We are in the throes of the peak of our high season at work - which means virtually no time for excursions (back garden excepted)
Last Thursday however, I had put aside for some 'relaxation'
My first excursion down to the Nanhui coast (for birding) and I took in the Dishui Hu, a little bit of the coast by the hotel and then onto Binhai Forest Park, arrived at 06.00 (maybe a touch too late now with sunrise around 04.30 !) and left around 16.00 in the afternoon, home by 17.00 !
I'll make a few separate posts because there are numerous birds I don't recognise, can't confirm via Brazil's or would like help with confirmation of my identification. I'll also cross-post those in the ID forum.
At this unusual time (for me - I'm often not asleep, with my clients all being in the USA or Europe, before 04.00 !) I needed a triple espresso to go, from the kitchen, but the initially empty roads (not for long !) and rising sun made it worth while. Until I hit the S2 and suddenly there were more container carrying trucks than it's possible to count and it was a case of weaving in and out as they took up all 4 lanes ! The toll booth just before the Donghai bridge being the worst (the hard-shoulder took care of that)
So where to go at my first stop at Dishui Hu ? It is a lot larger than it looks - I thought I might be able to park up and then walk around the whole lake but it's not like that at all and at a rough guess it's 10kms in circumference. So I crossed the bridge into the Crowne Plaza hotel grounds and parked. There looked to be a promising strip of land between the lake and some backwaters and indeed it fulfilled it's promise.
Warblers, Little Grebes, Coots, Flycatchers, Egrets, Shrikes, Snakes (both swimming and deceased),
Venous Throated Parrotbills, Tree Sparrows and a variety of fly overs and some damselflies for good measure. Not bad for a short 400m loop that I spent over an hour at !
Anyway attached here are some of the birds I can't ID, and the snakes I saw, any assistance gratefully accepted !
1.
Arctic warbler (from the shape of it's brow) ?
2.
Manchurian Reed Warbler (thanks Dev !).
3.
Manchurian Reed Warbler
4. ID Unknown (very strong backlighting but if you open it there is some detail - this is the best recovery I could manage unless you prefer a silhouette) !
5.
Another Arctic ?