Richard Prior
Halfway up an Alp

A ‘big’ birthday for me this year had me finally deciding the expense of a trip on a commercial Bird Tour to Finland and Norway for the long suffering Mrs P and me was perhaps justified after all….
But it was not to be, due to people dropping out the whole thing was cancelled, so as we had over the past 2 years collected about 18kgs of children’s clothes to take to a project we support in Armenia it was a no brainer to bring forward our next visit to our friends there – so perhaps there’ll be no new WP species for me for my 70th year after all, but there’s more to life than lifers …… isn’t there?
Therefore this is more of a Vacational Report than a Bird Trip report, we spent our time in the North/North West so none of the country’s ‘sought after Western Palearctic specialties’ as the Tour Companies would call them - and as there was no room in our luggage for my ‘bird photographing lens’ those hoping for some of my usual top quality exotic birdy pics should look away now….
Things went a bit Pete Tong from the start when our flight from Geneva arrived late at Vienna and Austrian Airlines decided to let their Yerevan flight leave without us and three other passengers even though a delay of less than 15 minutes would have been incurred. With only one flight per day and the next evening’s flight fully booked we were billeted in a Vienna airport hotel for the night and booked on another airline the following afternoon to … Athens (??) then the night flight from there to Yerevan where we eventually arrived 23hours late!
Day one was originally planned to be a midday check in at a hotel, a bit of kip then a good few hours birding around Mount Aragats, stay overnight before heading north to our friends at Vanadzor on Day 2. Instead we arrived on Day 2 but still took the same route, a dawn drive from the airport to the foothills of Mt Aragats in our hired Lada Niva saw the first taste of the exotic for a West European birder, on the dusty plain flocks of Rosy Starling were already scudding across the sky, numerous Hoopoe flying across the road carrying food for their young and a brief stop to check the map produced a couple of pairs of Roller nesting on a huge war memorial. Driving up into the cleaner air above Byurakan we saw an accipiter perched on a roadside rock, with its back turned but it gave us a stare allowing us to see it had a nice dark eye, a Levant Sparrowhawk. While Mrs P had a sleep in the parked car I walked around the vicinity, near a former holiday camp now seriously overgrown. Rock and Black-headed Bunting were competing in a singing contest with several other species, Cuckoo, several Common and Lesser Whitethroat, Common and Black Redstart, Mountain Chiffchaff, Common Rosefinch and a skulking but noisy Marsh Warbler finally gave itself up after teasing me for several minutes. A calling Cetti’s Warbler was typically uncooperative though as was a shy Robin. As the sun rose higher a nice group of four rufous Steppe Buzzard circled around, Woodlark were singing and a Bee Eater announced its arrival before it flew overhead (on our September 2019 visit Bee Eater provided the soundtrack to our holiday but this individual proved to be the only one of our two weeks this time!). No time to go higher up the road for Radde’s Accentor, White-throated Robin etc etc as we had to hit the road north, but we managed to persuade the nearby hotel to rustle up some breakfast (tomato omelette and potatoes, yum), out of the window a fine Lesser Grey Shrike was looking for its morning meal too and a pair of Grey Wagtail were flycatching in the car park. After taking the obligatory photo of the distant Mount Ararat (‘Armenia’s highest peak’ (though of course it’s actually in present day Turkey)) we struck off east along a minor road till we reached the main Yerevan to Vanadzor highway. We had driven on this road in 2019 when the grassland was pretty parched and birdsong largely absent, but to see it in late Spring was something else, wildflowers everywhere and rushing streams full of snowmelt water gave it another aspect. The cattle and sheep farmers and their families were in the process of setting up camp in a number of spots and there was a good variety of birds to be seen or heard, including a pair of Ruddy Shelduck, Quail, Skylark (loads), Sand Martin, Tawny Pipit, Northern and Isabelline Wheatear, Red-backed Shrike, Rock Sparrow and Corn Bunting. Strangely we didn’t see any Lesser Spotted Eagle despite having encountered them on this route previously. Driving on the minor roads was as usual, a challenge (!) but that’s why we chose to hire a Lada Niva, they cope with everything the Armenian road system throws at you. Having said that, each time we return to the country the roads are better. It was Republic Day, so various events were taking place in the towns, meaning a few interesting diversions were undertaken and lorries had been pulled off the road for several hours until the main roads reopened after the concerts and parades had finished.
Late afternoon saw us arrive in Vanadzor, Armenia’s third city and we checked into our town centre B & B, squeezed between a bread factory and backing onto a park (sadly not visible behind a wall).
Photos: Mount Ararat, Rock Bunting, Black-headed Bunting, en route landscape, some of the Aparan Police Band getting ready for the Republic Day concert.
But it was not to be, due to people dropping out the whole thing was cancelled, so as we had over the past 2 years collected about 18kgs of children’s clothes to take to a project we support in Armenia it was a no brainer to bring forward our next visit to our friends there – so perhaps there’ll be no new WP species for me for my 70th year after all, but there’s more to life than lifers …… isn’t there?
Things went a bit Pete Tong from the start when our flight from Geneva arrived late at Vienna and Austrian Airlines decided to let their Yerevan flight leave without us and three other passengers even though a delay of less than 15 minutes would have been incurred. With only one flight per day and the next evening’s flight fully booked we were billeted in a Vienna airport hotel for the night and booked on another airline the following afternoon to … Athens (??) then the night flight from there to Yerevan where we eventually arrived 23hours late!
Day one was originally planned to be a midday check in at a hotel, a bit of kip then a good few hours birding around Mount Aragats, stay overnight before heading north to our friends at Vanadzor on Day 2. Instead we arrived on Day 2 but still took the same route, a dawn drive from the airport to the foothills of Mt Aragats in our hired Lada Niva saw the first taste of the exotic for a West European birder, on the dusty plain flocks of Rosy Starling were already scudding across the sky, numerous Hoopoe flying across the road carrying food for their young and a brief stop to check the map produced a couple of pairs of Roller nesting on a huge war memorial. Driving up into the cleaner air above Byurakan we saw an accipiter perched on a roadside rock, with its back turned but it gave us a stare allowing us to see it had a nice dark eye, a Levant Sparrowhawk. While Mrs P had a sleep in the parked car I walked around the vicinity, near a former holiday camp now seriously overgrown. Rock and Black-headed Bunting were competing in a singing contest with several other species, Cuckoo, several Common and Lesser Whitethroat, Common and Black Redstart, Mountain Chiffchaff, Common Rosefinch and a skulking but noisy Marsh Warbler finally gave itself up after teasing me for several minutes. A calling Cetti’s Warbler was typically uncooperative though as was a shy Robin. As the sun rose higher a nice group of four rufous Steppe Buzzard circled around, Woodlark were singing and a Bee Eater announced its arrival before it flew overhead (on our September 2019 visit Bee Eater provided the soundtrack to our holiday but this individual proved to be the only one of our two weeks this time!). No time to go higher up the road for Radde’s Accentor, White-throated Robin etc etc as we had to hit the road north, but we managed to persuade the nearby hotel to rustle up some breakfast (tomato omelette and potatoes, yum), out of the window a fine Lesser Grey Shrike was looking for its morning meal too and a pair of Grey Wagtail were flycatching in the car park. After taking the obligatory photo of the distant Mount Ararat (‘Armenia’s highest peak’ (though of course it’s actually in present day Turkey)) we struck off east along a minor road till we reached the main Yerevan to Vanadzor highway. We had driven on this road in 2019 when the grassland was pretty parched and birdsong largely absent, but to see it in late Spring was something else, wildflowers everywhere and rushing streams full of snowmelt water gave it another aspect. The cattle and sheep farmers and their families were in the process of setting up camp in a number of spots and there was a good variety of birds to be seen or heard, including a pair of Ruddy Shelduck, Quail, Skylark (loads), Sand Martin, Tawny Pipit, Northern and Isabelline Wheatear, Red-backed Shrike, Rock Sparrow and Corn Bunting. Strangely we didn’t see any Lesser Spotted Eagle despite having encountered them on this route previously. Driving on the minor roads was as usual, a challenge (!) but that’s why we chose to hire a Lada Niva, they cope with everything the Armenian road system throws at you. Having said that, each time we return to the country the roads are better. It was Republic Day, so various events were taking place in the towns, meaning a few interesting diversions were undertaken and lorries had been pulled off the road for several hours until the main roads reopened after the concerts and parades had finished.
Late afternoon saw us arrive in Vanadzor, Armenia’s third city and we checked into our town centre B & B, squeezed between a bread factory and backing onto a park (sadly not visible behind a wall).
Photos: Mount Ararat, Rock Bunting, Black-headed Bunting, en route landscape, some of the Aparan Police Band getting ready for the Republic Day concert.