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Description
Birding at the Dushanbe Water Treatment Impoundments is an experience. Open skies with mountains in the distance. The Kofarnihon River below and aromatic sewage lagoons. Local herdsmen watching their sheep, goats, and cattle graze on the dikes. Trucks hauling gravel along the outer road...and the birding is rewarding. Water levels in the impoundments change, sometimes there are mudflats, other times shorebirds are restricted to grassy edges. The area attracts shorebirds, gulls (winter), terns (spring), and raptors. Among the birds you can encounter are Black-winged Stilt, Ruff, Common Snipe, Temminck's Stint, Green Sandpiper, Wood Sandpiper, Black-headed Gull, Egyptian Vulture, Western Marsh Harrier, Black Kite, Crested Lark, Citrine Wagtail, White Wagtail, Western Yellow Wagtail, Red-throated Pipit, Water Pipit, Pied Bushchat and Blue-cheeked Bee-eater.
Details
Access
If you have your own car, drive. Otherwise, you can take a taxi. Public transportation can get you within a kilometer or two: marshrutka #88 goes nearest. If you take a taxi, either keep it for the entire time you're birding or prepare for a long walk to the nearest place where you'll be able to find another car for hire. Cycling would work well. The roads are gravel/dirt/dust. The well-traveled ones are very dusty (muddy after rain). It's nicest to stay on the two central dikes that run lengthwise along the whole 2 km length of the hotspot. In 2022 and 2023, the most productive areas for shorebirds were usually the southernmost pools.