The Russian publishing house "Kirill Mikhailov and Mikhail Kiryushkin Scientific Publications Partnership (KMK)" has released an electronic version of the two-volume monograph "Birds of the Central Kopetdag (Turkmenistan): composition and structure of avifauna, distribution and ecology of species."

The monograph is by Turkmen ornithologist Nikolai Nikolaevich Efimenko, for whom Turkmenistan has become a second home. The current book is a kind of account of his life's work, the result of 32 years of studying and recording the avifauna. This was reported in the newspaper "Neutral Turkmenistan."

The 1160-page publication is supplemented with high-quality photographs of individual bird species and key animals in their natural habitats, making the reading process more visual.

The publication provides a wide range of users with information on the status of passerine birds in the border area of Turkmenistan with the Islamic Republic of Iran (152 taxa from 25 families and 75 genera) and non-passerine birds (127 taxa from 21 orders and 32 families) for the period from 1983 to 2015.

The book contains 161 species essays, including nine on species extinct in Turkmenistan. The publication provides a schematic representation of other destructive processes affecting birds in their rapidly changing habitat. Periodic inventory of the avifauna composition is scheduled every 15 years, therefore the collection of primary data was divided into two periods from 1983 to 1999 and 2000 to 2015.

According to the author, the book can be recommended for reading to a wide range of amateurs and professionals who want to expand their knowledge about the life of birds.

Of particular interest to specialists are the rare nesting records of the Central Asian saker falcon and the Caucasian buzzard. Among passerines, scientists recorded the dipper, the dusky warbler, the kinglet, the snow sparrow, and the red-winged rosefinch in the region for the first time.

During his time working in Turkmenistan, the author became known as a good essayist, and his stories from the "bird" series were actively published in Turkmen periodicals.