china guy
A taff living in Sichuan
Thought I'd start a new thread to give short updates on current Sichuan birding situations - with particular attention to those changes that may affect folk who are a planning a trip out this way.
This first post focuses on N Sichuan and the Wanglang, Tangjiahe Panda Reserves. Both these sites were affected by the quake - with road access being greatly damaged through direct quake damage and subsequent road works and landslide. However this summer both parks were again accepting visitors - and everything is running fine - with no major habitat damage. The Tangjiahe clean-up and repair means that work is underway on hotels and roads - but there's no great mess or inconvenience - but because of the development, at the time of writing, there’s no charge to enter the park. In Wanglang it’s very much business as usual – it’s difficult here to find mush evidence of last year’s disaster.
If you are traveling from Chengdu - with the present state of repair - continous driving, makes it about 8 hours to get to get to Wanglang - and 5 to Tangjiahe - there's about 4 hours, in parts very bumpy, drive between the reserves, which should be near halved when the road building is more complete. As with all road reports for this region - the situation is very "fluid" and jams or closed roads due to all sorts of circumstances can take place - but our experiences on this route are general indications that travel is getting much easier.
As for the birds well they seem to all in place - we missed the Rusty-throated Parrotbills at Tangjiahe - but that of course gives a lot of reason to go back!!!!! To get that Rusty Parrot – read my blog piece on Tangjiahe – the Wanglang article gives detail on where to find Snowy-cheeked Laughers.
To see those blog articles go -http://www.birdforum.net/blog.php?b=2087
http://www.birdforum.net/blog.php?b=2101
Here are a couple of pics of Wanglang, Tangjiahe habitat - the little guy in the last pic is our nephew - he wasn't too scared of Takin or a Tiger Keelback Snake that slithered past - but two Leeches on my leg near freaked him out:-O
Ohhh and before I forget - he took that Wanlang pic - so before he beats me up I better credit him - Picture by Tong Tong
This first post focuses on N Sichuan and the Wanglang, Tangjiahe Panda Reserves. Both these sites were affected by the quake - with road access being greatly damaged through direct quake damage and subsequent road works and landslide. However this summer both parks were again accepting visitors - and everything is running fine - with no major habitat damage. The Tangjiahe clean-up and repair means that work is underway on hotels and roads - but there's no great mess or inconvenience - but because of the development, at the time of writing, there’s no charge to enter the park. In Wanglang it’s very much business as usual – it’s difficult here to find mush evidence of last year’s disaster.
If you are traveling from Chengdu - with the present state of repair - continous driving, makes it about 8 hours to get to get to Wanglang - and 5 to Tangjiahe - there's about 4 hours, in parts very bumpy, drive between the reserves, which should be near halved when the road building is more complete. As with all road reports for this region - the situation is very "fluid" and jams or closed roads due to all sorts of circumstances can take place - but our experiences on this route are general indications that travel is getting much easier.
As for the birds well they seem to all in place - we missed the Rusty-throated Parrotbills at Tangjiahe - but that of course gives a lot of reason to go back!!!!! To get that Rusty Parrot – read my blog piece on Tangjiahe – the Wanglang article gives detail on where to find Snowy-cheeked Laughers.
To see those blog articles go -http://www.birdforum.net/blog.php?b=2087
http://www.birdforum.net/blog.php?b=2101
Here are a couple of pics of Wanglang, Tangjiahe habitat - the little guy in the last pic is our nephew - he wasn't too scared of Takin or a Tiger Keelback Snake that slithered past - but two Leeches on my leg near freaked him out:-O
Ohhh and before I forget - he took that Wanlang pic - so before he beats me up I better credit him - Picture by Tong Tong
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