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Panjin Birding by the Old Fat Man (1 Viewer)

October 15, 2016

An extended morning walk today out to a wetland area produced two flocks of 40 Naumann's Thrush on the south side and another 30 Naumann's on the north side. Both were being very difficult to approach so I spent over an hour managing just a few decent images.

Filled it out with 6 Hoopoe, 2 Little Grebe 3 Light-vented Bulbul and 2 Common Magpie. Saw one woodpecker fly with loud alarm call and while a probable Grey-headed Woodpecker, I couldn't say for certain.
 

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October 16, 2016

What started out as a short outing turned into a three hour hike. I intended to spend the time to manage to get a better look to firmly confirm that what I have been seeing is indeed Pallas's Leaf Warbler. After much effort and time I finally did manage a few good ID photos and confirm that as well as a few Little Bunting. One Little Bunting objected to my presence enough that when I turned my back on him I was suddenly startled by a wing slapping my ear! I don't know if it was me or the fact that I had the dog along with me that had it so riled.

Just as I was getting ready to head back home I noticed a large flock of something about a kilometer away circling over one area. It intrigued me enough for me to decided to walk over to there to get a close look. As it turned out, just as the sun was going down, there is a new commercial sized pigeon operation in the area. I hesitate to call it a coop as it was a large three story entirely devoted to pigeons. As I walked over there more and more birds kept arriving and increasing the size of the circling flock until I could only estimate over 500 birds in the air! That is not counting all the birds feeding in the central courtyard and perched in the complex. Up until now there have been a number of small market operations but 30 birds was a large flock for any of those with most being more like 10 birds.
 

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Thanks, Mike. It did make for an interesting photo. The red/pink is the natural color of the vegetation on the tidal mud flats at the Red 'Beach'. Probably a combination of my natural character tendencies from my German heritage and my engineering training to focus on the issue at hand, "work the problem", but I didn't even notice it that much at the time. I was there for birding and the low numbers caused me to get laser focused on getting my 85 RMB entrance fee worth out of the trip.
It is possible to get too focused on your immediate issues. Trying to get more relaxed in my retirement and just take life just the way it comes.
 
I did notice an odd behavior in that occasionally, on some sort of cue that I could not figure out, all the crab inside a maybe 10 meter radius would suddenly pop out of their holes, dash about madly and then dive back into their holes. Quite comical to observe.

I've seen something like this too, but don't know anything about it really. Kind of like musical chairs - they've all heard the music and know it's time to move :-O
 
Slow progress

Wow, I didn't realize that it had been that long since I made my last post! Life got hectic for a little while and things ranging from making Shengdan Liaoren (Old Man Christmas) appearances to having some major dental work done caused me to only get out once a week or so.

My goal that I set at the beginning of the year, when I had 100 Liaoning species to reach 150 species by the end of the year is starting to look in jeopardy. I had hope for it when I managed to tick numbers 147 & 148 on Nov 23rd with Japanese Reed Bunting & Pallas's Reed Bunting. The Japanese Reed Bunting was a real catch as you can see it was mixed in with some Tree Sparrow and it was only because I have learned to do a closer binocular check on the flocks of "only sparrows" that I did a double take and snapped a few quick shots before it disappeared.

Since then nothing new and the winter species are just starting to arrive mainly in the form of numerous Japanese Tit, while I'm rapidly running out of time. I am sure I could have topped that goal if I would have had time to make a few trips to the Liaodong bay and picked up some new waders or ducks. Still I can hope for a couple of new Warbler or Finch.

Hawfinch, Eurasian Magpie, Chinese Bulbul, Japanese Tit and Tree Sparrow make up almost all of what I find right now. I should start seeing a greater variety and larger numbers of various kinds of Tit with winter arriving. We had our seventh snow day of the season today, so things should get more interesting soon.

Interestingly, the Azure-winged Magpie have seemingly vanished. They are normally abundant and found year round here. Of course with all the wetland habitat loss that occurred right around home, the Egret and Herons that I could spot last year within a few hundred meters of home were no where to be seen.
 

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Looking wistfully at your Japanese Bunting shots Owen - just two records in Hong Kong . . .

Given your location sooner or later a Siberian Crane is going to fly right over your head while you're shopping or doing something totally unconnected to birding - you also have the potential for am few others of course!

Cheers
Miek
 
Well, as I have related before, I am about 75% certain of having a fleeting glance, at a distance, of a Black Stork about 3 years ago, before I had started with more organized birding, spotted a V-flight of what I now think was probably Siberian Crane out the apartment window early one morning. Again only a fleeting glimpse as there was considerable fog and they were just quickly in and out of the fog. Only a matter of time to get a good solid sighting of them I am sure.

I wonder if the 'little brown birds' like the Japanese Reed Bunting don't experience severe under-counting. As I said in my case it was spotted only because I pay attention to the boring Sparrows. Even then the thoughts were, "Sparrow, sparrow, sparrow, only sparrows. Wait a minute, that is an odd looking sparrow!"
 
I'm still here!

Wow! It's been way too long since I last posted. It has been especially cold here this winter and that kept me down to only about one outing a week since mid-December. Even then I have had very little to comment on, typically only seeing 50 or so Tree Sparrow, a couple of Common Magpie, an occasional dozen or so Azure-winged Magpie maybe a few Japanese Tit or so. I have not seen any of the usual winter Hoopoe, Long-tailed Tit, Tree Creeper, etc. I was slowed down even in February by continued cold weather and snow (snowed again last night) and a bout of illness which the local Doc assessed as bird flu.

All that being said, the continual feelers which the local government has been sending out over the last year, suddenly became more serious. I was notified by our neighbor that Mr. Li, the vice-mayor who is in charge of Panjin Honghaitan (Red Beach) area, wanted to meet with me last Saturday. We met (Picture - yes we were using Tom Beeke's "Birds of Dalian) and he discussed my birding activities and he viewed many of my better photos. During the meeting he indicated that the government had approved what might translate as an Environmental Education Center at Honghaitan and asked if they could use my photos for display there as well as any advice that I might have for conservation efforts in the area. Having expressed that I would be interested in helping them, he made a couple of quick calls and arraigned for me to do a tour the next day.

Sunday arrived with a threat of snow and a stiff north wind so things were delayed until afternoon when it was suddenly announced that the car would be here in 20 minutes. Throwing on layers of clothes and grabbing my camera we were off. The whirlwind tour didn't allow for a lot of birding, but I did get to visit a "reserve" area where I met Professor Jao who has since the 1980's been working on trying to preserve Red-crowned Crane. (Picture) He currently has 16 birds who I understood to be both birds undergoing rehabilitation and birds that were hatched at the reserve. They are kept in cages until they are deemed ready to release into the wild. Typically enough for China, he was somewhat evasive about actual numbers, but I gathered that he had 80 birds since he started and released 10 last year.

While I was there he tried to find some Vinous-throated Parrotbill for me to add to my life-list, but I only came up with 30 or so Pallas's Reed Bunting. Unfortunately I was not able to add the Red-crowned Crane since they were not wild birds.

The threat of losing the light due to having started late and the heavy overcast caused me to be rushed out of there to go over to the neighboring Honghaitan. It is basically closed down to tourist activity this time of year but after a brief discussion the guards allowed us entry. We proceeded to the new center which is at the final stages of construction. I was surprised at that point by being offered what I am sure is essentially a 'white monkey' job to help with promoting the center, conservation efforts and tourism in general. I was told that VM Li had decided that having Shengdan Laoren's (Santa Claus) face and my pictures would be very good for tourism. Oh, and by the way, this is your office! No formal agreement as yet, but interesting at least. Probably not a lot for me but free entry to Honghaitan and Mr Li did indicate he would arraign access to several other conservation areas in Panjin's jurisdiction and possibly transportation.
 

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Hope you are doing well, Owen. I'm glad the H7N9 strain doesnt spread through the web.

Congrats on becoming the Brand Ambassador for local tourism industry. Hope you will allow us to use your credentials if we would like to sneak into some reserves.
 
Hey Dev,

We were discussing some of the details yesterday. One of the bigger issues is my age, but the local government says that since they want me they can get permission.

One thing they mentioned yesterday was wanting my advice on attracting foreign tourists and in particular those interested in birding. I was thinking this morning about coming up with package deals where lodging and meals and transportation of a quality level acceptable to Westerners along with one admission fee that would cover any of the 'environmental tourism' or 'conservation' areas within Panjin's governmental area that would be lower cost than each separately.

I especially would like to have any comments, ideas, suggestions or questions from the BirdForum community. What would make it more attractive to you? What could be done better than what you have experienced elsewhere in China? What have you seen done especially well elsewhere?

A trip to Huludao has been suggested to see what they are doing there, so if anyone has birded there it would help to get your impressions and suggestions on what to do better.
 
February 28, 2017

Winter is finally relaxing it's grip up here with it reaching +11 C today. Glad to have a good day to get outside for the afternoon I checked out one of the irrigation canals. Not great numbers, but the Buntings are starting the migration and provided some viewing at a few points.

After an initial start of over a kilometer with no birds whatsoever I finally encountered (2) Grey-headed Woodpecker closely followed by another (2) Great-spotted Woodpecker. The GSWP were working on hollowing out a new nest, which I took a shot of, but probably will not keep it since it is about head high and right at the edge of a commonly used walking path.

Shortly after that things picked up and I found the migrating bunting to the score of (7) Little Bunting and (20) Rustic Bunting. The male Rustic Bunting where singing away, so maybe they intend on making home here this summer.

Rounded things out for the day with anotherGreat-spotted Woodpecker, (3) Common Magpie, (40) Tree Sparrow and (10) Olive-backed Pipits.
 

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March 9, 2017

My wife and I had decided to have lunch out so we incorporated it into birding by walking along an irrigation canal to the shopping center which has numerous good places to eat. For five km or so it was still pretty low numbers, but a pleasant walk anyway.

(4) Elegant Bunting
(5) Japanese Tit
(2) Hawfinch
(1) Common Magpie
(1) Grey-Headed Woodpecker
(2) Little Bunting

and finally (12) Azure-Winged Magpie that followed us for awhile. I don't know if they have learned to recognize me or the long white lens on the camera, but even when they are ignoring other walkers they will cavort around me, sometimes flying ahead to scatter any flocks of other birds just as I arrive or just coming within a few meters to scold.
 
March 10, 2017 - Gedalou Reservoir

The weather being perfect with 15 C, clear skies and very light wind I decided to make a day of it and see if Gedalou Reservoir had warmed enough to clear the ice yet. It proved a good choice even though it was still about 50% ice covered. My wife accompanied and since the family car is used during the day for business (the son-in-law is a district manager), we decided to splurge on hiring a car as I had never made it all the way around the 9km or so. Our daughter used a phone app to acquire the car and I noticed as he opened his logging and map app that it was labeled as 'Uber'. As we arrived he told me to just tell him when I wanted to stop and unlike any taxi driver we have had before he did indeed very cooperatively stop and patiently wait anytime I spotted something I wanted to investigate, which was often. In fact he even quickly figured out what I might be interested in and helped with spotting.

Immediately on arriving I stopped for a scan of the lake and was greeted with hundreds of gull, grebe and geese resting on the edge of the ice. The lake was approximately 50% ice covered and large flocks were concentrated along the edges of the ice out in the middle of the lake. Luckily I had decided to include the 1.4 tele-converter as in many cases the closest we could get was an estimated 500m-800m. We slowly made our way around with me snapping 650+ shots. Those proved invaluable as later at home I was able to zoom in and verify id's and even discover a few that I had missed at the time. Initially, it was perfect conditions, but the seeing deteriorated as the reed and rice beds were being burnt off in the area and a smoke haze and our trek around the lake deteriorated the quality of my photos as the sun swung around from directly behind me to directly in front.

Of particular delight to me were the new ticks for me of Smew, Slaty-backed Gull, and Bean Goose. The Great-Crested Grebe and Goosander (Common Mersanger) were also putting on quite a show with territorial and mating behavior being evident. The Grey Heron made for the earliest I have seen any Heron or Egret arriving.

Gedalou Reservoir, Panjin, Dawa County, Liaoning, CN, Liaoning, CN
Mar 10, 2017 11:15 AM - 12:45 PM
Protocol: Traveling
5.0 kilometer(s)
Comments: aprox. 15 C Lake aprox. 50% ice covered
12 species

Taiga Bean-Goose (Anser fabalis) 30
Smew (Mergellus albellus) 100
Common Merganser (Mergus merganser) 49
Great Crested Grebe (Podiceps cristatus) 54
Gray Heron (Ardea cinerea) 5
Eurasian Coot (Fulica atra) 20
Black-headed Gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) 205
Herring Gull (Larus argentatus) 445
Slaty-backed Gull (Larus schistisagus) 12
Eurasian Magpie (Pica pica) 12
Little Bunting (Emberiza pusilla) 2
Rustic Bunting (Emberiza rustica) 8

View this checklist online at http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S35098989

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org)

Gedalou Reservoir, Panjin, Dawa County, Liaoning, CN, Liaoning, CN
Mar 10, 2017 1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Protocol: Traveling
5.0 kilometer(s)
Comments: aprox. 15 C Lake aprox. 50% ice covered
5 species

Taiga Bean-Goose (Anser fabalis) 500
Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) 15
Smew (Mergellus albellus) 12
Black-headed Gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) 200
Herring Gull (Larus argentatus) 100

View this checklist online at http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S35099006

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org)
 

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A few more photos

A few more photos from 3/10/2017
 

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continued 3/10/2017

Things having been so good in the morning I decided to extend out trip and check out the area around Honghaitan. It is closed this early in the season and not yet having the promised gate pass, we just took a back road adjacent to the tourist park. The immense numbers of Great Cormorant in breeding plumage flying in V's overhead made me glad for spending the extra money. Also caught one V of Bean Goose which went right by at low altitude. Luckily our driver noticed them and excitedly pointed them out as I was too engaged with snapping shots of the Great Cormorant to even notice.

Finally made the trip to the mouth of the Shangtaizi River since it was just past high tide hoping to catch some waders. Turned out the area had recently had about 500m of wetland filled with dredge material from the shipping channel and the shoreline "improved" with rock breakwater. No longer being exposed mud, the waders were no where to be seen. I did manage to pick up some Eurasian Skylark though.

HongHaiTan (Red Beach), Liaoning, CN
Mar 10, 2017 2:45 PM - 3:45 PM
Protocol: Traveling
10.0 kilometer(s)
3 species

Taiga Bean-Goose (Anser fabalis) 23
Great Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) 182
Eurasian Skylark (Alauda arvensis) 10

View this checklist online at http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S35099096

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org)
 

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March 14, 2017

A hike over to one of the irrigation canals where there is widening making a small lake area proved to still be a little early in the season. The lake was still about 90% ice covered although it was basically a slurry of ice just covering the surface. Didn't pick up much except a few Pallas's Reed Bunting & some newly arrived Chinese Bulbul.

A walk with the dog around the local park area today was much the same with a couple of Common Magpie working on expanding their nest and more Chinese Bulbul.

Panjin, Dawa County, Liaoning, CN, Liaoning, CN
Mar 14, 2017 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Protocol: Traveling
5.0 kilometer(s)
3 species (+1 other taxa)

Eurasian Magpie (Pica pica) 2
Light-vented Bulbul (Pycnonotus sinensis) 14
Dusky/Naumann's Thrush (Turdus eunomus/ naumanni) 2
Pallas's Bunting (Emberiza pallasi) 4

View this checklist online at http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S35185396
 

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Some very nice winter birding Owen!

I envy you your Smew.

The Reed Bunting pix are terrific. We're these all the same bird? I am now on the way to work by would be interested to examine them more closely to make sure you don't have a Japanese Reed Bunting

Cheers
Mike

PS You might also have a chance of seeing a Scaly-sided Merganser as they migrate back north!
 
Some very nice winter birding Owen!

The Reed Bunting pix are terrific. We're these all the same bird? I am now on the way to work by would be interested to examine them more closely to make sure you don't have a Japanese Reed Bunting

PS You might also have a chance of seeing a Scaly-sided Merganser as they migrate back north!

I was using Brazil's illustrations and text to ID and I am feeling good about the Pallas's RB. Primarily based on the very clean breast and the less colorful wing. Also the bill looks to be too small for Japanese RB. For you to peruse, or anyone else interested, I have posted the best quality pics at the highest available quality at: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0q5Uzl7Vdwbwj

I've gone back through my shots from that day and came up with a few shots that included both individuals in the same frames. I wasn't able to get a shot of the other two I saw.

I was excited when I first spotted them as I thought they were Japanese RB, which would have been a new species tick for me.

Scaly-sided Merganser would be another tick that I would love to have! I plan a trip back to a waterbird area within the next few days, so here's hoping!
 

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