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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

A wet month to sort out our pics (1 Viewer)

Chengdu Bird guiding – [email protected] - Chengdu, Sichuan, the gateway to Tibet - to see more travel pics of Sichuan go to my travel blog at - http://chengdutravel.blogspot.com/
To see more of our birding pics go to - http://sichuanbirds.blogspot.com/
Apologies to our blogspot readers - although it's good news that China readers can again view Flickr images, I'm afraid blogspot is still blocked by the Chinese censors - so at the moment it’s hard to update our Sichuanbirds site - but we've now got some time to try and use some cunning to get around the problem.

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Blood Pheasant - a picture of a male bird - at Pamosan Temple, close to Yajiang - from way back in May!!!! Luckily after this last spell of traveling, We've now got time to sort a lot of our pics out - and get some the more interesting ones online.

August out here is rainy season - a month where travel can be both wet and, with risk of delays due to landslides and flood damage, - troublesome. Actually the heavy rains came early this year - July was wet - and. as a result, parts of Sichuan experienced serious flooding.
So taking seasons into consideration, and since we've put in a lot of birding this year - during which Meggie has taken many thousand photos - this seems like a good period to stay in the dry and cool to sort those pics out.

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Chinese Bamboo Partridge - this is a widespread and common game-bird at lower altitudes in the Sichuan basin - you can even see them within the outskirts of Chengdu - the Panda Research Center and Botanic Gardens being good Chengdu Partridge sites. However - don't expect this to be an easy spot - even though their loud "beeper-ray beeper-ray" calls can be a common Sichuan sound - these birds know how to skulk!
That secretive behavior has meant we've never got a good shot of this bird - but a couple of weeks back we lucked into one shepherding its chicks across a track and managed this "Grasshopper in bill" shot.

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Dusky Fulvetta - from game-birds let’s go to a more mundane LBJ. This Fulvetta shouldn't be that rare - but it’s certainly difficult to see. Another lover of thick undergrowth - this is one of those birds you have to call out, which is what a lot of Sichuan summer birding is all about - having a good collection of Sichuan bird-calls - and knowing what to play and where.

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Plumbeous Water Redstart - a pic with our new lens
August won’t just be about sorting pics, but also playing with new toys. Meggie has just bought herself a new lens - a fixed focal length - Canon EF 300 f/4L IS USM. This piece of glass, although heavier than her other lenses, still allows us to bird-photo in the way we enjoy best - strictly hand-held, utalising available light - a method which gives us maximum chance to roam and explore. So far we're mighty pleased with the results - it’s very quick and sharp. The redstart was highly blown up - but still retains a lot of detail.
Its interesting to looks back on our earlier blog entries - where the camera use has evolved from an ancient Olympus UZ C-2100 (a true classic of cameras - must be 10yo and still works) - to Canon EOS 350D with a non image stabalised 300mm lens - to our present EOS 50D on which we used to use the Canon EF 70-300 IS USM (totally brilliant lens for the price and lightweight for the birder who likes to walk) but will now replace it, as primary lens, with the new fixed 300.
 
Great to see some more of your travels and well done Meggie with the camera. Strange thing is I also have the same Olympus camera and it is still going strong...it was Ians, in fact the earliest entries in his gallery are probably with this as well and most of the ones in mine have used the Uzi.

Think the bamboo Partridge is my favourite.

Can't send you any better weather from here, at the moment it is overcast but about 19 degrees.
 
Here are some great uzi memories - and proof of what a fantastic go anywhere machine it is.
First-off the camera mount -

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That's back in 2004 - in Northern Sichuan (the Songpan region). A wet, muddy trip where a lot of my birding was from the top of that horse (yes there's also room for a rider).
I certainly wouldn't like to play about with a large digital SLR up there - but with an uzi - you can still get a bird or two!!!!

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Maybe not the world's clearest shot (Blue-eared pheasant in one of the few birdforum pics that suffer from - horseshake) - but was I chuffed with that pic - I think I celebrated by falling off my fine steed - into a puddle of mud :king:
 
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