Pictures from Siberia - the south

As promised, I'll upload some pics of my trip to Siberia. With a group of 17 people, we flew to Krasnoyarsk (56°00' N, 92°57'E) via Moscou. From there we drove 400 km to the south to discover the steppe of South Siberia. Best birds here were Demoiselle crane, Imperial and Steppe eagles, all four European harriers, Long-toed sandpiper, Pallas's gull, Meadow bunting, Booted warbler, ...

Since I don't (yet) have a good camera to take bird-pictures, most of the pictures are landscapes. However, some good photographers took lots of bird-pictures, some of which can be seen at: http://www.natuur-forum.be/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8712

In the steppe, we mainly visited lakes, since these are the places where many birds can be seen, especially during migration:





It was still very cold during the nights and mornings, and some lakes were still partly frozen.

A salt lake, here we saw White-winged scoters of the Asian race stejnegeri, and also the first Knots for the province of Chakassia :-)

Scenic view on the steppe of South Siberia.

After birding in the south, we again drove north to Krasnoyarsk, where we visited Stolby National Park:

View over Stolby.

Finally, a picture of swamp forest near Krasnoyarsk, in this habitat we saw Siberian rubythroat, Siberian blue robin, Black-faced bunting, ...



Next was the northern taiga, I'll post this part in another blog-message.