Baoligongshan - Tengchong
Day 1 : 21st March 2014
And so it begins ....... a month of planning after the decision to switch this migration time from Taman Negara to the Southern fly route of the Gaoligongshan mountains in the exotic Southern Chinese province of Yunnan.
Yunnan holds a vast number of bird & mammal species, ca. 824 bird species according to Birds of Yunnan. Add to this the varied topography of the province from the mountains of the Himalayas (of which Gaoligongshan is a part) in the South West down to the tropical rain forests of the Xishuanbanna region with this province being the richest in terms of minority tribes, 16 with many still practicing traditional arts, crafts and life, in China and one can see that for birders and culture vultures this is one heady brew !
The beautiful bright, cloudless Shanghai March dawn was still packing a cold punch at 06.00, even though daytime Spring temperatures were now regularly climbing to 20-27C, but as I heaved my hugely over-weight bags into the taxi and set off ... wait ! Stop ! Back-up ! iPad and papers were still sitting next to the plant pot by the ornate metal front gates to my house - remembered in the nick of time.
I was confident everything else was packed as I use an app. called Packing Pro which works miracles in replacing my diminishing memory, but there's no accounting for crass stupidity
Less than 50 mins later Pudong airport loomed glitteringly into sight (truly, there was absolutely no sign of Shanghai's worsening smog crisis) amongst bright sunlight and I readied myself for the checking-in battle to come, though in the end I had worried needlessly as China Eastern's lovely counter staff smoothly & efficiently took care of the sending my bags to the aircraft hold.
Luckily by booking an Early Bird return flight to Kunming as soon as I made the decision on the trip meant that for very little more I'd upgraded to First Class (no business class) from economy for the extra baggage allowance, however the free lounge coffee & breakfast and larger seats (rather than the Chinese person sized seats in economy) didn't go amiss either, I could get used to this !
The problem may still be my heavy baggage load (46 kgs including hand luggage, which is a large hiking backpack for my photographic gear !) on the Kunming - Tengchong leg of the journey, since I had originally booked Kunming - Baoshan (which is actually much closer to Baihualin, Gaoligongshan) and again an Early Bird return ticket meant 1st Class (for the same price as an economy ticket booked a week later ! ) but I later changed this to Kunming - Tengchong after reading more Trip Reports on the quality of birding at Laifengshan just outside the town and was no longer eligible for the Early Bird with the price now the normal 4 times the price of an economy seat so it was back to slumming it in cattle class - oh well it was nice while it lasted and I'll enjoy the flight home in a week's time.
A tip here for anyone unfamiliar with flying in China, always leave plenty of time between flights if transiting or for proposed meetings after landing - there are inevitably delays (in my experience usually between 20 and 60 mins per flight) on most flights (China recently came out the worst in Asia in a recent survey of officially recorded departure times) otherwise you could end up missing your connecting flight.
So my 09.00 flight went wheels up at 10.00 and was a pleasant smooth 3.5 hrs and 2,042 kms (or so the announcement said) to Kunming. After a couple of hours spent kicking my heels at the airport (there are only 5 flights a day to Tengchong, three in the morning and this afternoon flight the last before the sole evening flight), listening to the songs & calls of what would be the many new birds to me, it was chocks away again and a 1 hour flight over mountain ranges to cover the few remaining hundred kilometres between Kunming and Tengchong.
Arriving right on time (16.40) meant a snappy 15 mins taxi (40 rmb) from Tengchong Airport to the hotel which I chose for it's close proximity to (Dongfang Xuanyi Holiday Hotel: 230rmb per night inc. tax - and this is a great hotel at any price, new, very very clean, modern, spacious rooms, beautiful bathroom, it's amazing value for money), a quick check-in and then 15 mins later I was out, bins & camera in hand, to hail the first taxi (10 rmb) up to the temple at Laifengshan, 5 mins away.
The late sunset here, this far South and close to the Burmese border, meant I could shoot until 19.30 and still bird until nearly 20.00, so the bonus of 2.5 - 3 hours birding at the end of a long travel day !
Arriving at the temple, surrounded by woods on all sides, what was my first bird going to be ? A Lifer ? A substantial movement in the trees low down had me hoping for Laughers, but no my first birds were .... squirrels. Sigh. Then I was quickly aware of numbers of small, flighty birds in the canopy, eventually getting on them, Oriental White Eyes.
There were new-to-me calls everywhere, my downloading and studying of the bird calls of this region proving to be of ..... absolutely no use whatsoever But I was having enormous fun - every bird a potential Lifer
Anyway the time just sped by and in the end as dusk closed in I was walking downhill against the flow ..... many people going up to the temple carpark to enjoy the cool mountain air, to socialise and to dance.
Back in the hotel I dumped my gear on the bed and went to the little restaurant near the entrance to the hotel, with it's raw wares laid out in neat rows, including some interesting looking grubs and crawly things - yum. Maybe I'll just give them a miss today though. Lamb & pork BBQ skewers, green beans, corn on the cob and green tea to wash it all down. Excellent end to a good start !
Naturally some birds will require more in depth study to help ID but this is the list from the first 2.5 hrs (there was nothing new in the last 30 mins) :-
Bulbul, TBC
Bulbul, TBC
Bulbul, Mountain (1)
Dove, Oriental Turtle (10)
Drongo, Spangled (2)
Flycatcher, Grey-headed Canary (1 perched up)
Fulvetta, Grey-cheeked
Hawk-Cuckoo, Large (2 or 3 calling in 2 notes repeated and rising to a crescendo, 1 seen, poor photo)
Leafbird, Orange-bellied (sitting atop a tree singing)
Nuthatch, Chestnut-vented (1 landed and explored a trunk 5m away)
Minla, Blue-winged (2)
Minla, Red-tailed
Thrush, Black-breasted (2)
Tit, Great (nubicolus I'm assuming in this area (5-6)
Tree-creeper, ID TBC (1)
Wagtail, White (alboides, male in breeding colours)(1)
Warbler, Pallas' Leaf ? TBC (1)
White Eyes, Oriental (small flock)
+ 3-4 more species requiring IDs. Not a bad start, at least 20 species in 2.5 hrs including at least 10 Lifers
Day 1 : 21st March 2014
And so it begins ....... a month of planning after the decision to switch this migration time from Taman Negara to the Southern fly route of the Gaoligongshan mountains in the exotic Southern Chinese province of Yunnan.
Yunnan holds a vast number of bird & mammal species, ca. 824 bird species according to Birds of Yunnan. Add to this the varied topography of the province from the mountains of the Himalayas (of which Gaoligongshan is a part) in the South West down to the tropical rain forests of the Xishuanbanna region with this province being the richest in terms of minority tribes, 16 with many still practicing traditional arts, crafts and life, in China and one can see that for birders and culture vultures this is one heady brew !
The beautiful bright, cloudless Shanghai March dawn was still packing a cold punch at 06.00, even though daytime Spring temperatures were now regularly climbing to 20-27C, but as I heaved my hugely over-weight bags into the taxi and set off ... wait ! Stop ! Back-up ! iPad and papers were still sitting next to the plant pot by the ornate metal front gates to my house - remembered in the nick of time.
I was confident everything else was packed as I use an app. called Packing Pro which works miracles in replacing my diminishing memory, but there's no accounting for crass stupidity
Less than 50 mins later Pudong airport loomed glitteringly into sight (truly, there was absolutely no sign of Shanghai's worsening smog crisis) amongst bright sunlight and I readied myself for the checking-in battle to come, though in the end I had worried needlessly as China Eastern's lovely counter staff smoothly & efficiently took care of the sending my bags to the aircraft hold.
Luckily by booking an Early Bird return flight to Kunming as soon as I made the decision on the trip meant that for very little more I'd upgraded to First Class (no business class) from economy for the extra baggage allowance, however the free lounge coffee & breakfast and larger seats (rather than the Chinese person sized seats in economy) didn't go amiss either, I could get used to this !
The problem may still be my heavy baggage load (46 kgs including hand luggage, which is a large hiking backpack for my photographic gear !) on the Kunming - Tengchong leg of the journey, since I had originally booked Kunming - Baoshan (which is actually much closer to Baihualin, Gaoligongshan) and again an Early Bird return ticket meant 1st Class (for the same price as an economy ticket booked a week later ! ) but I later changed this to Kunming - Tengchong after reading more Trip Reports on the quality of birding at Laifengshan just outside the town and was no longer eligible for the Early Bird with the price now the normal 4 times the price of an economy seat
so it was back to slumming it in cattle class - oh well it was nice while it lasted and I'll enjoy the flight home in a week's time. A tip here for anyone unfamiliar with flying in China, always leave plenty of time between flights if transiting or for proposed meetings after landing - there are inevitably delays (in my experience usually between 20 and 60 mins per flight) on most flights (China recently came out the worst in Asia in a recent survey of officially recorded departure times) otherwise you could end up missing your connecting flight.
So my 09.00 flight went wheels up at 10.00 and was a pleasant smooth 3.5 hrs and 2,042 kms (or so the announcement said) to Kunming. After a couple of hours spent kicking my heels at the airport (there are only 5 flights a day to Tengchong, three in the morning and this afternoon flight the last before the sole evening flight), listening to the songs & calls of what would be the many new birds to me, it was chocks away again and a 1 hour flight over mountain ranges to cover the few remaining hundred kilometres between Kunming and Tengchong.
Arriving right on time (16.40) meant a snappy 15 mins taxi (40 rmb) from Tengchong Airport to the hotel which I chose for it's close proximity to (Dongfang Xuanyi Holiday Hotel: 230rmb per night inc. tax - and this is a great hotel at any price, new, very very clean, modern, spacious rooms, beautiful bathroom, it's amazing value for money), a quick check-in and then 15 mins later I was out, bins & camera in hand, to hail the first taxi (10 rmb) up to the temple at Laifengshan, 5 mins away.
The late sunset here, this far South and close to the Burmese border, meant I could shoot until 19.30 and still bird until nearly 20.00, so the bonus of 2.5 - 3 hours birding at the end of a long travel day !
Arriving at the temple, surrounded by woods on all sides, what was my first bird going to be ? A Lifer ? A substantial movement in the trees low down had me hoping for Laughers, but no my first birds were .... squirrels. Sigh. Then I was quickly aware of numbers of small, flighty birds in the canopy, eventually getting on them, Oriental White Eyes.
There were new-to-me calls everywhere, my downloading and studying of the bird calls of this region proving to be of ..... absolutely no use whatsoever
But I was having enormous fun - every bird a potential Lifer Anyway the time just sped by and in the end as dusk closed in I was walking downhill against the flow ..... many people going up to the temple carpark to enjoy the cool mountain air, to socialise and to dance.
Back in the hotel I dumped my gear on the bed and went to the little restaurant near the entrance to the hotel, with it's raw wares laid out in neat rows, including some interesting looking grubs and crawly things - yum. Maybe I'll just give them a miss today though. Lamb & pork BBQ skewers, green beans, corn on the cob and green tea to wash it all down. Excellent end to a good start !
Naturally some birds will require more in depth study to help ID but this is the list from the first 2.5 hrs (there was nothing new in the last 30 mins) :-
Bulbul, TBC
Bulbul, TBC
Bulbul, Mountain (1)
Dove, Oriental Turtle (10)
Drongo, Spangled (2)
Flycatcher, Grey-headed Canary (1 perched up)
Fulvetta, Grey-cheeked
Hawk-Cuckoo, Large (2 or 3 calling in 2 notes repeated and rising to a crescendo, 1 seen, poor photo)
Leafbird, Orange-bellied (sitting atop a tree singing)
Nuthatch, Chestnut-vented (1 landed and explored a trunk 5m away)
Minla, Blue-winged (2)
Minla, Red-tailed
Thrush, Black-breasted (2)
Tit, Great (nubicolus I'm assuming in this area (5-6)
Tree-creeper, ID TBC (1)
Wagtail, White (alboides, male in breeding colours)(1)
Warbler, Pallas' Leaf ? TBC (1)
White Eyes, Oriental (small flock)
+ 3-4 more species requiring IDs. Not a bad start, at least 20 species in 2.5 hrs including at least 10 Lifers
