Sichuan Birding (16 Viewers)

Because Wawu remains unfinished and as an insurance of possible Longcanggou access problems, we've recently been doing a bit of scouting at alternative sites.
Roland has been out in the direction of Tianquan and Baisha He Forest Park - where he spotted Lady A - and then along the old Wenchuan road into the SE corner of Wolong Nature Reserve (a part of the reserve you can't reach from the Wolong Town area) - not many birds (best was a White-backed Woodpecker) but access to potentially good bamboo habitat. There are hotels at both sites.

This Saturday I was out at another panda reserve area - Longchi Forest Park - which is around 30km from Dujiangyan. Because of earthquake damage, it's an age since I've last been to this site. But now the road is just about passable - still impossible for buses, but easy for 4WD. We found lots of snow being enjoyed by a surprising number of visitors. Longchi has always been a popular winter destination, by spring this will be a much quieter site. Although this park also contains good habitat, not many birds were seen in the cold conditions. Best was a flock of around 50 White-throated Laughingthrush. Decent Hotels for this park can be found in Dujiangyan, while simpler accommodation seems to be available just outside the old park gates.

Pictures with this post -
1- from my last trip to Balang; Grandala feeding on buckthorn berries

2 - Longchi in the snow

Sid,

I love your thread and don't say that enough. You live in such a wonderful part of China! I love reading your posts and love learning about the species (birds and others) in your area. Quality stuff!

Tom

Tom, I agree with you and I am also guilty of not saying it enough. Sid's thread is one of the very best on BirdForum, without a doubt.. :t:

And Tom, while we are praising threads, yours is top-notch, too... and, for me living in Beijing, it's essential reading to hear about what birds might be heading my way!

Both of you deserve enormous credit for adding a huge amount to the ornithological knowledge of your respective areas.. BirdForum at its best!

Cheers, Terry

Hi folks,

When I get round to it I will be putting up my trip report one here but for those who can't wait, it's currently going up over at Safaritalk : http://safaritalk.net/topic/13603-sichuan-safari-on-the-sly-november-2014/

Cheers,

Jo

Terry Townshend said:

Tom, I agree with you and I am also guilty of not saying it enough. Sid's thread is one of the very best on BirdForum, without a doubt.. :t:

Click to expand...

Agree - I always enjoy reading of the trips and seeing the photos, as well as serving as a reminder that I need to get back to China to see more of the country and the birds. :t:

cheers, alan

Having a Grandala Christmas

We love this thread too. Great birds, mammals and scenery !

圣诞节快乐！

Attached is my greetings card for this year.

It depicts a Red-hatted Bluetail Tarsiger rubriceps (similar to species found in east Asia and with a bell-like call), which was the second I’ve managed to stumble on in the UK.

For those unfamiliar with the intricacies of birding in GB, a ‘pager’ is an electronic device which is supposed to inform birders of sightings. This is, of course, highly dependent on observer input !

A variety of alert modes can be employed, including ‘vibrate’- which can occasion the unnerving sight of the hard-plastic-cased object’s jerking its way across, say, a glass table-top.

Please continue to include the reports, sightings, photos, comments and information which make this thread such interesting and evocative reading for someone who, for health reasons, is no longer able to fly 'out east'- or anywhere. (I will travel vicariously.) I did, very briefly, consider the rail option.

Really great to to read the last bunch of posts - and a really merry Christmas to everybody who reads this thread.
I was intending to write earlier today - but Christmas duties - mainly focused on building a monster of a Lego fire-engine for Saker have been preventing me from getting anywhere near the computer. I'm glad to say that Lego model is fully finished, since it must have contained around 5 million parts (4 million of which were microscopically small). Tomorrow I'm going to stick it together with superglue - just to make sure Saker doesn't dismantle it and then demand a rebuild.

Id like to say all the regular China threads on birdforum are of great interest and importance. Post writers are regularly contributing unique information and data from areas that receive little or no regular birding or mammal watching. It's also great to see we have new and younger contributors - lets hope for a greater participation from a new generation of locally grown naturalists

Taking leaf out of John's book, with his excellent Bluetail, I've also produced a birdy Christmas card - a very cold Alpine Accentor, we saw a couple of weeks back, at the very top of the Balang pass. Although not a Robin - I reckon this guy is enough of a redbreast to make it as Yuletide motive

Merry Christmas
from Saker, Meggie and Sid

Have finally gotten around to finishing my trip-report from an eleven-day visit in May. Please take a look at http://www.aviceda.org/?p=99 and send any comments, I'm particularly interested in any mistakes that I might have made so any 'constructive' criticism is very welcome. Cheers Tom

china guy said:

... Christmas duties - mainly focused on building a monster of a Lego fire-engine for Saker have been preventing me from getting anywhere near the computer...
I've also produced a birdy Christmas card - a very cold Alpine Accentor, we saw a couple of weeks back, at the very top of the Balang pass. Although not a Robin - I reckon this guy is enough of a redbreast to make it as Yuletide motive

Merry Christmas
from Saker, Meggie and Sid

Click to expand...

(I watched another adult assembling legos yesterday - quite different from when I was small )

Lovely card. Merry Christmas to your family and all on the thread! I appreciate all who make this China bird forum an exciting and friendly place.

With a few days delay, but still not too late hopefully, I want to wish everybody the very Best for the New Year!
And may it become a better year for global wildlife than the recent years! (Referring to the latest population reports, climate change and habitat destruction...).

I also have a small gift for all our readers of this thread: A calendar of 2015 with pictures from Sichuan. Even if not all of them show birds, it still gives an idea of the beauty of Sichuan! Here is the link to the file. Its size is about 10MB, that's why I thought it is better downloaded from my web page:
http://www.wstourix.com/pdf_files/sichuan_calendar_2015.pdf
For those who decide to put it on the wall: Best for printing is A4 photo paper.


Recently I took my two daughters out into the nature every weekend, just to make the short and chilly winter days a bit more pleasant for them. Sitting in the cold classrooms the whole day long is certainly not too enjoyable. Although birding has a different quality in winter, we managed to see quite a few nice birds which very much suite for birding with children (rather than the typical Sichuan skulkers do):
Yesterday in Tangjiahe we saw a pair of two male Golden Pheasants (see picture below, taken by my older daughter), Red-winged Laughingthrushes, Hwamei, Grey-headed Woodpecker as well as a White-tailed Eagle. A pair of Wild Pigs, a Chinese Serow in the sun (see pic below), of course Takins and many Muntjiacs also were seen in Tangjiahe and made the kids very excited, too.

The third picture was taken at Christmas in 'our' park in Dujiangyan. Nice habitat with a lot of altitude migrants.

Best,
Roland

Excellent stuff Roland! All the best to you and the family (and Sid and his tribe below) for 2015...I miss China!

All the best
Mark

Here's another picture from the trip to Tangjiahe - our group having a picnic.

We had a massive miss at the park - Golden Snub-nosed Monkeys. The day before we arrived they'd been seen around the hotel and then on the morning we left. But despite having time and walking in the area they'd been spotted, we couldn't find them!!!
Macaques were far easier to find - the other pic is of Saker and Meggie having a close encounter with another mum and baby.

On way to the park - on the Fujiang River - a couple of stops, at slower running dammed water, gave us 33 Mandarin Ducks.

Happy new year everybody
all the best from
Saker, Meggie and Sid

Finished my trip report: http://safaritalk.net/topic/13603-sichuan-safari-on-the-sly-november-2014/

Hi kittykat23uk,

Thanks for posting your report, it was a good read. You really made the most of your visit and saw loads of wildlife, despite a few foggy days! I'm very jealous as I’ve visited Sichuan a number of times and haven’t come close to seeing all what you’ve seen.

Nice video of the red panda. I knew they were agile, but didn’t realise they were quite so adept at manoeuvring on the thinnest of branches. Gutting about the one at Balang pass.

Many gorgeous photos, such as of the white-browed tit-warbler. That Himalayan griffon utterly dwarves that raven.

The description of the road to Wolong made me laugh.

Ed

Thanks Ed! Yeah we had a really good selection of birds and mammals - maybe you should go with Sid next time, he certainly found us a lot of our targets! Definitely helps to be out spotlighting too. But that second red panda gutted is definitely how I felt .

SPRING is NEAR

I think it’s time again to tell a little bit about what’s going on in Sichuan recently: After a four-weeks escape from the unpleasant and wet-cold Sichuan winter into the warm and sunny Yunnan I had to come back to Dujiangyan a week ago – school just started. However, I had to be patient for another full week – weather still was wet and cold (~5C, humidity at 100%)… Yesterday sun came out eventually and temperatures rose to about 15C. Now, I can happily announce that spring is on the approach. And, of course my first step was checking the nearby park for any news on the bird side. Within a wonderful birding hour – just one hour – I counted about 40 species. Included were also some surprises:
A Grey Treepie was making its way through the canopy. A female Grey-backed Thrush was the first time for me in Sichuan. And a flock of at least 9 female Vinaceous Rosefinches was feeding on buds and seeds.
My old acquaintance – a couple of Chinese Bamboo Partridge – was hushing across the path when I arrived.
Here the full list:
Speckled Piculet (4)
Grey-headed Woodpecker (2)
Great Barbet (heard)
House Swifts (20+)
Spotted Dove (3)
Grey Treepie (1)
Red-billed Blue Magpie (3)
Chestnut-bellied Rock Thrush (5)
Blue Whistling Thrush (1, c. caerulus)
Grey-backed Thrush
Blackbird (m. mandarinus)
Himalayan Bluetail (6)
Bluefronted Redstart (2)
Daurian Redstart (1)
Yellow-bellied Tit (8)
Green-backed Tit (2)
Japanese Tit (3)
Black-throated Tit (15+)
Asian House Martin (15+)
Chinese Bulbul (+)
Collared Finchbill (12+)
Aberrant Bush Warbler (1)
Buff-barred Leaf Warbler (2)
Rufous-faced Warbler (3)
Elliot’s Laughingthrush (3)
White-browed Laughingthrush (10+)
Red-billed Leiothrix (20+)
David’s Fulvetta (20+)
Black-streaked Scimitar Babbler (2)
Pygmy Wren Babbler (1)
Rufous-capped Babbler (2)
White-collared Yuhina (3)
Fire-breasted Flowerpecker (3)
Grey Wagtail (2)
White Wagteil (10+)
Olive-backed Pipit (8)
Rufous-breasted Accentor (2)
Grey-headed Greenfinch (10+)
Vinaceous Rosefinch (female 9)
Chinese (Yellow-billed) Grosbeak (10+)
Little Bunting (30+)

A very nice hour! Lots of nice birds. Glad to know spring is coming somewhere - pretty white yet where we are.

Hoping to manage a photograph of the Grey-backed Thrush (see last post) I’ve been in our little park again the last three days. Unfortunately it wasn’t there anymore.
However, a big surprise was another thrush instead: In the search for thrushes I have inspected each thrush-like bird and found out that those Blackbirds which moved particularly secretively were not the Turdus mandarinus – which are quite common here – but a pair of Grey-winged Blackbirds. It’s good to have this bird around as well. Not sure whether it winters here, but if not, then it can’t be too far away: The last time I’ve seen it in Dujiangyan was last November.

Here some more birds to join the above list:
Vineous-throated Parrotbill
Ashy-throated Parrotbill (a few moving amongst the vineous-throated)
Mountain Bulbul (about 10 birds, each day so far)
Eastern (common) Buzzard

Yesterday I came back from my first Sichuan birding trip this year. Target areas were Zoige Grassland with the Baxi Valley and Longcanggou.
Heavy snowstorms made this area quite a winter adventure. However, we got most of our birds as well as fabulous views of two Alpine Musk Deer. A pair of Black-necked Cranes pushed my earliest record onto the 19th of March! The northern part of the grassland – near Flower Lake – was crowded with Steppe Eagle. We counted somewhat 15+ birds soaring above the Pika colonies.
Baxi as well was a white winter landscape and reminded me on Upper Bavaria when I went ski touring in my youth. Here we got some remarkable birds to put down: At -10C in the morning we were promptly hiking past a Chinese Grouse which was perching in a willow bush and didn’t show any intentions to move away at all. We spent about 15minutes to observe this ‘frozen’ bird before it slowly climbed down the branches and disappeared. A few minutes later we discovered a Blanfords Rosefinch which was foraging in the bushes. But, most common bird however was Red-throated Thrush which seems to winter here in huge numbers.

The situation in Longcanggou for this year’s birding is still uncertain. Firstly, there is road construction between expressway exit and park entrance which is reason enough to close down the whole traffic towards the park between 8:00 and 18:00. Furthermore there is quite a lot of construction going on in the park which obviously affects habitat and birdwatching: The road up to the top is going to be broadened and a big building in the lower section park area is about to be set up. Finally, due to these constructions all potential visitors need to ask for special admission – the gate was locked and guarded.

Birding in Longcanggou was slow but nevertheless produced three male Lady Amherst’s Pheasants as well as Red-headed trogon, Sichuan Treecrepper, Red-winged, Black-faced and Spotted Laughingthrush. Migrant birds have not really arrived yet. Apart from a handful of leaf warblers there was no sign of summer breeders – even in lower sections.
In the early morning snow we discovered a footprint along the road. It looks very much like a footprint of a bear – Panda or Black Bear. A photo is attached and comments are desired.

Roland