stream of little birds flying back and forth to bathe. Asian brown flycatchers, grey-streaked flycatchers, great tits, marsh tits, nuthatches and tree sparrows were all having a great time. Then a couple of chestnut-flanked white-eyes joined in which startled me because I didn't know there were any white-eyes this far north (and they were only the second new bird for the day). Also there were several flycatchers which I decided must be female yellow-rumped flycatchers. According to the distribution map in the Birds of East Asia guide, Vladivostok is just outside their range but I don't know what else would have a bright yellow rump like that (with greyish upperparts and whitish underparts). A shy streaky bird with white outer tail feathers was probably a female black-faced bunting I figured, but it stayed in the bushes so I couldn't get a proper look at it and it remains a mystery. Another bird that stayed off the list was a gull I saw gliding briefly into view and out again from a vantage point on top of a hill. It wasn't a black-tailed gull like all the others I've seen so far, and I think it might have been a slaty-backed gull but I don't really know for sure.
So at least some victory in the animal-watching today.
When googling yesterday trying to find if there was a tourist information centre in town (there was, in the marine terminal building) I discovered that last year the Russians had built a whacking great bridge across to Russky Island, which is why I couldn't find the ferry building because now people get there on the bus! The bridge isn't hard to miss: it's so big that it can be seen from pretty much anywhere in town. I went to the tourist information centre where, seeing it's a tourist information centre, the lady at the counter only spoke a little English (instead of none). Poor lady couldn't understand half of what I was trying to ask her, but I did discover which stop the buses to the island leave from and which numbers they were (15 and 29, in case you're wondering). I couldn't find anything about how to get anywhere else with some forest though.
I went to the bus stop after trying to find out some other things elsewhere to no avail, and there was a number 15 sitting there. I asked the driver if he went to Russky Island and he said “Russky? Da” so I assumed he did. I wasn't entirely convinced, especially when the bus stubbornly kept going in the opposite direction to the bridge, but eventually it went round a big U-turny road and I could see the bridge ahead. All was looking good until the bus veered off to the left and headed away from the bridge again, then came looping back round to approach it, then veered off in another direction. It was doing my head in, this. But finally the bus made it on to the bridge and I now only had the wondering if it would pass anywhere that looked good for birds. Most of the island appeared from the bus to be a tangle of highways rolling between newly-built run-down buildings (a Russian speciality it seems). But soon it was passing a patch of low forest that looked not too bad, so I jumped off as soon as there was a stop and walked back along the highway until I found a track. So far there had been no birds (at all!) but in the forest I did find bazillions of mosquitoes. Every time I stopped moving a wave of them would appear from nowhere and surround me.
I could hear birds so I knew they were around. The first ones to appear were marsh tits which were a new species for me, and later they were joined by Eurasian nuthatches and a white-backed woodpecker both of which I'd only seen for the first time last week in South Korea. An eastern crowned warbler bounced around in the trees for a bit. Then there was a long stretch of nothing. I had a look by the beach but found only tree sparrows and a distant crow which I think was probably a large-billed crow. But then while walking back along the road away from the beach I came across a seep at the edge which had a constant stream of little birds flying back and forth to bathe. Asian brown flycatchers, grey-streaked flycatchers, great tits, marsh tits, nuthatches and tree sparrows were all having a great time. Then a couple of chestnut-flanked white-eyes joined in which startled me because I didn't know there were any white-eyes this far north (and they were only the second new bird for the day). Also there were several flycatchers which I decided must be female yellow-rumped flycatchers. According to the distribution map in the Birds of East Asia guide, Vladivostok is just outside their range but I don't know what else would have a bright yellow rump like that (with greyish upperparts and whitish underparts). A shy streaky bird with white outer tail feathers was probably a female black-faced bunting I figured, but it stayed in the bushes so I couldn't get a proper look at it and it remains a mystery. Another bird that stayed off the list was a gull I saw gliding briefly into view and out again from a vantage point on top of a hill. It wasn't a black-tailed gull like all the others I've seen so far, and I think it might have been a slaty-backed gull but I don't really know for sure.
So at least some victory in the animal-watching today.
that is sort of what I was expecting, thanks for that. Saiga are out then.
I am taking a train west from Vladivostok, and it is jolly expensive! The ticket had to be bought in advance for visa purposes and so I had to get it through an overseas agent rather than on the spot in Russia, and thus it cost over twice as much as it would have otherwise (it cost me roughly NZ$520). But 'll be in Vladivostok for a few more days yet.
I would concur with that based on what we've heard about his plans so far. What do you think he's going after in Russia? I think Baikal Seal is probably correct.
~Thylo
nanoboy
Well-Known Member
I would concur with that based on what we've heard about his plans so far. What do you think he's going after in Russia? I think Baikal Seal is probably correct.
~Thylo
Hmmm... I have no idea. Brown bear?
an original version of this trip entailed taking the Trans-Mongolian from Beijing to Moscow, and then back via the Silk Road route to Beijing. The train that runs the Silk Road route does go through Kazakhstan. But that is not in this trip any longer.
Baikal seal is correct, and I better darn well see some because I'm still only on ONE mammal for the trip!!
Russia is a sort of time-warpy place. The city is the same as any other city in the west but it's like the people decided the 80s were so great they'd just stick with that. You see lots of girls in ripped-up jeans and stone-washed denim jackets, but the height of female fashion appears to be based on “80s action-movie hooker”. The mens' fashions aren't so obviously 80s but there are still lots of gold chains, mesh T-shirts and crushed-velvet jumpsuits. Honestly you see some guy walking down the street and all you can wonder is if he's a low-level Russian mafia figure from an American movie or if he's gay. The no-smiling thing is getting a bit tiresome too. At least in Korea I saw people smiling at each other, even if they were afraid to smile at me in case I killed them. I've been in Vladivostok four days now and I've seen literally TWO people smile! If you smile directly at someone they don't know what to do. You can see it going through their head: “What's that weird thing he's doing with his mouth? It's like a Russian expression but it's upside-down! I don't know what that means!” Even the hottest girls here walk around with a dour expression, as if someone's just stolen their pet turtle.
Yesterday I went to the aquarium which is pretty old and in need of some upkeep, but it has some interesting local fish including some monstrously huge kaluga sturgeons (Huso dauricus). They also have a Steller's sea cow!!!! See here: http://www.zoochat.com/797/vladivostok-aquarium-333459/#post699843
Today I returned to Russky Island to try and find some more birds. The forest is good there, quite low (maybe a thirty foot canopy) and very sort of Japanesey-looking with loads of understory. I figure outside of summer there would be masses of birds there, right now not so many but still some even if they are hard to winkle out of the trees. Today I saw most of the same birds as last time minus the woodpecker and white-eyes. I managed to get lots of good looks at the bunting species from the other day and they were indeed female black-headed buntings (only one very short view of a male though; more of a blink-and-its-gone type view). I like it when I turn out to be right about something. I really hate finches and buntings though! I'm used to the small set we have in New Zealand, nice and easy, but when faced with a couple of dozen possibilities for the brown streaky thing you briefly see it's very frustrating. I need repeated sightings to get enough ID features to clinch it. Give me babblers and bulbuls any day! Having said that, I saw another new finch as well today, with several small flocks of long-tailed rosefinches feeding in the grasses between the forest and the beach. They were quite easy due to their long tails and distinctive wing-patterns. A couple of other new birds for the trip list were carrion (Oriental) crows and barn swallows at the beach, and back in Vladivostok a black-headed gull on the ocean with the usual black-tailed gulls. I think I saw a Temminck's cormorant as well flying past at the beach on Russky Island but I can't rule out great cormorant so I've left that for now.
Yesterday I went to the aquarium which is pretty old and in need of some upkeep, but it has some interesting local fish including some monstrously huge kaluga sturgeons (Huso dauricus). They also have a Steller's sea cow!!!! See here: http://www.zoochat.com/797/vladivostok-aquarium-333459/#post699843
Today I returned to Russky Island to try and find some more birds. The forest is good there, quite low (maybe a thirty foot canopy) and very sort of Japanesey-looking with loads of understory. I figure outside of summer there would be masses of birds there, right now not so many but still some even if they are hard to winkle out of the trees. Today I saw most of the same birds as last time minus the woodpecker and white-eyes. I managed to get lots of good looks at the bunting species from the other day and they were indeed female black-headed buntings (only one very short view of a male though; more of a blink-and-its-gone type view). I like it when I turn out to be right about something. I really hate finches and buntings though! I'm used to the small set we have in New Zealand, nice and easy, but when faced with a couple of dozen possibilities for the brown streaky thing you briefly see it's very frustrating. I need repeated sightings to get enough ID features to clinch it. Give me babblers and bulbuls any day! Having said that, I saw another new finch as well today, with several small flocks of long-tailed rosefinches feeding in the grasses between the forest and the beach. They were quite easy due to their long tails and distinctive wing-patterns. A couple of other new birds for the trip list were carrion (Oriental) crows and barn swallows at the beach, and back in Vladivostok a black-headed gull on the ocean with the usual black-tailed gulls. I think I saw a Temminck's cormorant as well flying past at the beach on Russky Island but I can't rule out great cormorant so I've left that for now.