Mongolia Birding Tour; Top 5 Birds
With vast areas of undulating steppe grasslands, rocky mountains and gorges, upland wetlands with wide and meandering rivers, larch-covered hill slopes, reed-fringed lakes surrounded by endless plains, upland bogs punctuated by rocky tors, towering sand dunes and semi-desert dotted with tufty bushes as well as snow-capped mountains the landscapes while birding in Mongolia are a highlight in themselves but when you add an exciting and diverse avifauna as well as some memorable mammals to that equation you have the recipe for a very rich birding tour in a unique country.
The number and quality of species seen on Calidris Birding Tours‘s first trip to Mongolia in June 2026 exceeded the expectations of most of our group with a wonderful selection of regional specialities as well as many more widespread Eurasian birds. Of course the focus was on finding the species that are specialities of birding in Mongolia but we enjoyed all of the birds as we found them, often seeing familiar species in a plumage we were not used to seeing them in or involved in behaviour that was out of the ordinary. However, among the many species of birds we recorded while birdwatching in Mongolia (the full list can be seen here – Mongolia Birding Trip Report) we had some favourites and at the end of the tour we all selected our top three species, selected for personal reasons, either a special rarity, it was seen doing something interesting, the view was especially good or just sheer visual impact. By collecting the results we ended up with a top five birds of the trip.
1. Siberian Crane, Leucogeranus leucogeranus
When you start a birding tour, on day one, with a bird as iconic as Siberian Crane you know you are onto a good thing. With as few as four thousand individuals remaining and the famous virtual extermination of the western population, Siberian Crane is a highly sought-after bird in Asia and listed as critically endangered. In summer we were not expecting to see this species so it was with great excitement that our local guide told us that a group of ten birds had recently been seen at Gun Gulut Nature Reserve and when we spotted them in the distance, such is the capricious nature of birders, all the other wonderful birds we had been enjoying suddenly became less relevant and we headed off to get closer views.
Eventually we were able to get good views from not too far away and we were able to watch several of the Siberian Cranes as they looked for food within the wet grassland. The heat haze at that time of the day made taking good photos very challenging indeed but the views were excellent and the birds did not fly away until a passing raptor upset them, and even then they only flew a few hundred metres distant, where we decided to leave them. The Siberian Cranes were travelling with a single Common Crane too and we had just been enjoying the fabulous White-naped Crane with chicks as well as Demoiselle Cranes, for a four crane species day, but the rarity value and unexpected nature of seeing this special bird meant that Siberian Crane made it onto this list above those other species.
2. Mongolian Ground Jay, Podoces hendersoni
Without a doubt Mongolian Ground Jay was one of the most highly-prized birds before any of us had even stepped onto the plane to go to Mongolia. This member of a very small family of birds is restricted to dry areas of Mongolia and northern China, occupying semi-desert of varying types with a light scattering of low bushes, and for most people a birding trip to Mongolia represents perhaps the only chance they will ever have of seeing this intriguing bird and it was with much anticipation that we began looking for it on the lower slopes of Jargalant Mountain in Western Mongolia.
At first the habitat looked inhospitable and barren and, indeed, there were very few birds to be seen other than Shore Larks but among the rocks and small, thorny bushes there was an incredible abundance of grasshoppers and crickets, flying up off the ground, as we walked along searching for the bird, and crashing into us. Scanning the rocky slopes we couldn’t find our target and it seemed like we might be in for a very long hunt for Mongolian Ground Jay. However, driving along further into the habitat suddenly a flash of black and white alerted us to not one but two of these birds. Jumping out of the vehicles it took us a short amount of time before spotting the male perched on top of a rocky outcrop uttering his high-pitched trilling call. We were able to watch this bird for a prolonged period as it fluttered from one rocky perch to another, calling from each one. The quality of the light, the interesting behaviour and the high-level of anticipation, combined with this species’s restricted range meant that Mongolian Ground Jay comes high up our list of the best birds of the trip.
3. Relict Gull, Ichthyaetus relictus
Relict Gull turned out to be perhaps the most anticipated of all birds on our birding adventure through Mongolia. Gulls do not always attract the most excitement on a birding tour but Relict Gull is a globally rare species with a restricted range and we had had a few other chances to see it along our route through Mongolia but without success. By the time we found ourselves heading to Uvs Lake, in the North West of the country, Relict Gull was the last of our major target species of the trip and the last realistic lifer for some members of the group so the pressure to find this rare bird had built up.
Just looking at thr size of Uvs Lake on a map made thinking about finding a rare bird in a landscape of this scale seem like a daunting task and as we reached the shore of the lake large numbers of wildfowl, terns and gulls greeted us. It actually seemed like an unlikely place for one of the region’s rarest gulls as there were quite a few people with their cars parked at the water’s edge having picnics and playing. Masses of Black-headed Gulls and good numbers of Mongolian Gulls made it look like our search would be a long one but as we were about to look through our telescopes the thought occurred to check out the gulls feeding on scraps next to the picnickers. Would you believe it? There were two Relict Gulls in smart summer plumage picking around at the water’s edge right next to a vehicle! The result was that we had exceptional views for a prolonged period of these Relict Gulls foraging at the water’s edge. Sometimes the situation enhances the feeling of accomplishment and this was a somewhat comedic way of finding such a bird.
4. Pallas’s Sandgrouse, Syrrhaptes paradoxus
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5. Black-throated Diver (Arctic Loon), Gavia arctica
Black-throated Diver was certainly far from the rarest bird we saw when birding in Mongolia or even one with a restricted range but the quality of the views that we obtained, on numerous ocassions, allowing us to see the incredibly intricate markings on this lovely bird’s neck, breast and back in detail. For one of our group Black-throated Diver was a new species but for most of the rest of us the bulk of our previous sightings of this bird were in winter plumage, so the sightings we had on this trip were exceptional. Those of us in the group from North America used the alternate name of Arctic Loon, but as it was pointed out at the time, watching these birds with chicks in Mongolia in the midday heat of the summer didn’t really suggest anything Arctic about them, so we will stick with the name Black-throated Diver here.
Our first observation of these birds, while birdwatching in Mongolia, was of the birds pictured above, with a chick, seen while we enjoyed a picnic lunch next to a reed-fringed lake in Western Mongolia. In fact this was one of two pairs sharing this part of the lake and the wonderful atmosphere was only enhanced when they began making their haunting call. The overall quality of the views and the situations in which we enjoyed these birds is what makes Black-throated Diver feature on this list of the best five species of the tour.