Birding in Mongolia Photo Gallery – June2026

The diverse selection of habitats in Mongolia always supplies a wide variety of top quality birds and, in many locations, in good numbers. With a fun group and great local knowledge this was a very enjoyable trip with lots of great views of great birds. On this Mongolia birding tour in June we saw a very high proportion of our target birds and enjoyed all of the birds that we we able to track down. You can read the full trip report, with a day-by-day account, here – Mongolia Birding Tour Trip Report June 2026.  On this page we present a wider range of bird photos from this year’s tour, in this birding in Mongolia photo gallery, along with a few notes.

Mongolica Hotel/Tuul River 13-16/06/26

The Mongolica Resort is situated a little outside of Mongolia’s capital city, Ulan Bataar, within an area of streams and rivulets surrounded by scattered trees, patches of farmland, willow scrub, wet grassland with the backdrop of rocky hills with a good variety of bird species making it a great location to start our Mongolia birding. Here there were a lot of widespread Eurasian birds to enjoy plus several species that are much more range-restricted including White-crowned Penduline Tit.

Gun Gulut – 16-17/06/26

A few hours driving from Ulan Bataar delivers birders into Mongolia’s famous wide, sweeping landscapes with wetlands, steppe and craggy mountains to explore and this habitat diversity provided us with a wide variety of birds from raptors such as Upland Buzzard to the tiny Pere David’s Snowfinch and superb Siberian Cranes to the song of a plethora of larks, including the magnificent Mongolian Lark, as the background music.

Gorkhi-Terelj National Park – 18-20/06/26

On this trip we had the most challenging birding of the tour at Gorkhi-Terelj National Park largely because of incredibly unseasonal weather with downpours of rain morphing into snowstorms at the higher altitudes. However, this area of larch-covered hill slopes, meandering upland rivers, rocky tors and wooded river valleys still provided us with a good selection of species and top-quality sightings including many that were not seen again anywhere else on the tour.

Khar-Us Lake – 21/06/26

Khar-Us Lake is one of those locations where birders can amass a big list of species in a short space of time. The combination of open water, shallow margins, reedy fringes, wet grassland, stony steppe and nearby semi-desert make for an interesting selection of birds here and we enjoyed large numbers of wildfowl, including the rare White-headed Duck, reedbed birds such as Great Reed Warbler, a selection of waders, terns and gulls as well as larks, shrikes and wagtails on the fringing habitat. As well as providing lots of birds, between locations where birding requires more patience, we found several really exciting birds at Khar-Us Lake.

Jargalant Mountain 21-22/06/26

Birding at Jargalant Mountain gave us some of the most impressive views of the tour with our camp at an altitude of around 1500 metres and birding up to just over 3000 metres and contained a number of highly-anticipated birds. By birding as we ascended the mountain we enjoyed seeing many altitude-specific species including the superb Mongolian Ground Jay in the foothills to Altai Snowcock in the high mountains and many of us were able to catch up with several species that had proved to be “bogey” birds in the past. Jargalant Mountain gave us some of the most enjoyable birding of this tour.

Durgun Lake 23/06/26

Durgun Lake gave us another opportunity to see a large number of wetland birds with its reedy channels, satellite pools and surrounding dry steppe. Waders were a feature here with breeding plumage Asian Dowitcher and Ruff being the pick of the bunch while Pallas’s Sandgrouse were another highlight. The abundance of birds here allowed to pick a spot and pick through the species in front of us while at the same time allowing the time for secretive reed bed species to emerge from their domain.

Margaz Mountains & Bayan Lake 24-25/06/26

We explored these two adjacent birding sites from probably our best camp of the trip set among some amazing rock formations. By visiting Bayan Lake and its associated wetlands we enjoyed large numbers of birds, including some top regional species such as Pallas’s Reed Bunting while the Margaz Mountains held an abundance of birds associated with rocky formations including the prized Mongolian Accentor. However, eclipsing the birds, perhaps, were the mammal sightings which included Pallas’s Pika, Siberian Ibex, Pallas’s Cat and the superb Snow Leopard.

Uvs Lake 26/06/26 

By the time we arrived at Uvs Lake we were very focussed on one key target bird that we were hoping for: Relict Gull. Having not seen this rare species at other locations this was our best and final chance, but given that there is a small breeding colony at this lake it was a simple affair to go to the lake shore and get excellent views. However, the general quality of the wetland birding here is high with an expansive area of lagoons, reed beds, wet grassland and muddy patches adjacent to this huge lake. 

Join us on our next birding tour to Mongolia. Full itinerary and links to our booking page here – Mongolia Birding Tour.