Chestnut-cheeked starling and long-billed dowitcher
Yesterday, Saturday 19 Sep, I had a day out with Craig, Elaine, Xueping and Stephan. We started the day at Yangshan Island, parking at the gate to the rubbish dump, we walked up the valley, I was introduced to the various historical sites for past vagrants, though this morning was on the quiet side with a handful of warblers and brown flycatcher the most obvious migrant. We then drove east looking for Chinese egret, we found some very distant birds, in our quest to get closer we found a walkable route across rock fields and past steep slopes atop a box structure covering a pipe. On this walk we had two very young meadow bunting, a sure sign of local breeding. Finally unblocked this bogey bird, though no sign of the parents. We then drove back to the western end and explored the “temple mount” this is the hillside on the south west corner, just across the main road from the rubbish dump. Walking up to the line of trees and bushes we were met by up to 5 brown fly in a single tree. An Asian stubtail showed very well plus excellent views of the commoner warblers and a few b+w flys. We decided to head back to the mainland, I was walking down the hill when a bird flew across and into trees. My first impression was a dark starling with white on the wing, warning signs were flashing in my head! I called the others and a few seconds later we had poor views of a bird that I was shouting out as daurian starling, a new bird for me. The bird moved and Craig, using Stephan’s kit, was able to get a few shots though foliage. It was only when I got out Brazil, that I realized the bird could not be daurian but had to be chestnut-cheeked starling. Unfortunately the illustration in Brazil of the male is woeful, subsequent investigation shows that most males have a strong scarf of brown (like our bird) and not just a small neat patch. After Craig got a few shots the bird moved off and despite searching we never saw it again.
We only had a few hours left so we had a few rushed minutes back at the Holiday Inn, Nanhui. The car park was quiet but we met some Chinese bird photographers who showed us pictures of a dowitcher they had a week earlier at Nanhui, whilst the bird was clearly a dowitcher I was unable to say much about their claim that it was long-billed. We drove up to the pools at Dongtan, and straight away spotted a lone dowitcher feeding in a small pool. The light was against us so we drove to the opposite side, dodging the sand trucks that were busy filling in one of the outstanding wetlands in the area. The light was excellent and it was now clear that the bird was indeed long-billed. Just a bog-standard adult winter dowitcher with greenish legs, I assume Asian would look bigger and different with black legs.
In the last few minutes we checked out the double clump, lots of pale/sak, blue sibe robin, japanese para fly and lots of b+w fly. We had to leave at 2:45 but what a great day! Look forward to spending many more days this autumn checking Yangshan.
Full list for Yangshan and Nanhui, Saturday 19 Sep 2015, assume all the waders were at the pools at dongtan, Nanhui
No ducks
BC night heron, few
Eastern cattle egret, few
Grey heron, 20+
Great white egret, few
Intermediate egret, 2
Little egret, 30
Kestrel, few
Osprey, 1
Moorhen 2
BW stilt, few
LRP, 1 juv
Lesser sand, few
Kentish, few
Swintail snipe, one on Yangshan
(CT) Long-billed dowitcher, an adult in non-breeding plumage at Dongtan pools, see photo above
Whimbrel, 2
Marsh sand, few
Greenshank, few
Wood sand, few
Grey-tailed tattler, 1
Red-necked stint, 30+. I was briefly concerned by some birds that looked rather big and pale and reminded me of semi-palmated. I then remembered that semi-p is one of the big confusion species for rns
Long-toed stint, 6+
Temminck’stint, 2
Dunlin, 20+
Gull billed tern, 15+
Little tern, 4
White-winged tern, few
Whiskered tern, 2
Cuculus sp, a few, all flying away
Barn swallow, common
Kingfisher, few
Brown shrike, few
Lt shrike common
Japanese paradise fly, 1 female on Yangshan, 1 male at the dongtan double clump
Common magpie, few
Large-billed crow, 5 on eastern Yangshan, by the temple cove, one of the few places around Shanghai reliable for this species.
Japanese tit, 1
Yellow wag type, 2
Zitting cisticola, 2
Plain prinia, few
Asian stubtail, excellent views of 1 on YS
Brown-flanked bush warbler, 2 on YS
YB warbler, few
Arctic-type warbler, 10+
Eastern-crowned warbler, common today, 15+
Pale/Sak warbler, the clump at Dongtang was packed out with these, 12+ today
Crested myna, few
(WT) Chestnut-cheeked starling, 1 male, photographed on “temple mount”, Yangshan island
Blue rock thrush, a common bird on YS
Grey-sided fly, few
Asian brown fly, very common today, 40+
Blue and white fly, 10+ today, some really smart males, I need to gen up on Zappy’s.
Tree sparrow, some
Chinese grosbeak, few
(WT) Meadow bunting, ticked at last! Though a rather disappointing pair of juveniles today on YS
Can’t wait till next weekend!
