Alamut tries to smash us every time and it succeeds every time

We are obsessed with Alamut. By we, I mean our small hiking group and by Alamut, I refer to an area in central Elborz, what is Elborz for God's sake? Elborz is a mountain range in north of Iran, one of our two principle mountain ranges.

In fact, it's not our obsession, it's one of my friend's. He is crazy about this area and forces us to come with him, why forces us? because every trek in this area is a loooong long trek which makes you crazy, it seems it never ends. By this trek we cut Elborz, we start from one side and crawl to another side, exhausted.

I've gone there five times, he has gone there seven times and each time this crazy man took a different trek to cut Elborz and so he has got lost there seven times, from little harmless getting lost to completely getting lost include starving and loosing hope, crying and all.

I haven't pictured its flora, butterflies and insects because until this spring I wasn't interested in them but next summer I will, so wait for me Alamut.

A Bath white walked me through

This Friday we went to countryside in east of Tehran. there was a dam nearby, people were fishing for leisure and weather was perfect.

It was around 10:30 in the morning and I hadn't found a butterfly when suddenly this shy Bath white emerged from nowhere:

a treasure right under my nose

My sixth butterfly watching was near Tehran, in fact it was in our local mountains which are located in north of Tehran. when you start climbing, height is between 1500 to 2000 and it go up to around 4000 m, so just a step over noisy crowded capital lays a perfect site for birding and butterflying.

By the way, recently (since 2 years ago) I go there scarcely because we were flooded with other trips outside of Tehran. but Tehran has a lot to offer and I haven't see almost half of species which others put in Instagram and claim it was taken right under my nose in Tehran. well, finally I went there around middle of August and this is my result:

Empire of the Brown butterflies

My fifth butterfly watching happened early in summer in a very beautiful area in around east of Iran. In this trip, we went up in mountains with our poor car (in Iran roads rule, they are every where, unfortunately I may say), we camped in height around 2800 m and then went on foot to search area. 

I said Sesame and it opened up

My forth butterflywatching trip happened in July (this July). It located in a valley, a very dry one and it was loaded with butterflies of family Numphalidae.

I went there with my two birder friends (again), they went about their business and I drowned myself in butterflies. 

there was no bird in this valley, not a single one (OK, less than 4 individual not even species, included a Kestrel) but lack of birds had made a heaven for insects and so butterflies. they were hanging here and there, singing and openning bottle after bottle of Champagne.

Large tortoiseshell

among fluttering beauties I'll always choose you

Now I want to picture one of my favorite hiking trek which is located in west of Iran.
I went there twice, both in the end of May which is with its sister June, the most beautiful months in Iran. In this two months we don't know where to go and we are crazy to just go anywhere but for two years in a row we ended up going to this same trek, Arasbaran.

birding in Shahrud, episod 1

Because I love Shahrud and live in Tehran, I decided to make 2 series, birding in Tehran and birding in Shahrud. I want to just focus on them right now but some day, finally I will get over them, so wait for that day :-)

Through episode 1 to episode who knows how many, I will picture birds of Shahrud. now let start with pictures from a birding trip from around October to November:

Jay

birding in Tehran, episode1

Tehran is a crowded city (shockingly crowded) that suffer from serious pollution (air, sound, light and every possible pollution) but in the other hand it has a very special and I may say strategic geographical location. Tehran is surrounded by mountains. 

from around 3 years ago I've used to go birding with my friend in Tehran. he's an enthusiast birder and I'm a helpless birder. 

for birding content of this blog, I decided to start with our birding in Tehran. for episode 1 I chose 5 photos which have been taken in a cold day of December, 2 years ago:

Linnet

What I talk about when I talk about Shahrud

I love this title and use it a lot :-)

Shahrud is my favorite city. I currently live in Tehran, I'm not born in Shahrud and don't even have any relatives there but simply I love it, why?

Shahrud is a combination of my favorite tastes, you have a flat desert then suddenly it ends to a mountain and then after a while dry weather changes to more humid one, and along with that every thing changes. all of this in a 40 min car-drive from city. I prayed it in this post in my old blog, too (an overwhelming love, huh?)

in this post, I want to show my darling through its nature, birds and butterflies. come with me:

let start with desert

Birdwatching (an entr'acte)

winter is coming :-( it's a sad news for me but all my friends are into birdwatching and they love autumn and specially winter. so, I decided to cover some of their birdwatching by this blog (they're a little lazy and not blogging yet).

well, I said (in this post) that we went to Semnan (a province in east of Tehran). we visited Parvar protected area, a valley near Damghan and Damghan Cheshme Ali, all in Semnan province.

and here is birding outcome of my friend Ehsan Talebi (he is a tour leader and specially talented in birding and hiking):

Pied wheatear

A princess in wuthering height

Just a week ago, I went to Parvar, a protected area in Semnan. I went there with two friends, me for butterfly watching and them for bird watching.