Thanks for sparing me the insults I probably deserve :t:
21 May
We were the only guests in the 40 bedroom hotel so no breakfast was available on our first morning, we bought some fruit and yoghurts and found a picnic table and bench along a quiet road just west of Vayk. A local man walking along the road put paid to my attempt to take a nice Lesser Grey Shrike picture but he was (typically for Armenia) a very friendly chap, and pointed out that a nearby puddle was actually a thermal spring! He filled one of our water bottles with water bubbling out of the ground and took a mighty swig to show it was safe. I waited a sensible couple of seconds
and followed suit. The water had a slight metallic taste but wasn’t unpleasant. With our rudimentary Armenian phrases we had a stumbling conversation and we think he offered to guide us to a ruined monastery a few kms away. As we had planned to visit elsewhere we declined but as a gesture of French-Armenian friendship gave him one of the saucissons we’d brought from home. We hope he and his wife enjoyed it (washed down with mineral water no doubt).
We headed towards Areni then turned south alongside a small river into the Noravank gorge. Lush vegetation and trees on one side contrasted with a cliff face on the other We saw our first
Woodpigeon, Grey Wagtail, Blue Rock Thrush (adult and young) in the gorge and an
Eastern Orphean Warbler flew in front of the car. Golden Orioles were chortling away. Up at the very picturesque Noravank monastery there was a good selection of species, a smart male Black-eared Wheatear, Common Rosefinch, Cetti’s Warbler, Western Rock Nuthatch, nesting Crag Martin, Black-headed and Rock Bunting, Red-billed Chough and two
Chukar having a noisy chase down the hillside (we had heard but not seen Chukar at Vedi Gorge the day before). The icing on the cake for me though was a group of five or six
Red-fronted Serin feeding on wildflower seedheads beside and even on the building where the flowers had sprouted from cracks between the ancient stones.
In the afternoon we walked down the road signposted Zeida just west of Vayk, a real gem in many ways, though the area by the bridge over the river was a mess with rusting hulks of old Ladas. We turned around and retraced our steps, forking off the road down a track before we got back up to the car. The only
Short-toed Snake Eagle of the trip hovered over the hillside and Bee-eaters were calling high overhead, we eventually spotted them, a flock of at least 70 which seemed to be migrating north. The sweet song of White-throated Robin resounded and we saw at least three males in the sector. More Blue Rock Thrush action and a briefly obliging Eastern Orphean posed to have its picture taken. Other species much as in the Noravank Gorge, plus a Roller past and a Linnet family.
Non-avian highlighs were a superb
Caucasian Agama sunbathing and we had an exciting brief encounter with a
Golden Jackal along the track! As we drove east past Yeghandzor our only Laughing Doves away from Yerevan were seen. The mother of all thunderstorms broke as we approached Vayk so we sat out the bad weather in a roadside diner as the road became a river. When it all eased off we continued east and turned up the old road to Jermuk, a spa town. The old road is blocked by a landslide after 13kms so not surprisingly we saw only two other cars in the hour or more we were on it. It runs along the bottom of a deep but fairly wide valley and is known to be the haunt of Brown Bear. With two exceptions the birdlife reminded us of home, Blackbird, Garden and Cetti’s Warbler, Buzzard, Hobby, House Martin, Alpine Swift and Red-billed Chough. The two eastern exceptions were the ever-present Common Rosefinch and at dusk a nice
Syrian Woodpecker in a tree beside the road. Véro decided to scan the mountainside pasture and crags for Bear but covered herself in glory by finding a group of four or five
Bezoar Ibex instead, males complete with their little black beards.
Back at the hotel the manager and his friend told us we were really lucky, they’d never seen Ibex themselves despite being interested in wildlife!