What is the Ukrainian steppe famous for. Ukrainian steppe reserve. Biosphere Reserve "Askania-Nova"

At the words "Ukrainian steppe", the imagination draws endless expanses covered with feather grass" on which herds of wild ungulates graze and birds build nests. There are practically no such places left in Europe, and in Ukraine the steppe "oases" have suffered greatly from land development: today 95% of the territory has been plowed up and built up. But, fortunately, almost untouched areas have been preserved. Basically, these are the so-called "inconveniences" (areas not occupied by forests, but actually unsuitable for agriculture) and protected areas. Therefore, the concept of "wild steppe" in Ukraine still really exists.

The reserve "Elanetskaya steppe", located in the Nikolaev region, is one of the few steppe nature protection complexes in the south of Ukraine. It is here, in the Elanetskaya steppe, that landscapes, as well as plants and animals that have been living in these places for thousands of years, have been preserved in their original form.

600-200 thousand years ago, this area was a subtropical steppe, similar to the modern Argentine pampas, bordering on broad-leaved forests. The geographical position and favorable natural and climatic conditions contributed to the prosperity of various species: southern elephants - the ancestors of modern elephants and mammoths, rhinos, bison, wild horses, deer. With the retreat of the glacier and significant warming in the Mesolithic era (10-7 thousand years ago), modern animals (for example, roe deer and hares) gradually appeared, which still live in the steppe.

The Elanetskaya steppe is a rather young nature reserve. It has not become a popular ecotourist route just because few people know about its existence. In this regard, there are few people here - lovers of solitude will be able to truly appreciate the almost complete absence of civilization. It is best to come here in late spring - in May the steppe is greener and more fragrant than ever. You can visit the Elanetskaya steppe in winter, but you have to be prepared for the fact that it is quite long and cold here. The feeling of cold is also intensified due to the strong gusty wind, which, thanks to the endless expanses, has where to roam. Summer is hot, dry weather. Since trees are quite rare in the steppe, there is little shade in the reserve, and the whole day passes under the scorching sun - sometimes the temperature reaches 38 ° C and above. At the height of summer, the wind turns out to be a real salvation for the traveler.

The local landscape is a wild primeval steppe, in some places hilly, in some places dotted with ravines and gullies, covered with a carpet of wild iris, thyme, goat-beard and milkweed. The bottom of such beams is wide and even, and the slopes are often indented with soddy ravines, overgrown with oak, acacia, skumpia, hawthorn, blackthorn or wild rose. These thickets are an ideal habitat for many animals, and foxes and badgers dig their holes here. As a rule, the slopes of the beams can be climbed without much effort, but sometimes they become almost sheer. Miniature oases in the middle of the steppe seem to be small bayraks - groups of trees at the bottom of the beams, as well as rare forest belts in which shy roe deer hide.

The reserve is a real Klondike for lovers of botany. Various types of fragrant steppe herbs grow here. Often come across mosses, lichens, fungi and even algae. The world of insects is also very diverse. Rare species - giant ktyr, steppe scoli, bear Hera, as well as the "dead head" hawk hawk and the swallowtail have chosen the Elanetskaya steppe for permanent residence. In the grass there are small nests of paper wasps, the size of a matchbox. These small insects got their name because of the material they use to build their nests. Wasps finely grind wood fibers, wetting them with sticky saliva. Such a mass, resembling raw paper, they apply a thin layer on the future home and form honeycombs. After drying, the "building material" is similar to ordinary paper. Seeing a swarm of paper wasps, be careful - although they are miniature, they bite just as painfully as ordinary ones.

In spring, the air in the steppe trembles with the buzz of May beetles. And in July, when males of marbled beetles are looking for females, at dusk you can see and hear entire clusters of insects. Beetles "look out" for elevations on flat terrain and turn them into "rally" points. And since there are few hills and trees in the steppe, a lone traveler can serve as a guide. In this case, the marble crunchers will use your head as a landing pad.

More than half of the representatives of the fauna of the reserve are birds. A significant part of them equips their nests here. For example, in the Elanetskaya steppe live three pairs of predatory long-legged buzzards, which are extremely rare in southern Ukraine. The deserted expanses, as well as the rich menu offered by the steppe nature, attract many migratory birds: here they can make a temporary stop, rest and refresh themselves before a long journey. Of the rare species during the migratory period in the steppe, you can meet bustard, gray crane, field harrier, saker falcon, curlew, black stork and pink starling - a real expanse for bird watchers. Be prepared to meet snakes - the reserve is home to the steppe viper, as well as two types of snakes: yellow-bellied and four-striped. If you're lucky, you can be a witness to the fight of nimble lizards.

During such skirmishes, opponents try to grab each other by the neck or the back of the head and turn them over on their backs. However, more often the battle between lizards ends with one of the males falling into the mouth of the other with an open jaw, and both of them roll on the ground in a complete frenzy until the weaker breaks out and runs away. Of the predators, in addition to the fox and the badger, there is a wolf here. Well acclimatized in the Elanetskaya steppe marmots-babaks. So good that they have already settled in the neighboring territories adjacent to the reserve.

BY THE EYES OF A NATURALIST

Going to the reserve, I wanted to see the pristine, untouched steppe and watch the most colorful "locals". In the Elanetskaya steppe there are territories abounding in beams with rocks. Contrasting with the green grass, they resemble dinosaurs crawling out to bask in the sun. Hawthorn bushes grow along the bottom of the beams, where birds "settle" with pleasure. Inside one of these bushes hung a bowl-shaped linnet nest, in which five still naked chicks huddled together. One of them held a large praying mantis in its beak: the bird convulsively tried to swallow the insect, but the praying mantis desperately resisted, defending itself with powerful paws. The struggle went on for a long time, but the fate of the insect was a foregone conclusion: since the digestion of its lower half had already begun, the remaining parts also gradually disappeared in the beak of the voracious chick.

Flowering feather grass sways in the wind in separate clearings, resembling herds of running sheep from a distance. Sometimes in the steppe haze there are small groups of marmots. We had to crawl to the family of these animals, located at the bottom of a wide beam. I watched as one of the cubs beat the adult marmot on the muzzle with its front paws, probably offering to play, but the older one kept watching me. Trying to get rid of the uninvited guest, he ran with a menacing look, it was in my direction, but as soon as he realized that nothing would come of it, he returned to the kids. Groundhogs are cautious and shy animals, so when I approached them about eight meters, the whole family rushed to the hole.

Leaving a beam with hawthorn bushes, I headed for a wide forest belt of oak and acacia. Squeezing through it without the risk of gouging out the eyes was not easy - the trees grow so densely here. On one of the large acacias, at a height of seven meters, there was a buzzard's nest. An adult bird with a large lizard in its beak soon flew under to four very young, still in delicate white fluff chicks. Instantly decapitating her, the Long-legged Buzzard fed the prey to offspring.

Feather grass, marmots and buzzards can rightfully be considered symbols of the Ukrainian steppe. Alas, in the wild they are becoming less and less. The Elanet steppe made a truly "wild" impression on me. This amazing place is simply created for ecotourism. But, unfortunately, routes have not yet been laid in the reserve, along which visitors could pass, admiring the steppe landscapes, flora and fauna.

SAFARI PARK RESERVE

Dead last year's grass in the spring does not allow young plants to break through to the sun and bloom. However, grazing ungulates knock out fresh sprouts from under the dry cover. It was to improve the growth of grasses, as well as to recreate the natural nature of prehistoric times, that the administration of the reserve decided to establish a safari park - a kind of Askania-Nova in miniature. For this purpose, bison, deer, kulans and fallow deer were brought to the reserve. All of them live in a huge 70-hectare paddock located on a plot of the virgin steppe. It has its own beams, ravines, as well as trees and shrubs that serve as a natural shelter for the inhabitants of the safari park and create a complete sense of freedom. That is why ungulates in the park quickly acclimatized and successfully breed.

In conditions of free grazing, deer, kulans and fallow deer have become wild and do not let a person close. These animals prefer to stay in dense herds on the tops of hills, from where it is convenient to survey the surroundings. Bison, feeling their strength, behave differently. They like to graze at the bottom of the beams, and when they see people, sometimes they even approach them themselves. At the same time, a person already experiences fear. On the steppe expanses of the safari park, everyone can feel like one with the wild nature.

Khortytsya, like the southern part of Ukraine, has long been famous for its steppe expanses. The vast ocean of the steppe, stretching to the horizon, with the stalks of feather grass shimmering in the sunlight, swaying in the wind like sea waves, is a magnificent sight that leaves an unforgettable impression. The smell of steppe herbs, fresh breeze, endless expanses - all this gives a unique feeling of freedom. Once visiting these places, you will want to come back here again.

Before human intervention in the nature of the island of Khortytsya, steppes occupied most of its territory. Only in the gullies of the island did dense, in some places even impenetrable ravine forests grow, and in the floodplains reigned the flooded forest. The rest of the Khortitsa land was mostly inhabited by the first steppe. The first step is a form of landscape that has never been interfered with from the outside, it is land that has never been touched by a plow, on which economic work has never been carried out. Such lands have recently become a rarity, and are of great value. Currently, there are fewer virgin steppe areas on Khortitsa - only about 20% of the island's territory is a real steppe. The decrease in the number of steppes on Khortitsa is caused, first of all, by human economic activity. Part of the land is built up, part is planted with artificial forest plantations, part is set aside for agricultural fields and orchards.

The surviving sections of the primary steppe are distributed over the entire area of ​​the island. Basically, the steppe has been preserved near the coastline, on the upper reaches of the slopes of the beams, near the rocks. One of the longest stretches of real steppe runs along the coastline of the Old Dnieper from the Shiroka gully to the Korneichikha gully, that is, almost to the beginning of the floodplains. Here you can enjoy a delightful landscape - along the wide channel of the Old Dnieper, a steppe with tall grasses and wildflowers stretches to the very horizon, the coastline is indented by picturesque beams and ravines, and the island is visible from here to the very southern edge, where the floodplains begin. This picturesque corner of the island is one of the richest areas of vegetation in all of Ukraine.

More than 600 species of wild plants grow on the steppe site in the western part of the island of Khortytsya. For comparison, there are 460 species of plants in the Kamennye Mogily reserve, 520 species in the Khomutovskaya steppe, and 600 plant species in the Askania-Nova reserve. Such a rich area of ​​steppe vegetation needs protection from trampling and fires, which quite often occur here due to the fault of vacationers who violate the regime of the reserve. The steppe expanses of the island of Khortytsya have great aesthetic appeal - the steppe itself is beautiful, and in combination with the picturesque banks of the Dnieper, with rocks hanging over the water and crashing into the shore of beams and ravines, a magnificent landscape opens up, incomparable to anything. Such a combination of several picturesque landscapes at once is only on Khortitsa. The steppe is beautiful in all seasons - in winter it turns into an endless white blanket, in spring it turns green in the sunlight, in summer it glitters with waves of feather grass, and in autumn it dresses in golden colors. The steppe is an ideal place to meet sunrise or sunset, it is a place where a traveler can rest, lie down on the grass and admire the clouds.

Despite the fact that the steppe is a typical landscape for the south of Ukraine, the uniqueness of the steppe of the island of Khortytsya is undeniable. Due to the special island microclimate, location between two large channels of the Dnieper River and the fertile lands of the island, the Khortitsa steppes are a special ecosystem with a high species diversity both among plants and animals inhabiting the steppe. The location of the island is very convenient for living organisms inhabiting its lands, which caused the appearance of such a rich flora and fauna here. The steppes of the island of Khortytsya have long been legendary and revered by man as a unique monument of nature. Despite the decrease in the number of steppe lands of the island as a result of human activity, today Khortitsa has some of the richest steppes in Ukraine! The steppe is the visiting card of the Ukrainian lands, the golden sea of ​​feather grass and the boundless blue sky are the basis of the flag of our country. And it is not for nothing that this image was chosen as our symbol - whoever once visits the endless expanses where the steppe touches the sky will never forget this feeling of freedom, and will not exchange it for anything. Whoever comes one day to Khortitsa and finds himself in its rich steppe world, he will definitely come back here again and again. Indeed, in our blood, in our family there is a spirit of freedom, and in the nature of our planet there is nothing freer than the steppe. It is here that everyone can feel like a part of nature, feel its breath, touch the herbs that have been growing here for hundreds of years, breathe in the scent of wild flowers, and enjoy the freshness of the coastal air.

In addition to the real steppe, there are other types of flat landscapes on Khortitsa - fields used for agricultural purposes, green meadows, as well as areas of former arable land on which agricultural work is no longer carried out, and traces of previous work are gradually disappearing. The areas that used to be a steppe, but changed by human activity, are subject to restoration, which takes quite a long time - from 70 to 100 years or more. In addition, the complete restoration of the steppe in its original form is generally impossible. That is why the priority that the plow has never touched should be protected from any human intervention, because these lands are an oasis of untouched nature in the midst of developing industrial landscapes, which are becoming more and more on the planet every day. The steppes of the island of Khortytsya are a treasure donated by nature, they are a symbol of freedom and a source of inspiration, leaving an unforgettable experience for everyone who visits here.

The route passes through the sacred Khortitsa and Kamennaya Mogila, the unique Askania-Nova nature reserve with a virgin steppe and rich nature, passes by the largest sandy desert of Europe and ends on the sea coast near the largest island of the Black Sea - Dzharylgach.

Khortytsya

In the heart of one of the most industrial cities in Ukraine, not far from the huge dam of the DneproGES, there is one of the most sacred sights for Ukrainians - the cradle of the Ukrainian Cossacks, the island of Khortytsya.

Photo from Flickr (by Red-Boy)

Khortytsya Island is located in the middle of the Dnieper riverbed, which is wide in these places. Earlier, before the appearance of the DneproGES, there were rapids upstream of the river, which gave the name of the Zaporizhzhya Sich, because it was, as it were, "beyond the rapids". However, in the middle of the last century, during the construction of a hydroelectric power station, all the thresholds, and with them most of the lands that belonged to the Cossacks, were flooded during the formation of the reservoir.

Nowadays, on the island of Khortytsya there is the National Reserve "Khortytsya", which includes the historical and cultural complex "Zaporizhzhya Sich". Its expositions are devoted to the life and way of life of the Cossacks. Here you can see with your own eyes and visit the housing of the Cossacks and the ataman, outbuildings, a hut, a church, etc.

Photo from Flickr (by dmytro.golub)

Stone Grave

From Zaporizhzhya we go south, towards Melitopol, to the village of Mirnoe, where there is an amazing place with the mysterious name "Stone Grave". More than sixty grottoes, caves, clusters of huge (the size of a five-story building!) yellow-black stones, and a little further - the underground world with a suite of halls and corridors - all this is a natural formation.

Photo from stonegrave.org

In this place, since ancient times, people left inscriptions and drawings on soft sandstone (the oldest date back to the 7th - 3rd millennium BC). All the most interesting things were found in the caves. Despite the fact that there are a large number of drawings and inscriptions, the most interesting caves are deliberately filled in to prevent visitors from adding modern inscriptions to the Stone Age petroglyphs.

Photo from stonegrave.org

Many legends "live" on the territory of the Stone Grave. It is believed that this object is a time-destroyed pyramid or ziggurat of the ancient Amazon tribe. Female warriors presumably lived just in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bpresent Melitopol and its environs.

Biosphere Reserve "Askania-Nova"

From Melitopol we go south along the E105 highway towards Genichesk, before reaching which there will be a turn to the right, to the P47 highway, and then to the right - to the town of Askania-Nova. Next to it is the biosphere reserve of the same name, which includes a zoo and an arboretum, as well as a unique area of ​​​​absolutely protected steppe that has never been cultivated by man.

Photo from iloveukraine.com.ua

A huge variety of plants, birds and animals from all over the world, from African zebras to American bison, has been collected on the territory of the reserve.

The vegetation changes its color throughout the year: tulips and irises blaze here in April, feather grass blooms in May, steppe grasses form a real green sea in summer, and in autumn the steppe becomes like a bright and soft multi-colored carpet.

The fauna of the reserve is also rich and varied and includes more than a thousand species of animals, including arthropods and reptiles, mammals and almost 300 species of birds.

Photo from Flickr (by 2bpatchett)

The reserve is protected by UNESCO, is included in the list of 7 Wonders of Ukraine, and in the world voting for 7 natural wonders of the planet "Askania-Nova" took 14th place.

In Askania-Nova, you can spend the night in hotels located near the reserve, or at the campsite.

Oleshkovsky Sands

After Askania-Novaya to Chaplinka and past Novaya Kakhovka we move further to the west, after large forests and just before Kherson there will be a left turn onto the E97 highway, along it we reach Radensk, or Big Kopany.

Near these settlements there is the largest sand massif in Europe - Oleshkovsky Sands. 210,000 hectares of land with a unique landscape and nature.

According to the traditional classification, the Oleshkovsky sands are semi-desert. In summer, the sand heats up to 70 degrees Celsius, the air collects in hot updrafts and disperses rain clouds, so there is very little precipitation here, much less than in the surrounding regions. You can even get caught in a sandstorm.

During the time of Herodotus, dense forests grew in these places, but subsequently they were cut down by the local population. The forests were replaced by the steppe with small sandy massifs created thanks to the infliction of the Dnieper.

Oleshkovsky Sands is a sea of ​​dunes that stretches as far as the eye can see. Some vegetation grows on these dunes in some places, there are small lakes-salt marshes, near which there are usually more plants.

Photo from Flickr (by Pid_rukzak)

The sand here is very fine and light and easily carried by the wind. Sometimes you can see how small whirlwinds twist it into a dance. There is also an oasis among the sands - a small pine forest on the shore of a lake with clear water.

When you get tired of wandering through the Ukrainian desert, you can go further south, towards Skadovsk and the Dzharylgach Bay, and then even further west, to the village of Lazurne, from where you can get to the largest island of the Black Sea.

Dzharylgach Island

Dzharylgach is a spit, a narrow strip of land that cuts deep into the Black Sea. A kind of huge natural breakwater. On one side of Dzharylgach is the sea, on the other - the bay. Naturally, also Dzharylgatsky. The official status of Dzharylgach sometimes changes. Now it is an island. And get bored - turns into a peninsula. Dzharylgach is separated from the land by a narrow strait, which is periodically covered with sand.

Photo from uafacts.com

There is a cafe on the coast where you can taste fried stingrays, gobies, borscht and other delights of Ukrainian cuisine. On the opposite south side of the island - to the open sea - you can take a fascinating 45-minute walk on foot. The southern coast of Dzharylgach is a local resort area, where you can swim in the sea and sunbathe on the white sand.

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Ukrainian State Steppe Reserve created in 1961 by merging three independent steppe reserves. The total area of ​​​​the reserve is 1688.4 hectares, including the Mikhailovskaya virgin lands - 202f4 g "a, the Khomutovskaya steppe - 1030 hectares, Stone Graves - 456 hectares.
Mikhailovskaya virgin land.

The reserve is divided into three separate sections: Mikhailovskaya virgin lands, Khomutovskaya steppe and Stone Graves forb-feather grass steppes.

Mikhailov virgin lands located at the junction of the Left-Bank-Dnieper and Central Russian forest-steppe regions. This is a unique part of the reserve with a peculiar meadow-steppe vegetation and fauna. Khomutovskaya steppe and Stone Graves are located in the northeast of the Azov region within the boundaries of the steppe natural zone.

Mikhailov virgin lands It is characterized by a significantly developed stratum of sedimentary rocks of various ages, resting on a deep-lying crystalline basement. The most ancient rocks approaching the surface and sometimes underlying loess are chalk outcrops.
This entire area is hydroglacial loess plain, dissected by shallow beams. The site of the reserve itself is a low hill, gradually descending to the beams.

Climate Mikhailovskoye virgin soil is moderately continental. Compared to other regions of Ukraine, the winter here is the coldest, the summer is moderately warm without droughts.

There are no rivers or reservoirs. The soil cover is dominated by medium-humus chernozems underlain by loess.

By the nature of the vegetation cover, this part Ukrainian steppe reserve belongs to the northern forb grass steppes. There are 503 species of vascular plants here. Of these, 3 species belong to the desert-steppe, to the steppe - 82, to the meadow-steppe - 89, to the meadow - 142, to the meadow-forest and forest - 70, to the meadow-bog - 47, to aquatic macrophytes - 7, to weeds - 63 species. 7 species of trees, 10 - shrubs, 8 - semi-shrubs grow on the reserved area. The most widely represented are the multi-colored brandushka, broad-leaved lumbago, meadow sage, mountain clover, common meadowsweet, sickle-shaped alfalfa.

In contrast to the southern steppe reserves, there are much fewer indigenous steppe animals in the Mikhailovskaya virgin lands. Small rodents mainly live here, the field mouse settlements are especially dense. Jumping jerboas (ground hares) are found at dusk.

The territory of the Khomutovskaya steppe from east to west it is dissected by the Klimushanskaya, Brandtovskaya, Krasny Yar and their branches; the northern border of the protected steppe runs along the thalweg of the Obolonskaya beam. The slopes of the ravines are symmetrical. At Krasny Yar they are rather steep, for a considerable distance they are stony. At Klimushanskaya and Obolonskaya beams the slopes are gentle, and only in the extreme lower part of their steepness increases somewhat. The slopes of the Brandtovskaya beam within the reserve are asymmetric, the northern ones are higher and steeper, mostly stony, the southern ones are gentle, with a well-developed soil cover.

Climate The Azov coastal plain has well-defined features of continentality, however, there is a noticeable softening effect of the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov. Winter is relatively short, moderately cold, spring is windy, cool - morning frosts are common.
The soil cover of the reserve is dominated by ordinary chernozems, medium-thick and thick low-humus, medium- and slightly alkaline, clayey and heavy-loamy.

According to the nature of the vegetation Khomutovskaya steppe refers to the xerotic variant of forb-feather grass steppes. The flora of the Khomutovskaya steppe includes 561 species of vascular plants, including 12 desert-steppe, 180 steppe, 45 stony-steppe, 100 meadow-steppe, 93 meadow, 29 meadow-forest, 21 meadow-bog, 8 - water, 73 - weed. Over 80 endemic species and species with a broken range. New Ascanian, Ukrainian and pale astragalus, bristle-leaved trinia, feather grass wheatgrass, Pallas hyacinth, Scythian gorse, Scythian caragana, Chernyaev flax, short-headed yurinea, Ukrainian feather grass, etc. grow here.

In the composition of the vegetation of the Khomutovskaya steppe, a clearly expressed combination of soddy and rhizome-grass phytocenoses is observed. The leading place in the composition of turf-grass communities is occupied by feather grass of Lessing and tyrsa associated with fescue furrowed and Welsh.

The modern fauna of the steppe reserve is significantly depleted. The main (background) animals of the virgin steppe - rodents-diggers. Common and numerous are gray ground squirrels that emerge from their deep burrows in early spring. The thin jerky whistle of a gopher enlivens the steppe at sunrise. Everywhere you can see them sitting in a column, running across or quietly grazing. Of the mouse-like rodents, social and common voles predominate, feeding on grass and in some years breeding in large numbers. Less common are the barrow check mouse and the steppe mouse.

Numerous rodents serve as a food base for predatory mammals. Nowhere there are so many foxes as in the Khomutovskaya steppe. They hunt at dusk, but often during the day they go to poke around on the arable lands adjacent to the reserve. There are also graceful weasels and ferrets, several packs of wolves live here.

Due to the large number of small animals quite rich bird world reserve. Rooks, magpies, crows, gray partridges, and sparrows are found here all year round. In the steppe, steppe, field and crested larks nest in abundance, as well as a lot of gray partridge, the number of which, however, varies greatly. There is a significant number of millet, black-headed bunting, shrikes - shrike and black-fronted are common.

On the territory of Stone Graves two ridges stretch from the northwest to the southeast, separated by a hollow. Climate branch is moderately continental, tk. it is influenced by the proximity of the Sea of ​​Azov and fluctuations in altitude. The soil cover on the territory of this part of the reserve is mainly black earth.

Flora of Stone Graves quite diverse in vascular plants. According to the latest data of biologists, there are about 500 species, among which the most common are steppe, meadow, forest and weed species. Let us note a number of northern plants - Leers' rush, spring rattle, goose onion, winged buzzard - they grow far from their usual places of distribution.

Several types of ferns: Geifler's ossicles, alpine woodsia, brittle bladderwort, male and prickly thorn ferns are widely used here. Tree and shrub vegetation in the reserve is represented by numerous species of wild roses, in particular, blackthorn and joster growing on the slopes of the hills. In the hollows between the ridges, blackberries, aspen forests and Chernyaev's euonymus grow abundantly.

Animal world departments are scarce. Outcrops of granites and other crystalline rocks, the weakness of chernozem soils cannot create favorable conditions for the diversity of species. Therefore, there are no ungulates in the Ukrainian Steppe Reserve. The range of foxes that find shelter in granite rocks and crevices looks quite strong. A large number of rodents provides a stable diet. There are not many hare hares and common hedgehogs in Stone Graves.

Variety of birds there are more than mammals in the reserve. Seasonal birds nest here: larks, buntings. In open steppe areas, gray partridge and quail are found. Especially a lot of songbirds nest in the eastern part of the reserve, in thickets of bushes. Among the songbirds, one can distinguish gray and hawk warblers and shrike.

In conclusion, I would like to note that the studies of flora and fauna in Ukrainian State Steppe Reserve, made it possible to identify a number of rare plants and animals that were not previously reported for these places. Each of the branches of the Ukrainian steppe reserve is a valuable monument of virgin steppe vegetation, especially since such steppes as Streltsovskaya and Khomutovskaya, is not preserved anywhere. This circumstance emphasizes the scientific and environmental value of the reserves.