I chose to highlight this species because the Black lark, a representative of the skylarks, is a bird characteristic of the Kazakh steppes, which were the focus of our expedition. Although the Black lark has only been recorded in Poland once, it is formally considered part of our country's fauna. Our reports from the trip to Kazakhstan cover areas several hundred kilometers from the cities of Almaty and Astana. In the vicinity of Almaty, in the south of the country, the steppe landscape often resembled a desert with very high temperatures. I didn't visit the mountains near Almaty. To photograph the diverse environments of Kazakhstan, the expedition would have needed to last many weeks, not just a little over a week. Kazakhstan is a vast country, almost nine times larger than Poland! In the south, one day in mid-May, the temperature reached 42 degrees Celsius, and there were no trees or hills, in other words, no shade at all. The yurts we stayed in for a few days provided the only shade. Although it wasn't much at noon, even a small amount of shade attracted birds exhausted by the heat, which could be photographed from a few meters away, such as the Ortolan bunting, Isabelline wheatear, Spotted flycatcher, and Common redstart. After such a scorching day, lying camouflaged by the waterhole, I probably took the best photos of the trip. After spending a few days in the hot steppe, we moved to the area around Astana. There, the temperatures were much lower, it rained frequently, and excess rainfall was a problem. It was there that we managed to photograph the Black lark. We photographed in national parks, but the birds were quite skittish. It’s not like a safari in Africa, where animals are used to cars and people. For photographers - almost all the photos were taken with a 600 mm lens with a 1.4x converter and a full-frame camera. I rarely used a 2.0x converter or photographed without converters. Sometimes we photographed along the road we traveled to our lodging. It was somewhat easier there because any shrubs or small trees grew along the road, increasing the chances of encountering birds such as shrikes, red-footed falcons, long-legged buzzards, kestrels, and warblers. In such circumstances, we managed to photograph birds sitting by the road, like the hobby and marsh harrier. Walking in the steppe with the equipment and searching for birds was also exhausting. I checked the pedometer and found that we sometimes walked several kilometers a day. The steppe areas in Kazakhstan have their own specifics, and there's no other way to photograph them. Despite everything, the trip was a success. The goal of the trip was to capture species belonging to the Polish fauna. We managed to photograph 10 new species, including two with full photographic documentation. Several galleries on my website changed their status from documentary to very good, such as the gallery of the Great Black-headed Gull and the Pied wheatear. We also took interesting photos of the Black-bellied sandgrouse and the Lesser Grey Shrike. I added 12 bird voice recordings. Many existing galleries were updated with new photos, often just one to note the observation rather than making significant quality changes. There were also species that I only observed but didn't manage to photograph well enough to add to existing galleries. These species include the Little Bustard, Steppe eagle, Merlin, Mute swan, Whooper swan, Hooded crow, Magpie, Raven, Rook, Horned grebe, Grey heron, Great egret, Red-backed shrike, Hoopoe, Northern lapwing, Kestrel, and Lesser kestrel.
Traditionally, after returning from a trip, I post a list of newly created and updated galleries with photos from the expedition in the information section of each gallery. The list also includes links to these galleries. If the species name has a T in parentheses, the gallery includes a text about the species, and V indicates the gallery has a voice recording. To quickly browse all the bird galleries created and updated after photographing in Kazakhstan, simply search for "Kazakhstan-birds" in the "Tags" section on the right side of the browser.
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