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Panjin Birding by the Old Fat Man (1 Viewer)

Thanks, Tom.

I made a complaint about my order with Brazil's Birds of East Asia not having arrived. The first time I had used Book Depository since Amazon bought them. In fact it wasn't until check-out that I actually realized it. When they were owned by the Crown I used them often as their orders always arrived within two weeks and never had a hang-up in customs and never had to pay an import duty. Apparently they haven't farmed out customer service to somewhere with minimal English language skills like most American companies have as I didn't have any problems with them not grasping the problem and "James" handled it all efficiently and politely. They are reshipping the order, which will of course arrive about the time I leave but at least it will be here when I need it again.
 
2015-APR-16

At my wife’s insistence, we tried out a new location. Donghu Lake Park (or Garden as the Chinese insist on labeling such) just to the east of Dawa City. Technically still Panjin as Dawa is one of the satellite cities.

I had been there before about two years ago and was not impressed. However, Dawa is in the middle of a “Beautiful Dawa” drive and they are in the final process of finishing up a greatly cleaned up and expanded park area roughly doubling the park area not counting the lake to about 60 hectare (148 acres). Actually a very nice area with plenty of habitat for birds.

As it turns out, there was ulterior motive at play. After three hours of wandering around and having a good day bird watching, the wife says “This is really nice isn’t it?” Then mentions that if we had one of the apartments alongside the park, I could just walk over and spend my day here as well as being closer to Gedalou Reservoir and several other birding areas. Being distracted with trying to get a good shot of the Brambling, I mumbled something about, “Yea, that would be great.” That’s when I was informed that was good as she and our daughter had decided that since two of the wife’s sisters live in Dawa and our daughter works in Dawa, by the time I come back from the US we will have changed apartments to there. Apparently, they have already been apartment hunting and are promising a larger apartment of over 100 sq meters. Walked right into that one. About 12-15 km south of where I have been and still in Panjin, Dawa County.

It really was the best birding area I have found yet for Passerines at least.
All the following numbers are without doubt under counts given the sheer size of the area and that I haven’t had the time to scope out the best viewing yet.

Donghu Lake Park 3hrs 4km

(75) Periparus venustulus - Yellow-bellied Tit The southern half of the park was overrun with them. This is just an attempt at an estimate in about a one hectare area.

(1) Dendrocopus major - Great Spotted Woodpecker

(14) Cyanopica cyanus - Azure-winged Magpie A boisterous group not happy with the little dog being there.

(4)Tarsiger cynanurus - Red-flanked Bluetail Undoubtably could have found more if we had stayed put and really worked that area

(50) Emberiza pusilla - Little Bunting A guess at a large flock working their way through the park foraging

(150) Passer monotonous - Eurasian Tree Sparrow

(40) Passer rutlians - Russet Sparrow

(3) Fringilla montifringa - Brambling Not a big number but starting to show up

(4) Turdus noumanni - Naumann’s Thrush The Brambling led me to this pair, male & female

(8) Phyllosopus venustulus - Pallas’s Leaf Warbler The wife gets credit for spotting these and the first lone Brambling

(4) Pycnonotus sinners - Light-vented Bulbul Seen at a distance but verified by song
 
I was reading the April edition of Living Bird (Cornell Ornithological Laboratory) and saw that during the Great Backyard Bird Count this year they have one report from Germany of a single flock of Brambling estimated at 1,000,000. Apparently they consider the reporter experienced enough to believe the count. I then remembered seeing the counts at Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge on 2015-MAR-11 w/3477 acres of wetlands flooded. It is just north of where I stay in Kansas City along the Missouri river. They had, among others:
Snow Goose - 643,822
Mallard - 3,665
Ring-necked Duck - 5,695

Now I can’t help but wonder how they arrived at those numbers. Birds don’t just sit still while you get an accurate count. I know from my past training and experience in industry that people can with practice become fairly good at estimation of quantities and actually usually tend to under estimate large numbers. However I would normally expect people to automatically and often unconsciously round off such large estimates. Personally, I figure any number I list under 50 is probably an actual or very close count. Up to about 100 is probably a good close estimate. Anything over 100 is either a compilation of smaller counts in several areas or as close of a guess as I can come to. Anything over 1000 would probably just be a WAG.
 
I filed this one away with the unidentified and forgot about it until now. While at Donghu Park I caught this single bird which I at first thought was a Brambling until it finally came out of hiding in the brush and I made out that prominent white cap. Size of a small Thrush, I would say.

Still waiting on my field guide so would appreciate any help.
 

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2015-APR-20

My wife, ChunXia made the first spot of the day just outside our 14th floor window. She spotted (2) Eurasian Sparrowhawk working out apartment complex and apparently deciding it suited them as they finally landed on the roof of our building directly over us. She was excited about that and decided that it was a good day to go back to Gedalou Reservoir at Dawa. Yeh! I was wanting to go back anyway.

They apparently drew a lot of water from the reservoir when they filled the irrigation ditches as it was down about a meter since last time. Unfortunately that doesn't help the shore birds and waders as the Japanese lined it with cut stone at least that deep when they built it. Had a good day spotting though. This was the first time that there was enough visibility to see even half way across the lake and we were able to see the far shore clearly. There was little wind this time and the biggest hazard was dodging the cars, trucks and motorcycles that all apparently thought they were in a road rally. In typical Chinese fashion there was no slowing down for pedestrians. If you have to walk you are not important enough to worry about and if you are too stupid to get out of the way, it is your own fault if you get hit. We only covered about ¼ of way around the lake before our ride showed up and I was reluctantly dragged away by my wife.

The big swarm of Gulls was gone from the restaurant area but through the hike we still saw our share. Only (8) Herring Gull this time, but (60) Black-headed Gull were evident. Two separate flocks of B-hG over the small ponds, especially the drained ones and one flock floating on the lake. About equally divided into 20 individuals each.

Just as we started out we found a flock of (10) Yellow-bellied Tit that made themselves easier to count by coming out to scold the dog. Mixed in with them were (2) Little Bunting. BTW, eBird flagged my report of 75 Yellow-bellied Tit on the 17th as not likely for my location and date but I sent them photos and they then accepted the report. A little bit further on was (1) Azure-winged Magpie. First time I have seen one without some mates around.

Fish were jumping along the shore of the lake, which delighted the wife. She stopped to talk with some commercial fishermen who were mending nets and I overheard that I was Russian that day. She varies my nationality according to political situation amongst other reasons that I don’t always grasp. If I ask about it she usually just shushes me and changes the subject. I am Canadian anytime the US and China are in a spat about anything and American again when she wants the status connected with that. I think the reason this time was just that Russian was not interesting and they would just leave me alone.

On the lake, floating in individual pairs, I counted (12) Great Crested Grebe.

Both scattered in individuals and pairs and in one larger group, I counted (50) Eurasian Coot.

Nearby was a group of (27) Common Pochard.

Across the road one of the fish ponds that they were in the process of draining was a big draw for the waders. In that one pond were (20) Common Redshank on the south side and (10) Black-tailed Godwit probing the mud on the north end. Then just as we started to walk away, (11) Black-winged Stilt flew into the west end of the pond! Black-headed Gull were landing and working the shallow waters like waders in the middle of them all along with (6) Mew Gull.

As I mentioned, our daughter and her husband showed up to pick us up, but I spotted an interesting looking pair out on the lake and took off in the wrong direction with my wife threatening to leave me there. Good call on my part as it turned out to be (2) Little Grebe. Then just 20 meters short of making it back to the car, I was again distracted by another pair of ducks swimming together. Just as I was being pried away, I spotted another isolated pair. At that point the wife was getting really insistent, so I had to leave. I got good photos despite being rushed, but I can’t seem to ID either of them so I will include with this. With the two unidentified I had seven new species for the day!

(2) Eurasian Sparrowhawk - Accipiter nidus
(8) Herring Gull - Larus argentatus
(60) Black-headed Gull - Chroicocephalus ridibundus
(6) Mew Gull - Larus canus
(10) Yellow-bellied Tit - Periparus venustutlus
(2) Little Bunting - Emberiza pusilla
(4) Daurian Redstart - Phoenicuous auroreus
(1) Azure-winged Magpie - Cynopica cyanus
(12) Great Crested Grebe - Podiceps cristatus
(50) Eurasian Coot - Fullca atra
(27) Common Pochard - Aythya ierina
(20) Common Redshank - Tringa totanus
(10) Black-tailed Godwit - Limosa limosa
(11) Black-winged Stilt - Himantopus himantopus
(2) Little Grebe - Tachybaptus ruficollis
and my two as yet unidentified pair attached.
 

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Hi Owen, very nice sightings. I think your Grebes, in the first picture, might be Slavonian (or Horned as we say in US), and the others look like Swan Goose! But maybe not... were they really big? I'm only matching the color pattern with pictures in my book. Let's see what others say.
 
Hi Owen, very nice sightings. I think your Grebes, in the first picture, might be Slavonian (or Horned as we say in US), and the others look like Swan Goose! But maybe not... were they really big? I'm only matching the color pattern with pictures in my book. Let's see what others say.

Grebes are Little Grebe
and Swan Geese

McM (formerly of this parish)
 
Grebes are Little Grebe
and Swan Geese

McM (formerly of this parish)

Still are of the parish - virtually! Glad you still join in.

Wasn't very sure about the grebes - thought they looked too slim and long, and there was too much red on the sides for littles, but it is an odd angle.
 
Thanks McM and Gretchen.

Definitely not Little Grebes. There were a couple of LG that I had shot earlier and these are much larger. At least I don't feel so stupid now. I checked ID images on Oriental Bird Club database for all the grebe that my Avibase checklist shows for Liaoning and couldn't seem to match with anything. Closest seems to be the Horned Grebe but without the "horns". Here is another shot from a slightly better angle.

Swan Goose!! That is it alright. I missed that one on the list. I saw swan and just scanned on down the list. I remember starting the search with Taiga Bean-Goose which is second on the list.
 

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Owen, they are Little Grebes in breeding plumage - 100% They can be tricky sometimes and appear larger or smaller.

Yeah they are sometimes tricky. It's like I have a "idealized" Little Grebe picture which is fluffier and lighter colored. These guys may just have just been diving, and so were wetter and looked thinner; also, I think their flank feathers looked redder than they do in many pictures because they were flatter.
 
Well, I'll concede the point to those more experienced with the local fauna. Estimating the size of or the distance to two isolated birds on a large body of water can be as difficult as estimating the same on a bird on a clear blue sky background, plus I was being hurried along at that point so had to make a quick observation and shot. They were much closer than the two Little Grebe that I had seen earlier and those had been mixed into a flock of Common Grebe, so I had a handy size reference to compare to in that case. I agree with Gretchen in that I had a mental image of what a Little Grebe "should" look like.
 
2015-APR-21

About 10:00 in the morning I was surprised by a rapid fire ke-ke-ke-ke-ke at the window and swiveled my chair quickly to see our Russian Toy Terrier beating a hasty retreat from her seat at out 14th floor window and a Eurasian Sparrowhawk hovering not more than a meter outside. Not sure if it had seen its own reflection or if it spotted the dog and thought "Lunch is served!" Both of the pair that have been hanging around made several passes at the window during the next 10 minutes.

(2) Accipiter nisus - Eurasian Sparrowhawk

I decided to hike out to the north along the irrigation canal for my daily bird observation walk and dog walk. Trees still haven't leafed out (leaved out?) here so mixed curse and blessing in that the habitat is not ideal for the birds but it makes it easier to spot them. Birds were somewhat sparse, but they may have been hiding out due to a large mob of Azure-winged Magpie that were especially loud and boisterous that day and roaming up and down the canal. I observed one case of a Light-vented Bulbul coming out of hiding to their more common topmost branch of a tall tree to sing. He was immediately buzzed by one of the Azure-winged Magpies who called loudly and the Bulbul quickly retreated back to cover. It all just had the air of the teenager fallen in with a bad crowd running down the street and pushing someone down for a laugh.

At the very start of the canal path I encountered my one new species that I thought would be easy to figure out but I haven't yet. (see attached) I expected that pretty orange lipstick to make it an easy ID.

(1) Streptopelia orientalis - Oriental Turtle-Dove
(2) Montacill alba - White Wagtail
(8) Euphona migratoria - Yellow-billed Grosbeak
(4) Tarsiger cyanurus - Red-flanked Bluetail
(6) Phylloscopus proregulus - Pallas's Leaf Warbler
(1) Dendrocopos major - Great Spotted Woodpecker
(15) Periparus vensututlus - Yellow-bellied Tit
(4) Pycnonotus sinesis - Light-vented Bulbul
 

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Owen, you have a Red-billed Leothrix there. This is a common caged bird in China and often escapes which is why is can sometimes be found around urban areas in parks and forests. It is native to south China I believe. There is one mountain area here in Dalian where they can be seen sometimes.

Others in the same category that would be possible for you in Panjin would be:
Crested Myna
Hwamei
Red-billed Starling

Also, your Eurasian Sparrowhawk sounds like its behaving like a Eurasian Kestrel. They are common around buildings and can easily hover. The call also matches.
 
I thought at first that Tom was seeing just how gullible I would be. When I entered "Red-billed Leothrix" into the IBC and the Oriental Bird Club's sites I got no matches. I tried birdforum's own opus and still no matches. Just as I was thinking, "Ha, ha, good one, Tom.", I tried Wikipedia. It tries for closest match instead of just exact match and bingo, it turns out they were hanging up on it being "Leiothrix". I'll admit it looks even more like something from a Dr. Seuss book and I don't know how to pronounce it.

At least it explains why I couldn't find it. It's not on the check-list for Liaoning.

Yea, the Sparrowhawk could have been taken for a Kestrel but she was struggling unlike the more graceful hover of the Kestrel. Looked more like a pull up from a swooping approach. I have gotten a really good look at both of the pair over the last few days as they have several times been perching on a ledge just one floor above us. They are Sparrowhawks. There is a Kestrel pair that works the wetlands just west of here.
 
I will be leaving for the US in the morning, so the last week has been fairly hectic. Been enough just trying to keep my list up to date and make my eBird reports. I've taken a birding walk most days but not much happening. Numbers seem to have fallen off dramatically with even the Tree Sparrows dropping off sharply in numbers.

I did tag along on one outing to a village east of Panjin. The wife was going with a group of retired musicians just for a day in the country so I joined in and spent most of the time walking the river dike. For part of the distance a very amiable small dog joined the walk. Didn't get any great numbers, but added five new species for me. I was told that the rice paddies will be flooded here next week. Ash trees and willows just started to leaf out here in the last week and many flowering trees and bushes brightening things up.

The village was full of Barn Swallows and there were 7 Mallards (4 males 3 females) the locals said were wild in the roadside ditch with the domestic mallards and geese.

Several Ring-necked Pheasants were crowing and I managed to track one down and flush it for positive ID.
One Grey-headed Woodpecker was spotted and I got a good look through the bins.
Several Great Spotted Woodpeckers were about and drumming loudly. Got a good look at one.
Eurasian Magpie were loudly scolding.
At least 6 Oriental Turtle-Dove were seen and by the amount of cooing heard, I think that there were many more.
At least 3 Light-vented Bulbul were evident as well as a pair of Naumann's Thrush.
Fish ponds in what the locals said was a recently drained and sectioned off with dikes cut off river channel yielded 4 Common Sandpiper and 2 Common Kingfisher.

Well I'm off. I will be posting to another thread from Kansas. I'll let you know when I get started.
 
Hello to all the China birders! A special hello to Gretchen. She helped me with an ID of a new species to me here in Kansas!

Took a few days to recover enough from the trip to start birding and have been mostly checking out the area so far. For the first week here though I managed to definitely ID 49 species. I haven't yet made any trips to the large wildlife refuges so water birds in particular should still add up quickly.

The new posting is at http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?p=3217258#post3217258
 

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