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

Shanghai Perambulations (3 Viewers)

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Nice work fella! Hopefully the students learned something from the experience that will colour their thinking...

Like the OBP and the reedbed susnset shots!

Cheers
McM
 
Thanks Mark - I hope so, there were maybe 20 students so it was an interesting, and empathic, distraction from food !

Cheers for the confirmation Mike ! #1 is frustrating as it matches precisely nada in neither MacKinnons nor Brazils.
 
A quick trip to the zoo for 3 or 4 hours Wednesday afternoon to see what may be wintering there. Shanghai zoo has some very large areas, ignored by the vast majority of the paying public, of both wooded and grassed land that would put most parks to shame.

There is a lake and some small ponds that are used in the main by wild ducks, pelicans, egrets and herons. Interesting to note that the Mandarin ducks have left and there was only a small row of 3 ducks remaining. The herons, egrets and pelicans were still there in numbers.

There were huge numbers of Blackbirds (well over a hundred, if not over two hundred), Chinese Bul Buls and Tree Sparrows. However I also saw two small flocks (10-12 birds) of Chinese Grosbeaks, an unidentified Thrush (see attached), Oriental Magpie (F), Red Flanked Bluetail (x2), as always here plenty of Azure Winged Magpies, a dozen Gulls (see attached) were going to roost on an island in the lake, Long Tailed Shrikes and a Common Kingfisher, whilst a pair of Pallas' Warblers and a Red Whiskered Bul Bul rounded off the afternoon very nicely.

Leaving me enough time (too dark for birds but still enough light for big cats) to take some shots of the pair of white tigers (South China Tigers) - of which less than 200 remain (all in captivity though China has identified 4 regions in which to reintroduce them).
 

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Nice work with the mist nets Kev. Glad that you had scissors with you.

1st raptor, i would go with the juvenile crested serpent eagle. Note the heavily streaked breast, multi-banded tail feathers, wing-bars lacking subterminal band as its a juvenile . However the face is little odd in this angle.

To be precise about your Europen/Eurasian marsh harrier. It's an Eastern marsh harrier. They will be spending the winter down here.

The gull in zoo, is it captive? About the ducks, no one seems to have any answer about whether they are captive or wild. Last winter there were common pochards, tufted, common teals in the center lake and the Carnivore enclosure.

Let's find out this winter but the entry price for the zoo is "Scary".

The aviary has a bunch of pheasants including a dozen golden phesants.
 
thirudevaram said:
Nice work with the mist nets Kev. Glad that you had scissors with you.
Click to expand...

I didn't ! I used two sharp stones to cut the net roughly around the birds and then later borrowed those scissors from the students. I have bought a knife and scissors this week, those will reside permanently in my backpack.

thirudevaram said:
1st raptor, i would go with the juvenile crested serpent eagle. Note the heavily streaked breast, multi-banded tail feathers, wing-bars lacking subterminal band as its a juvenile . However the face is little odd in this angle.
Click to expand...

Thanks Dev. ! I only have one other shot (attached) and I'm not sure it will help at all. A bit far away for better I'm afraid.

thirudevaram said:
To be precise about your European/Eurasian marsh harrier. It's an Eastern marsh harrier. They will be spending the winter down here.
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Thanks for the clarification Dev. What are the defining feature differences that you spotted in the shots above ?

thirudevaram said:
The gull in zoo, is it captive?
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No they were free flying. 3 flew in to join the others as I watched. Look like Mongolian Gulls from that Japanese Gull website.

thirudevaram said:
About the ducks, no one seems to have any answer about whether they are captive or wild. Last winter there were common pochards, tufted, common teals in the center lake and the Carnivore enclosure.
Click to expand...

I didn't expect to see ducks in the carnivore enclosure so didn't check there ;). I've seen ducks flying around there on occasion so not sure if all are wild or if there are a mixture of wild and kept. Do they clip their wings ?

thirudevaram said:
Let's find out this winter but the entry price for the zoo is "Scary".
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Currently 80rmb. They really should introduce an annual card ! I'd pay 500rmb and visit far more than the 4 or 5 times a year I go now.

thirudevaram said:
The aviary has a bunch of pheasants including a dozen golden phesants.
Click to expand...
The large walk-through aviary in the Pudong Wildlife Park is excellent and has some gorgeous birds strutting their stuff (esp. in Spring).

Attachments

1. Unknown Raptor (2nd pic)
2. Oriental Magpie Robin (F) (taken through 1" thick glass since it was in the panther enclosure).
3. Oriental Stork
4. Red Crowned Crane
 

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The eurasian marsh harrier has been split into Western and Eastern. Actually, it was a tough call for me Female eastern marsh harriers will have barred outer-primaries but for your gal it's dark. So i generally called it based on their records in east China. ;-0

The other strong points for considering a female eastern marsh harrier
1.Brown patch behind the ear-coverts
2.Brownish crown and nape(Juvenile)
3.under tail - whitish(Juvenile)

Your gull has got yellow-legs, it's not the usual (Larus (vegae/cachinnans) mongolicus). May be our "Gullers" here will come up with some answers. I have had enough with the gulls for one week now.
The tufted ducks and common teals which i saw last winter were definitely wild. No sign of them when i went during summer. The other ducks, only the mgmt know about clipping their wings.

I wish you a male eastern marsh harrier on your next trip, it's a striking beauty.
 
thirudevaram said:
Your gull has got yellow-legs, it's not the usual (Larus (vegae/cachinnans) mongolicus). May be our "Gullers" here will come up with some answers. I have had enough with the gulls for one week now.
Click to expand...

Actually one you haven't mentioned Dev, so yes, not the usual, the legs are rather orange and the mantle quite dark, so a Heuglin's.
 
Its a Pale Thrush, note the just visible white corner to the tail tip. white primary edging and general plumage colouration... they can sometimes show quite dark bills.
 
Thanks for the discussion clarifying the ID of the unknown thrush, Mark & John, and thanks to Dev for the pointers on how to distinguish the Marsh Harriers.
 
Well it's been a while, I have been remiss on this thread maintenance haven't I ! However busy busy busy with planning trips and with work .... and so many photos to process that I never seem to catch up !

Fork Tailed Sunbird - taken Sunday in Hangzhou.

Sigma 120-300 at 300, f2.8, ISO2,800, 1/500 from about 8-9 metres. Heavy crop cleaned up. This was my first outing with my new lens, bought (especially for my upcoming trip to NZ) for it's versatility and it's ability to work with x1.4 and 2.0 TCs (yes, really !) with very limited IQ loss (however when we hit 6,400 ISO at 10.00 in the a.m. in Hangzhou you know the light is bad, very very bad. I love the lens already though !

This was an excellent day out (weather aside) with Mark and Dev and I'm sure the former will soon have a wonderfully entertaining trip report to enthral us all (and for me to relive the fun), nothing like a little pressure to perform eh Mark ;)

We hit 51 species according to my preliminary EBird report (I'll post them here later).
 

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Oh Kev, I wasn't expecting your result this soon. I'm sure you have jus released the promo of the sunbird. Don't forget to shoot them when you go to Hainan again, it's a diff ssp.

A gorgeous little bird for my B'day. Thanks a ton Folks!
 
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