Ikh Nart Day 7: Walking with Kestrels

Lesser Kestrels are colonial birds in Mongolia - if you find one nest, there are often others nearby. I was dropped off with Uka near an outcrop where several kestrels were flying around. She knew where one nest was, so we climbed up to look. The female was sitting - I could just see her in a small cave in the rock, but couldn't get a good picture - it was a bit precarious!

We moved to some rocks about 300m away and sat down to watch. Several kestrels came and went, and at one point we saw a male come in and a female come out to meet him - changing the guard. Although we took note of where they landed and the places where they seemed to disappear, when we went back to the nesting outcrop we couldn't find any more nests. Uka got some good pictures of the nest and eggs, though, this time with the male in charge. As we walked back to camp, we saw some more kestrels and a few argali on the way.

Back at camp, a couple of the roof poles of our ger fell in - it had turned round in the wind and the poles were askew. A team of students and researchers, with a bit of help from us volunteers, took the ger apart, straightened it up and put it back together in about an hour, with a new smoke-hole cover because the old one was falling apart after so long in the sunshine.

The small mammal traps were moved to two new sites this evening - one on the plain and the other in the next valley north-east of camp. The second site is in easy walking distance, so we'll probably do that one on foot the next few days.