20 September
Leaving the ‘Hotel California’ with its foam fountain (!) early in the morning we nipped back down the motorway a few kms to do the last birding of the holiday around Khor Virap. The site is one of Armenia’s most-visited, not only a group of ancient buildings where St Gregory the Illuminator had been imprisoned by King Tiridat way back in the 3rd Century, but its raised position gives the best, and closest views of Mount Ararat whilst still remaining in Armenia. So it’s also the most photographed site! A young Red-backed Shrike photobombed our classic image of Khor Virap with Ararat and Little Ararat in the background. We turned off the approach road down a muddy (well, dusty) track and parked up at the edge of a massive reedbed. As we’d found earlier in the trip at Masis, reeds have grown pretty high by September so once again seeing any open water was a challenge. Still it was quite birdy and we clocked up a nice selection of species including five ‘new’ ones in the wetland and surrounding fields: Marsh Harrier, Pygmy Cormorant, Armenian Gull,
Water Rail, Coot, Moorhen,
Collared Dove, Rock Dove, male
Black-headed Wagtail, Common Redstart, Ménétries’, Paddyfield and Reed Warbler, Penduline Tit,
Bearded Reedling, loads of Red-backed Shrike 1st years, Common Starling, Hooded Crow, Magpie,
Rook, Jackdaw and Tree Sparrow. The Khor Virap car park was already heaving (Ararat is best viewed in the morning before cloud hides its snowy summit so tour buses start their days there it seems) and the young man selling (very nice ) coffee was keen to discuss the merits of Chris Rea’s music with me :eek!: We walked up onto the dry hillsides overlooking the reeds and found a weary Northern Wheatear warming itself up in the sun.
We stopped near the refuse dump at Masis on our way to the airport to drop off the faithful Lada Niva, still plenty of White Storks, Armenian Gulls and a few Black Kites, but no Steppe Eagles (well, I tried :C..).
Photos: The Persian Wheatear spot at Meghri (note the author in summer plumage
); 'Mixed bag' on Aragats; Rock Doves at K Virap, photobombing RBS in our postcard shot of Mt Ararat and Khor Virap.