In October, ornithologist Elza Gabbasova, together with a participant in the project to create the Ufa bird Atlas Galiya Gaisina and employees of the Toratau Geopark Azamat Iskhakov and Aliya Yaykarova, conducted an inventory of birds in the Gumerovsky gorge, in the vicinity of the Zigan and Karan Rivers, Mounts Buzha-Tau and Muxim, as well as on a swampy area near the Gumerovo village.
They managed to come across 20 species, among which there were rare Azure tits, red-listed in the Russia! Unfortunately, the birds, did not stop to pose for a photo after cheerfully shouting their call.
The Azure tit or knyazek (Latin: Cyanistes cyanus) is a small songbird of the tit family, distributed mainly in Europe East of Belarus, southern Siberia and Central Asia. It leads a sedentary lifestyle, in winter it wanders within the breeding range.
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A close relative of the common blue tit, compared to which it is easy to distinguish a white, rather than blue cap of feathers on the head. Another feature of this species is a more secretive lifestyle during the breeding season: it spends most of its time along the banks of reservoirs in thickets of shrubs or reeds, in dense undergrowth of deciduous or mixed forest, and in overgrown areas of swamps. It feeds on small insects and spiders, and in winter also on berries and plant seeds. Breeds from April to June.
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Mostly a rare bird. The European subspecies C. c. cyanus is red-listed in Russia and Belarus, as well as their regions. In addition, the Azure tit is listed in Annex 2 of the Berne Convention for the protection of wild fauna and flora and natural habitats in Europe.
