Wintering of birds off the Turkmen coast of the Caspian Sea

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Wintering of birds off the Turkmen coast of the Caspian SeaWhen the autumn dirt on the roads dries up with the first frosts and the October winds rip off the last leaves from the trees, “banks” - narrow strips of the first thin ice - will shine near the shores of lakes and oxbows. Hole burdocks of water lilies, yellowed bunches of sedges, and broken reeds freeze into the ringing, fragile strip of the banks. On frosty clear nights, the banks quickly grow in width, their ice becomes thicker, and soon only in the middle of the lake, above the whirlpool, a small hole remains for several days. Another week - the ice will get stronger, and the children from the neighboring village will spin around the lake, ringing their skates.

First of all, small swamps, lakes and oxbows freeze, then small rivers and finally large rivers. Rides and rapids on the rivers sometimes do not freeze all winter. In the severe January frosts, thick steam swirls over such an ice-hole, and a peasant passing by, glancing with one eye from behind a high sheepskin collar, will see large black and white ducks diving into the icy water, lost in the clouds of steam. Their relatives have long been wandering on warm seas, deep snows have fallen on thick ice, hiding even the contours of the lake shores, and the careless flock, having taken a liking to the ice-free wormwood, while away week after week in a cold country, hundreds of kilometers north of the nearest duck wintering grounds.

Wintering of birds off the Turkmen coast of the Caspian SeaMany birds, including ducks, tolerate cold well; they can stay in northern countries wherever food is available to them all winter. Consequently, in the autumn they are driven south not by cold, but by hunger. Shallow lakes freeze - mallard duck, inhabitants of overgrown shallow water bodies, will move on; ice will bind large lakes and rivers - the last flocks of dives will fly away from us: gogols, long-tailed ducks, scooters who know how to get their food from the bottom of deep reservoirs. Many people think that all migratory birds fly very far, to warm countries. This is completely wrong. Several species of birds arrive from the north and winter in the strip of Moscow, Gorky, Kazan; dozens of species winter in Central Asia and Transcaucasia. On the Caspian Sea, the large southern part of which never freezes completely, millions of water birds winter - gulls, loons, diving, coots, river ducks and swans.

We will tell here about a large bird wintering site near the southeastern coast of the Caspian Sea, in Soviet Turkmenistan, near the border with Iran.

Wintering of birds off the Turkmen coast of the Caspian SeaAs early as mid-September, small insectivorous birds appear near the deserted shores of the Caspian: swallows, flycatchers, warblers, warblers. Having overcome the strip of dry treeless steppes, waterless sands and rocky plateaus burned by the sun, reaching Turkmenistan, flocks of these birds go further south - to the warm shores of the Persian Gulf, to the forests and savannas of Africa. Behind them fly flocks of waders - cautious long-nosed curlews, black-and-white stilts with exorbitantly long legs, variegated stylobeaks with a sharp beak bent upward, many small coves, sandpipers, stone-stones. On the muddy shoals of the sea shore, some waders stay for a long time, collecting shells and small crustaceans of amphipods, teeming among the scraps of algae thrown out by the waves. Rockstones, looking for prey, turn over small pebbles and crusts of dried silt, using a crooked beak as a lever. On the Caspian seaside, they rest and gain strength for the long journey.

Wintering of birds off the Turkmen coast of the Caspian SeaThe turnpike flyway is one of the longest: it nests on the coast of the Arctic Ocean and winters in southern Africa. Twice a year - in spring and autumn - these little kulichs fly 10 thousand kilometers. Looking at the small sharp wings of this motley little cake, you can hardly believe that in a short time they carry its muscular body over all the geographic zones of the globe.However, such travels are not easy for all stone-stones. I remember one fall a flying turnstone landed on my boat in the sea. The bird was very tired of the flight; not paying attention to people, she ran along the side and bench of the boat, pecking something off them. After resting and brushing the feathers, the turnstone flew up and disappeared over the gray plain of the sea.

Wintering of birds off the Turkmen coast of the Caspian SeaIn October, various species of ducks, smoky black fat coots, herons, white spoonbills, many gulls and flamingos arrive on the southeastern coast of the Caspian. The sultry, silent shores of the sea come to life for most of the winter; millions of birds call them out. Flocks of diving ducks and coots sway in an endless black stripe in the distance on the waves. When the white-tailed eagle, slowly flapping its huge wings, goes to the sea for its prey, flocks of ducks rise above the water, like a dark cloud, and the roar of their take-off is heard far away, like the sound of a large waterfall.

Wintering of birds off the Turkmen coast of the Caspian SeaFlamingos are one of the endangered birds of the fauna; only on a few vast shallow and swampy lakes in Kazakhstan have their nesting colonies been preserved. Near the Turkmen coast of the Caspian Sea, about fifteen thousand flamingos winter every year. In the shallow sea, these large light-pink birds are standing in long rows. Their legs are longer than those of a crane, but they have swimming membranes, like those of a goose; the neck is longer and thinner than the swan's, the small eyes are white, and the beak is curved like a knee. Several kilometers of the seaside look pink where thousands of flamingos have settled down to rest. The crimson-red color of the wings, imperceptible from a distance, is striking when birds take off. As if fire runs through the flock, when flamingos spread their wings, frightened by the appeared boat or hunter. The endless sea, the blue southern sky, the noisy rise of huge flocks of pink and red flamingos - a picture that you will never forget.

Wintering of birds off the Turkmen coast of the Caspian SeaIn November, the last guests arrive from the north: geese, geese and swans. Swans stop for wintering in the sea near Cheleken Island, and flocks of geese scatter over the lakes and floods of the Atreka River, where there are many soft green grains that make up their food. All winter, over the seaside, over the mud and reeds of Atrek, one can hear the loud cackling of geese, the scream of eagles, the whistling sound of the wings of flying ducks.

Wintering of birds off the Turkmen coast of the Caspian SeaScientists of the reserve have already made many interesting observations. It turned out that during prolonged stormy weather, weakened coots and ducks wintering at sea get very wet. Wet, tired birds come ashore; here, in cold weather, they freeze over and die from hypothermia. Some try to hide from storms in the Krasnovodsk Bay, but become victims of fuel oil, which often gets into the water from steamers and oil barges. Feathers impregnated with fuel oil do not protect against water penetration and cannot protect the bird from heat loss. A coot or diving duck soiled in fuel oil becomes so heavy that it loses its ability to swim and soon dies, choking. Some “fuel oil birds” perish on the shore from high heat loss and hypothermia.

Wintering of birds off the Turkmen coast of the Caspian SeaShallowing of bays, a decrease in food reserves due to increased salinity, unfavorable winter weather conditions, depletion of birds on the way of flight and many other circumstances have to be investigated and taken into account by scientists. The life of birds in nature is not at all so carefree and comfortable as it might seem at first glance. Reasonable human intervention in wintering conditions can facilitate the struggle for the existence of those valuable species of water birds, which, nesting in the northern bogs and lakes of our homeland, fly off to winter to the shores of southern Turkmenistan. Now, when in the middle zone everything is white with snow, the wind rustles dejectedly in the frosty forest and over the frozen lakes there are only here and there dry, sad reeds, over the shallow waters of the southern Caspian uncountable trains of birds sway along the blue waves. A strong, vigorous duck tribe dives for shells, rustles and splashes; it gives us a lot of excellent meat, good fluff and gladdens the heart of the hunter.

A. Formozov, K.Vorobiev


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