Birding Mongolia: East & West

Day 1|Arrive in Ulaanbaatar & Gun Galuut NR — Cranes Before Dinner

Drive 2 hrs

Land in Ulaanbaatar and drive straight out to Gun Galuut Nature Reserve, where the Kherlen river meadows hold breeding white-naped cranes. A first list started, you settle into a comfortable hotel night.

Day 2|Gun Galuut NR — The Crane Meadows

A full day in the wetlands: white-naped and demoiselle cranes, swan geese, stejneger's pochard possible on the pools, and Amur falcons hawking over the steppe. Evening brings the cranes' unison calls across the river.

Day 3|Terelj National Park — Into the Granite Hills

Drive 2 hrs

Drive to Terelj, where Siberian taiga fingers south into granite country. Azure tits and Daurian redstarts work the birches; black-billed capercaillie haunt the deeper forest.

Day 4|Terelj National Park — Forest and Crag

Dawn in the larch forest for woodpeckers, buntings and warblers; afternoons on the crags for raptors and rock thrushes. Terelj's mix of taiga and steppe delivers one of the east's richest day lists.

Day 5|Terelj National Park — Last Eastern Morning

A final morning circuit — the meadows loud with skylarks and Richard's pipits — then back toward the capital to stage for the great leap west.

Day 6|Altai Mountains via Ulgii — The Western Wall

Fly 2 hrs, then drive 3–4 hrs

Fly across the country to Ulgii and climb into the Altai. The avifauna changes wholesale: brown accentors, güldenstädt's redstart at altitude, sakers over the passes, and the promise of snowcock above camp.

Day 7|Altai Mountains — Snowcock at Dawn

Pre-dawn on the scree for the Altai snowcock's wild whistling — then the day's slow reward of high-altitude birding: wallcreeper on the walls, alpine accentor, golden eagle and lammergeier working the wind.

Day 8|Altai Mountains — High Country in Full Song

June fills these valleys with breeding wheatears, rock thrushes and twite. Ibex watch from the crags; with luck, the spotters find something with more claws to point the scopes at.

Day 9|Ulaangom & Uvs Lake — Down to the Great Lake

Drive 3–4 hrs

Descend to the Uvs basin — a UNESCO World Heritage landscape. First reedbeds and shorelines by evening: Pallas's gulls loafing offshore, spoonbills in the shallows, and a hotel bed in Ulaangom.

Day 10|Ulaangom & Uvs Lake — The Basin's Riches

A full day around Uvs Lake's mosaic of dune, steppe and wetland: white-headed duck on brackish pools, paddyfield warblers in the reeds, and steppe eagles patrolling between.

Day 11|Margaz Mountains & Bayan Lake — Steppe and Reedbed

Drive 3–4 hrs

South to the country between Bayan Lake and the Margaz Mountains — reedbed birding by morning, rocky steppe by afternoon, and a camp with cat country on the skyline.

Day 12|Margaz Mountains & Bayan Lake — Full Days Afield

Bayan Lake's colonies and wildfowl fill the early hours; the steppe gives sandgrouse, larks in display and upland buzzards. At dusk, the team glasses the outcrops — this is Pallas's cat ground, and the birding pause is worth it.

Day 13|Margaz Mountains & Bayan Lake — The Western Finale

A final full day to chase whatever the list still lacks — and to sit once more over the reeds as the light goes long and the lake talks itself to sleep.

Day 14|Ulaanbaatar via Ulaangom — Return Flight

Drive 3–4 hrs, then fly 1 hr

Drive to Ulaangom and fly back to Ulaanbaatar for the checklist session and farewell dinner.

Day 15|Fly Home — Departure

Airport transfer, 1 hr

Breakfast, transfer, home — with a list spanning the whole width of Mongolia.