• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Panjin Birding by the Old Fat Man (6 Viewers)

Here is the location of the Snowy Owl and also a photo of the snowy owl which is been shared in the wechat.
 

Attachments

  • 80EDF09B-6429-40D5-93C6-95A0CB4359E7-1957-0000028DC5736018_tmp.jpg
    80EDF09B-6429-40D5-93C6-95A0CB4359E7-1957-0000028DC5736018_tmp.jpg
    82.4 KB · Views: 122
  • BBA09151-550F-4099-9C5C-20101B63AC97-1957-0000028DC4BBD989_tmp.jpg
    BBA09151-550F-4099-9C5C-20101B63AC97-1957-0000028DC4BBD989_tmp.jpg
    108.9 KB · Views: 108
Here is the location of the Snowy Owl and also a photo of the snowy owl which is been shared in the wechat.

All the rest of the family are gone right now, but I will check with my daughter when she gets home from work late tonight. I think I have the general area and it is one that I have wanted to check out anyway. Are you able to get GPS coordinates on that, Dev? I think that it actually the Shuangtaizi river estuary which also is the same general area. Locals often call both rivers the Liaohe.

I was somewhat dubious about this one, but that picture makes it solid. The background fits with the area I am thinking of too.
 
Snowy Owl update

I spent half a day today chasing a supposed lead, but it appears that the 'Snowy Owl' was a white Dove with some black markings. :-C Well, they were trying to be helpful at least.

With Dev's help, I was able this afternoon to pinpoint the precise location where the sighting was reported and then actually lucky enough to locate the original sighting posting on eBird. (独行虾 Bird.soong) The posting was actually for November 5th so the trail may be a little cold by now. Having the location I was able to use connections and find a resident of the nearby village. Using all that and with the hope that the stable warm weather has kept the Snowy Owl in the area, my wife has helped with working on a trip over there either tomorrow or Monday. It is about 30 kilometers from home, which most people here consider a big trip. One of the cultural shock items to me still since at one point back in Kansas I was driving 100 kilometers one way to work everyday.
 
Snowy Owl quest

It seems that the area where the Snowy Owl was sighted, on the west side of the Shuangtaizi River estuary, is a restricted area right now. The explanation given was that fires in the reeds make it unsafe. Our neighbor who has the government connections says it will take another three days to get a permit, but that she thinks she can get a guide and transportation with it. At the least it will give me a chance to scout out an area that has looked good on the maps all along. She seems to have renewed interest in establishing an attraction for birders and nature lovers in general to boost the tourism in the area, so I'll see what might be promising.
 
There was a heavy wall of smoke in the west late yesterday afternoon and today my wife had one of the people from the small village by where the SO was spotted send her a WeChat video of the fire from yesterday afternoon. Huge amounts of reeds had been harvested and stored in huge stacks, which were all burning. They said they didn't know the cause but they were distressed about losing an important revenue source. It was indeed impressively large! I know that owls and other birds of prey will commonly hunt along fire lines in the tall grass prairie in Kansas. Where the owl may be by now is hard to say. I notice that there is a red dot for an out of range vagrant/accidental in that specific spot in MacKinnon & Phillipps, so it may be a common rest stop for migrating SO.
 
Nov-23, 2017

Finally turned colder this week with temps struggling to get just above freezing for a few hours each day. Today started out sunny at least, so I made a trip out to what has been in the past a reliably birdy area. Three kilometers only produced 9 Japanese Tit, 2 Common Magpie, about 40 Tree Sparrow, 5 Chinese Bulbul, and 3 Grey-Headed Woodpecker who were having a territorial dispute with a single Great-Spotted Woodpecker.

I have now twice seen a large flock of approximately 40 black birds. From apparent size, color, appearance in flight and general body shape, I would say Starlings, but too far away to be able to make a positive ID. I haven't heard the noisy vocalizations that would normally go with a flock of Common Starling, but that was the initial impression that I got.
 

Attachments

  • Japanese Tit.jpg
    Japanese Tit.jpg
    127.5 KB · Views: 33
  • Grey-Headed Woodpecker.jpg
    Grey-Headed Woodpecker.jpg
    149.5 KB · Views: 31
Other for Nov-23

A couple of other nature observations from the November 23rd outing.

The irrigation canal I was following has had the water supply from the Shuangtaizi River cut off and is now only about 40 cm deep in most areas and has started to ice up. Several groups of men were out netting the carp caught in rapidly disappearing water. At one open hole I noticed a number of larger carp gulping air, indicating that the water was also rapidly de-oxygenating. I normally grumble about the over harvesting of wildlife but figured in this case that they wouldn't last long anyway and pointed them out to a nearby pair.

Just as I was calling it a day as the sky was rapidly clouding over and the temperature was falling, I came across a European Red Squirrel who had just found a small pear that someone had discarded.
 

Attachments

  • NT4A8219.jpg
    NT4A8219.jpg
    340 KB · Views: 25
  • Eurasian Red Squirrel.jpg
    Eurasian Red Squirrel.jpg
    277.8 KB · Views: 27
  • Eurasian Red Squirrel (1).jpg
    Eurasian Red Squirrel (1).jpg
    270.8 KB · Views: 27
  • Eurasian Red Squirrel (2).jpg
    Eurasian Red Squirrel (2).jpg
    359.5 KB · Views: 22
  • Eurasian Red Squirrel (3).jpg
    Eurasian Red Squirrel (3).jpg
    350.2 KB · Views: 20
Love the squirrel shots as well Owen! How about White-cheeked Starlings for the mystery Starling-like birds you mentioned a few posts above? A single Common Starling here or there would be exceptional and a flock would be off the charts. White-cheeked Starling will flock at this time of year.

Too bad about the Snowy Owl puzzle. I would suspect there is a hot spot in Liaoning somewhere on certain years and the Panjin area wetlands would make a lot of sense. There is a place near Vancouver (Boundary Bay) here that can get as many as 30 over wintering in some years. The habitat is shared by Short and Long-eared Owls in the winter as well and is coastal grassland with lots of driftwood laying around. Some of the reclaimed areas along the sea in Liaoning seem perfect with huge areas of flat grassland with piles of rocks/old concrete which could serve as perches. I'm sure they erupt some years along the northeast China coast somewhere. In Dalian there is just such an environment full of Little Owls. I was always hoping for a Snowy to show up in that area but it didn't happen in 12 years. The pictures of the wetlands in Panjin certainly look good for erupting Snowies. The dot in the McKinnon guide is probably from such a year. If possible, I would certainly check out that area several times each winter. They do return to known sites when they head south in eruption years.

Do you know of a place where Short-eared Owl winter in your area? I would also check such a place. In Dalian, most of my interaction with Short-eared Owls were migrating south at Laotieshan. The banders often caught them in their nets there in September and October (along with Oriental Scops) and some were also reported seen heading south over the sea during the day.

Tom
 
Hi Tom, good to hear from you. I've subscribed to your journal of experiences with wildlife in B.C.

The Snowy Owl just typifies what it can be like to try and accomplish anything here. The government has at least some interest in making the wetlands that technically are supposed to be a wildlife preserve under international agreement more attractive especially to international tourism but at the same time the locals are resistant to government meddling. Right now I still have a 'travel police' official that contacted me and that contacts us every few days to reassure me they are still working on cooperation with the local birding clubs. I've tried contact with the birding clubs in the past and basically got the cold shoulder. The police representative says they have admitted that they 'have found' the Snowy Owl, but she can't get them to reveal where. On the other hand it is the police who declared the area as closed to foreigners.

I don't know of any wintering areas for owls, but our compound is a nesting area for Little Owl!

My comment was just that the black birds were very much like Common Starlings, so yes, White-Cheeked Starlings would be a likely possibility. I didn't note any white markings even in the bins, but wasn't close enough even then to be sure what they were. In favor of the WCS, I didn't note any of the noisy chatter that is normal with CS.

Winter is very mild so far this year, which is more like normal for here, but still just not very many wintering birds to be found.

Started the annual ritual of playing Shengdan Laoren (Old Man Christmas - Santa Claus) Sunday night with a surprise visit to an upscale shopping mall for free pictures with Santa. That will keep me occupied for the next month as I surprise visit different places where crowds can be found.

Any interesting happening here. I was summoned to report to the local Community Police office. Bring your passport and ask for Sgt. Wang Wei was all I was told. When I got there he notified me that all the "foreign people" had "volunteered" for the "Foreigners Club". Thank you very much, sign here. Even he didn't seem to be too clear as to just what that was, so I assumed that it was some new decree from Beijing. Probably seen as a way to be able to disseminate any new policies to the foreigners. Seems a bit silly for here since he even admitted that there were only eleven people living here on foreign passports and only three of us were not native speakers of Chinese. Just wondered if anybody else had heard of any such thing.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_2248.jpg
    IMG_2248.jpg
    189.9 KB · Views: 28
  • IMG_2315.jpg
    IMG_2315.jpg
    172 KB · Views: 26
  • IMG_2363.jpg
    IMG_2363.jpg
    203.8 KB · Views: 33
Last edited:
Hi Owen, I can sympathize with how things can go sometimes. It's a balancing act to get governments and local birders/naturalists together on the same page at the best of times in any city in any country. The frustrating bit is that it is usually the local people on the ground who know what is really going on. I've spoken with many keen Chinese conservationists who share the same frustrations. The older people who tend to have the older ways of thinking have the power to make decisions while the people who are qualified to make the best decisions often don't have that power. Change takes time.


On the brighter side, Old Man Christmas is looking good! Maybe he'll bring you a Snowy yet! An authentic beard as well!
Tom
 
Very true, Tom. Still in the on again, off again status here. I was just yesterday told to come into the government office on December 3rd for a meeting with an official and to bring the iPad to show my bird photos. All of this over the last year has been at their initiative with the local government wanting input from a Western perspective. I am happy to help if I can but what I really would like to see is local leadership and initiative. I have met a few locals who have already taken positive action and who deserve to be recognized and encouraged.

My wife got pictures of one young lady who tried to be stealthy about checking the beard and immediately after this picture bounded away back to her 'sisters' loudly announcing in Chinese "His beard is real!"
 

Attachments

  • IMG_2316.jpg
    IMG_2316.jpg
    174.5 KB · Views: 37
Dec-9, 2017

The weather being a bit warmer at just above freezing, I took an hour and a half to do some birding. Mostly nothing, but did find six Hoopoe which is an unusually large number even in the summer. Additionally found four Japanese Waxwing which were unusually animated today, chasing each other about. The more interesting was a little Merlin who took shelter from a Kestrel that was objecting to sharing the hunting. I don't usually see a Merlin this late in the season, so that was noteworthy.

Additionally I did have a meeting with a small group of locals who are interested in educating people to the importance of wildlife and the environment. One retired biology professor, a couple of teachers and a government official, so a good group of well educated people. I suggested reaching out to garner interest using WeChat social media and expressed a willingness to help if I can. I did stress that it would be important to have local people at the front of the effort. Hopefully something comes of it. I was glad to see people from the generation that are actually running things showing interest.

The professor, who studied overseas, has very good English and has just recently bought a camera and taken up birding as part of his retirement activities. He had been able to find out from locals that there have been a couple of Snowy Owls wintering near the mouth of the Shuangtaizi River for several years now. He knew where they had been last month but said that since the fires in the reeds no one had seen them.

Panjin, Dawa County, Liaoning, CN, Liaoning, CN
Dec 9, 2017 12:30 PM - 2:00 PM
Protocol: Traveling
3.0 kilometer(s)
5 species

Eurasian Hoopoe (Upupa epops) 6
Eurasian Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) 1
Merlin (Falco columbarius) 1
Japanese Waxwing (Bombycilla japonica) 4
Eurasian Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus) 5

View this checklist online at http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S40983269
 
Sounds like some great and encouraging connections Owen. Excellent news!

If those Snowies have moved further south after the fires and are now sitting right in my old patch I'm not going to be a happy camper!

Tom
 
Nothing of particular importance to report, except for being awoken around 03:00 AM and surprised to hear our Little Owl calling persistently. Hadn't expected to hear from him until at least early Spring.
 
It has been entirely too long since my last outing and the temperature managed to struggle up to -3 by noon. Coupled with clear blue skies and a dead calm and snow predicted for tomorrow, I decided to make a try to see what I could find. I took the bus to an area where winter normally produces a good variety and numbers and where I thought I would find one of my favorites, the Long-tailed Tit or at least a Nuthatch or Treecreeper.

There were surprisingly few birds to be found but also surprisingly large numbers of Hoopoe still in the area. Some very cold looking Olive-backed Pipit were making up most of the rest of the numbers. One Eastern Buzzard that I wasn't able to get a good shot of made an appearance over a large patch of reeds. Other than those, just a scattering of the usual with a single Great Spotted Woodpecker a couple of Eurasian Magpie and a few Little Bunting and Tree Sparrow.

Panjin, Dawa County, Liaoning, CN, Liaoning, CN
Jan 31, 2018 12:30 PM - 2:00 PM
Protocol: Traveling
3.0 kilometer(s)
7 species

Eastern Buzzard (Buteo japonicus) 1
Eurasian Hoopoe (Upupa epops) 9
Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major) 1
Eurasian Magpie (Pica pica) 2
Olive-backed Pipit (Anthus hodgsoni) 8
Little Bunting (Emberiza pusilla) 4
Eurasian Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus) 6

View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S42381440
 
Lunar New Year regional update

Not getting out much in the last couple of months as the family keeps reminding me that I don't need to be slipping on the ice and falling and besides it just been really cold. :-C Therefore I decided to check out what eBird had for Liaoning in the period. Also not a lot, but a couple of notable reports and since they are not sharing here, I thought I would mention them.

First of all, Bird.soong back on December 1st https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S41388390 had a notable sighting with pics of what was estimated at 1000 Common Crane - Grus grus! That is good to see as the Cranes in general have been on a steep decline for quite some time.

On December 13th he had another good day catching a larger group of Great Bustard than I did and not one but three species of owl in one outing! Little Owl, Short Eared and Long Eared, with excellent pics! https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S41388390

I don't have a Face Book account, but if anyone else does we might invite him into the forum. (Click on the observer's name for that link)

Just a couple of days ago on February 15th, Niao Pan reported 300 each of Eastern Spot-Billed Duck and Mallard https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S42768307 Must be visiting as they mostly report from Jiangxi. No contact info but would be nice to have them join us also.

Looking forward to getting out soon myself as soon as the ice starts to break-up.
 
Snow forecast for later today and for tomorrow, so I made an outing this morning. Not a lot except for 50 Taiga Bean Goose. I heard geese honking overhead but at first saw nothing through the low lying heavy overcast then just as they passed directly over me they lowered out of the cloud. They were initially disorganized and in several small groups which quickly formed up into one large V and then lifted back up into the cloud deck.

Only other birds were about 50 Tree Sparrow and one Naumann's Thrush.

It has not warmed quite as quickly as average, but the ice is showing surface melting, so should start to get open water within the next couple of weeks. The weather is forecast to warm up quickly in the next week, so trips to check out the waterfowl and waders are in order soon.
 
Warning! This thread is more than 2 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top