Report from BOU-funded projects

Birds of prey of the KazakhUpland – indicators of

steppe well-beingANNA BARASHKOVA,1* ILYA SMELANSKY1

ANDREY TOMILENKO1 & ARTEM AKENTIEV2

1Siberian Environmental Center, Novosibirsk, Russia2East Kazakhstan State University, Ust-Kamenogorsk,

Kazakhstan

BACKGROUND

The East Kazakhstan Upland is poorly studied by orni-thologists, although this is a large steppe territory ofgreat importance for raptors. We studied birds of preyin Kalba Altai (the area east of the Kazakh Upland) in2006 and investigated the easternmost part of theKazakh Upland in 2007 within the framework of theImportant Bird Area (IBA) identification project (Associ-ation for Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan)(Smelansky et al. 2006, 2008, Sklyarenko et al. 2008).There is virtually no raptor research being undertaken inthe Kazakh Upland, the few ornithologists working inthis region choosing to study other bird species. Thestudies of Kazakhstan ornithologist Anatoly Levin aredevoted to the post-nesting period and relate only to asmall part of the Kazakh Upland (Levin & Karpov2005). This steppe area is an important habitat for rareand endangered birds of prey such as Saker Falcon Falcocherrug, Lesser Kestrel Falco naumanni, Imperial EagleAquila heliaca, Steppe Eagle Aquila nipalensis, GoldenEagle Aquila chrysaetos, Pallid Harrier Circus macrourusand European Eagle Owl Bubo bubo (IUCN 2009).

The project aimed to investigate birds of prey of theKazakh Upland including studying raptor number anddistribution in different habitats and identifying places ofhigh conservation value for the target species in the areainvestigated.

IMPLEMENTATION AND FINDINGS

The field survey in some typical parts of the KazakhUpland (its southeastern part) was carried out in June2009. The route traversed the northern Balkhash Lakeregion, some granite outcrops and low hills north ofBalkhash Lake (Emeltau, Arkat, etc.), and the southern

slopes of the Chingiztau Ridge. The whole workingroute covered about 2000 km.

The main techniques were as follows:

• Searching for nests and perching sites along the vehi-cle routes. The routes followed river valleys andwent through the plains’ watershed areas (withwalked routes to the ridges and other places of diffi-cult access), using regular stops for observation ofslopes and birds in flight.

• The non-fixed-width strip-transect count methodwas used, in which all observed birds are recordedwith a line distance to them (independently ofangle) and the surveyed area is calculated as routelength multiplied by average distance to birds.

• Surveying of lakes.

• Interviewing local people and visitors (herders, geol-ogists, biologists, etc.).

Density was estimated by extrapolating habitat-spe-cific estimates of density to the whole region. All analy-ses were conducted using GIS (ARCVIEW 3.2, ARCGIS9.3, ENVI and ERDAS; ESRI, Redlands, CA, USA). Thefield research focused on raptors but all other specieswere also recorded.

Besides staff of the NGO Siberian EnvironmentalCenter (Novosibirsk, Russia), the team included a localgraduate student (from the East Kazakhstan State Uni-versity) who was trained in surveying raptors.

We recorded 15 species of birds of prey and four spe-cies of owls: Steppe Eagle, Golden Eagle, Imperial Eagle,Cinereous Vulture Aegypius monachus, Long-legged Buz-zard Buteo rufinus, Pallid Harrier, Hen Harrier Circus cy-aneus, Short-Toed Eagle Circaetus gallicus, Black-EaredKite Milvus migrans lineatus, Saker Falcon, Lesser Kes-trel, Common Kestrel Falco tinnunculus, Merlin Falco co-lumbarius, Eurasian Hobby Falco subbuteo, EurasianSparrowhawk Accipiter nisus, Short-Eared Owl Asioflammeus, Long-Eared Owl Asio otus, European EagleOwl and Scops Owl Otus scops.

Some of the more noteworthy observations were:

• We found more than 30 nesting areas of SteppeEagle (43 nests were located, 15 of them observedwere occupied). There were 1.9 � 0.5 eggs orchicks on average in occupied nests.

• We found two nesting sites of Golden Eagle. Oneoccupied nest was observed (with 2 chicks).

• The only nest of the Imperial Eagle was situated ona power line pylon.

• We recorded more than 25 nesting areas of Long-legged Buzzard (53 nests were located, 12 of themobserved were occupied). There were 2.3 � 1.1 eggsor chicks on average in occupied nests.

• Pallid Harriers were recorded at seven sites.

• We found nine nesting areas of Saker Falcon (sevennests were found, five were occupied). There were3.6 � 0.9 chicks or fledglings on average in occupied*Corresponding author.

Email: yazula@yandex.ru

© 2013 British Ornithologists’ Union

Ibis (2013), 155, 426–427

nests. Around half the nests were situated on rocksand half on power line pylons.

• We found 36 breeding pairs of Lesser Kestrel, mostof them on the south slopes and bottom of theChingiztau Ridge.

• European Eagle Owl was found in the granite mas-sifs and hilly area in the Northern Balkhash area.

• We identified a number of sites of particular impor-tance for raptors.

IMPLICATIONS

The southeastern part of the Kazakh Upland is sparselypopulated. Only a few small towns and villages are situ-ated in a territory of about 50 000 km2. The whole areais used as a vast rangeland for livestock breeding. Pasto-ralism is the principal occupation of local people there.Herders’ camps and bases are found throughout the areabut their density is low and grazing pressure is on averagelow as well. One of our study plots was 2500 km2 inarea and held only a single herders’ settlement. Thus thearea investigated is an extremely vast tract of hills andplains covered with almost virgin steppe grassland.

Some of the focal species are of special interestbecause they serve as indicators of steppe integrity. Theyare Steppe Eagle, Pallid Harrier, Saker Falcon and LesserKestrel. The East Kazakhstan Upland is an importantrefuge for these steppe raptors.

The main nesting areas of the Saker in the regioncomprise granite outcrops and other rocks. All knownnesting populations of the Saker in the area have beendeclining for years (Levin 2008), probably due to poach-ing. Some years ago this species started successfully nest-ing on power line pylons. We recorded one such nestingplace; the nests occupied by the Sakers were found anaverage of 8 km apart. All nests were successful, withmean brood size of four. We agree with Dr. A. Levin(2008) that the success of nests on electric pylons is dueto protection from poachers.

The Imperial Eagle also nested on power line pylonsas there are not many trees suitable for nesting in theKazakh Upland; this species is therefore extremely rarehere and is forced to use the pylons for nesting.

At present, the low hills and ridges of Eastern Ka-zakhstan – from Chingiztau in the west to the westernKalba foothills in the east and to the eastern part of theNorthern Balkhash Lake (the northern edge probably isin the Altai region in Russia) – provide an importantzone for the Steppe Eagle, where the highest densitiesof this raptor occur. Most of this territory is formed bythe Kazakh Upland. This is confirmed by our previous

research in the easternmost part of the Kazakh Upland(Smelansky et al. 2006, 2008, Berezovikov et al. 2007)and by the investigations of other field researchers(Levin 2008).

This important area lacks appropriate protectedstatus (almost no IBAs were identified here during workon the evaluation of such territories in Kazakhstan in2005–2007).

The results of this research will contribute to a betterunderstanding of the birds of prey of the area and willbe used for the evaluation of IBAs and new protectedareas in the Kazakh Upland. The project’s findings weredisseminated through reports to the local wildlife agencyand scientific papers (Barashkova et al. 2009).

The next step of this research will be the planningof new IBAs in the Kazakh Upland to increase thevalue of this important area for raptor conservation.This will require additional research to outline the mostimportant nesting territories for rare and threatenedspecies.

The project leader is very grateful to the BOU for funding thework. We sincerely thank also S. L. Sklyarenko (the Associationfor the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan, ACBK, Al-maty), Yu. K. Zinchenko (East Kazakhstan Regional Museumof History and Local Lore, Ust-Kamenogorsk), and E. M. andV. G. Yurchenkov (NGO ‘Eco-Altai’, Ust-Kamenogorsk) fororganizational support.

REFERENCES

Barashkova, A.N., Smelansky, I.E., Tomilenko, A.A. &Akentiev, A.G. 2009. Some records of raptors in the EastKazakhstan. Raptors Conserv. 17: 131–144.

Berezovikov, N.N., Smelansky, I.E., Barashkova, A.N. &Tomilenko, A.A. 2007. Ornithological observations in Kalbafoothills in 2006. Kazakhstan Orn. Bull. 2006: 91–102.

IUCN 2009. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version2009.2. www.iucnredlist.org.

Levin, A.S. 2008. Saker Falcon in Eastern Kazakhstan.Raptors Conserv. 14: 85–95.

Levin A. & Karpov, F. 2005. Notes of breeding the SakerFalcon in Central Kazakhstan. Raptors Conserv. 4: 52–57.

Sklyarenko, S.L., Welch, G.R. & Brombacher, M. (eds)2008. The Important Bird Areas of the Kazakhstan 2008:318. Almaty: ACBK.

Smelansky, I.E., Barashkova, A.N., Tomilenko, A.A. &Berezovikov, N.N. 2006. Raptors of the foothills ofKalbinsky Altai, Kazakhstan. Raptors Conserv. 7: 46–55.

Smelansky, I.E., Barashkova, A.N., Tomilenko, A.A.,Ryzhkov, D.V. & Akentyev, A.G. 2008. Raptors’ findings inthe steppes of East Kazakhstan in 2007. Raptors Conserv.12: 69–78.

© 2013 British Ornithologists’ Union

Report from BOU-funded projects 427