Aksu Zhabagly Zapovednik, Nature Calendar, Autumn
Our Nature calendar is for travellers,
naturalists, tourists, and nature lovers. Using our calendar, you can
choose the most interesting natural events and the most convenient times
for your travel to a wonderful corner of South
Kazakhstan, the Aksu Zhabagly
Zapovednik (National Park). Get to know the most
interesting seasonal happenings in the life of the Tien
Shan Mountains.
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The Autumn Bird Migration.
It is always a little sad when, at the end of August, you hear the parting
cries of cranes and see a flock, flying in V-formation. One of the main
migration routes of birds, including cranes, crosses the Aksu Zhabagly Zapovednik. There is
a long established ornithological ringing station close to Aksu Zhabagly Zapovednik. You can
go there and see ornithologists using mist nets
and hear many interesting details about birds. In the foothills around Zhabagly village, from August until the end of October,
it is possible to see the migration of diurnal birds of prey like falcons
and buzzards, and in bad weather, or when it is foggy, owls in migration
remain on the steppe. Sometimes, in a two hour drive around the village it
is possible to spot up to twenty short-eared and long-eared owls sitting on
the ground. Also, in Autumn, it is possible to see members of the passeriformes family (sparrows) which are uncommon
species, not typical of Asia
and high mountain habitat. This is possible because Winter comes earlier
high in the mountains and snow drives many animals and birds down to lower
altitudes. In mountain valleys, rock buntings, redstarts and most
unusually, red winged rockcreepers suddenly
appear.
On Roaring. Once, early in Autumn, young
scientific assistants of the zapovednik spent a
night in the mountains.
The night was cold, dark and inhospitable. The men sat at a burnt out fire
and told each other frightening stories about the Iron-nailed Woman who
looks for lost travellers in the mountains.
Suddenly, in the next gorge not far from their camp, they heard a loud,
inhuman roar. Their hair stood on end and their blood froze but after a while their fear left them. The zoologists remembered
that red deer
(maral) roar like that in Autumn. From the end of
August until the end of September is the rutting season for red
deer. During this period, stags
are roaring loudly, calling to dare each other to fight. They fight
desperately, inflicting awful wounds, to win hinds away from their rivals.
At this time, the maral lose their caution and
move throughout the zapovednik. The usual habitat
of red deer
is in the upper reaches of the Zhabagly
River,
the Zhusaly Gorge and the Aksu
Canyon.
In these places, in September, it is possible to hear the roar of the maral and if you do, you can see this huge deer.
Mountain Harvest.
Spring can excite us with its beautiful primroses and
tulips and Summer with its sweet smells but the Autumn colours of Nature are not only pretty. Autumn is the
time for fruits to ripen. Amidst the yellowed grass, one can pick out the
blue grey fruits of barberries and blackberries. The quantities and kinds
of fruits (hips) of the dog rose are amazing. You can see small branches of
dog rose which are covered with small purple fruits
and big branches with juicy blackish red hips amid the thorns. In the
mountains there are wild apple trees with small sour fruit from which our
domestic varieties were developed. It is forbidden to collect fruits in the
Zapovednik but you can collect them in the buffer
zone, the land which surrounds the Zapovednik. So, if you would like to eat fresh blackberries
and make mountain tea from organic fruits of the dog rose, you are welcome
here now!
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