We finished our nine-day Ukrainian tour organised by Liberty Tour. The tour focussed especially on the Crimean Peninsula. We were welcome by the endless and treeless steppe dressed in blue-yellow flowers with real sunny summer weather, and this perfect birding spell was disturbed only by smaller showers in one afternoon.

The days spent in the Crimea had a true eastern European atmosphere, although the vast habitats proved that we were somewhere in the easternmost corner of Europe. Besides flat and hilly steppes, extensive, brackish water lagoons, steppe lakes, limestone gorges, dry hornbeam-oak and coniferous forests, reed beds, patches of planted woods and seashores were visited by us.

Eastern European migrating and breeding species are really common here, such as Marsh Harrier, Red-footed Falcon, Crane, Black-winged Stilt, Little Gull, Mediterranean Gull, Scops Owl, Hoopoe, Bee-eater, Syrian Woodpecker, Tawny Pipit, Black-headed Wagtail, Great Reed Warbler, Icterine Warbler, Collared Flycatcher, Red-backed Shrike, Lesser Grey Shrike, Golden Oriole, Corn Bunting, Ortolan Bunting, Squacco Heron, Purple Heron, Glossy Ibis, Long-legged Buzzard, Honey Buzzard, Barred Warbler, Hobby, Avocet, Collared Pratincole, Kentish Plover, Brood-billed Sandpiper, Roller, Thrush Nightingale, Penduline Tit, Eastern Imperial Eagle, Great Bustard, Short-toed Lark, Red-necked Grebe, Alpine Swift, Rock Bunting, Firecrest, Black Stork, Rock Thrush, Siskin, Crossbill and Pygmy Cormorant.

Due to the closeness of the Black Sea, some marine species or species confined to the lagoons like Shellduck, Sandwich Tern, Grey Plover, Turnstone, Sanderling, Bar-tailed Godwit, Knot, Little Tern, Caspian Tern, Arctic Skua, Yelkoun Shearwater and Shag are also representatives of the avifauna here.

A real speciality is the presence of some real steppe range species that make the list of observed species extremely interesting, such as White Pelican, Ruddy Shellduck, Pallas´s Gull, Calandra Lark, Slender-billed Gull, Gull-billed Tern, Paddyfield Warbler, Booted Eagle, Demoiselle Crane, Little Bustard, Isabelline Wheatear, Rose-coloured Starling, Black-headed Bunting, Pied Wheatear, Black and Griffon Vulture and Citrine Wagtail.

It was a superb tour with 181 species recorded.

The Sakertour Team

Slender-billed Gulls