Birds of Nanchang and Poyang Hu, Jiangxi Province (1 Viewer)

That patch along the river - indeed both sites - look like they have plenty of potential Michael. It might just be my personal love of quirky patches, but it's interesting to see where birds can be winkled out in an inland city like Nanchang.

I envy you your Brown Crake - just one or two in Hk in the last decade!

Cheers
Mike

Brown crake

Dear Mike
Thanks for your encouragement.
I was surprised to find brown crake on my first trip out back in the heat of early August. MacKinnon gives the impression that they are a difficult bird.
They are just about guaranteed on an hour's stroll at dredger park, polygolf or aixi lake, they just don't like disturbance. I reckon there are many breeding pairs within the city, perhaps 20+. I have not found them any rarer or easier in winter it is just that there are less people around in poor weather. They are certainly common in the canals towards Poyang Hu
Is there an easier city in China to see brown crake than Nanchang? What are others' experience of this species in China?

I saw my first Brown Crake walking around a tiny bit of wetland inside the grounds of the Nanjing Sports Complex in Nanjing!

Tom

Difficult to find in Shanghai but not impossible. We saw numerous BC on our trip to Poyang last January and I saw and photographed them on a trip to Wulingyuan, Henan too.

Elephant lake, Wed 29 Jan 2014

Elephant lake is a large area to the south of the city. The northern part used to be a complex of scenic lakes and faux-temples, last autumn the water was drained and it was the key site for fresh waders in the city, I saw curlew sand and RN phal there.
Today the northern part is a mass of muddy paths and construction with a new viaduct having gone up in the last two months; I think it is part of the metro construction. It is difficult to access and so I spent today at the southern end which is a mix of neat parkland with shallow lakes and commercial fishponds and tree-nursery areas.

Most tidy parkland, whilst good for migrants, lacks food and cover for birds to spend the winter, the fishpond area is full of overgrown scrubby areas which afford roosting and feeding sites to birds and I feel that this is the site to concentrate on in mid winter.

List for today
No ducks, usually have a few spotbill but not today
No egrets at all, no raptors
Moorhen 20+
Brown crake 1
Spot red 6+
Greenshank 1
Green sand 2
BH gull 10 +
Spotted dove few
Common kingfisher 3
LT shrike 5+
Common magpie 1
Yellow-bellied tit 9+
Cinereous tit 4+
Yellow bellied prinia, 1 skulking, my first in Nanchang for several months
Plain prinia Large group of 10+
Chinese Bulbul 20+

Brown-flanked bush warbler 2+, today I discovered this species has two tick calls, one very quiet short tik which they were using deep inside a pile of brushwood and the usual louder fuller chak call.

(CT) (Siberian) Chiffchaff One giving good views, a very milky tea obvious tristis. Though tristis not split on the IOC or CBR lists

Probable Raddes warbler, a very dull day to get views of a warbler tchacking against the light.
Yellow-browed warbler 3+
Masked LT 10+
Crested Myna 30+
Silky starling (I prefer this name to red-billed) 80+
Blackbird 10+
Red-flanked bluetail 2+
Daurian redstart 6+
White wag 10+
Olive-backed pipit 3
Black-faced bunting 6+
Highlight was the tristis chiffy, I may well return to the area again tomorrow.

Congratulations on the Chiffchaff - a top find!

I'd love to see pix as the colour of your birds sounds very different from the one currently in Hong Kong.

Cheers
Mike

Chiffchaff

Dear Mike

I start getting worried when you say that. It was clearly a phylosc, too pale for dusky and too active. No olive or yellow tones. Not sure what else I should have considered. Surprised they are so rare, millions must breed way to the north and the've got to winter somewhere.
I shall return forthwith and try for more views

Chiffchaff deticked

Dear Mike

I returned today, I saw a very similar bird briefly in the same area but it was chacking.
Having checked collins, tristis is supposed to show some green on the wings.
I think I made a booboo, thrown by a pale dusky.

Thank you for challenging and questioning, it is very easy when constantly alone to jump to conclusions, especially with tricky groups on less than perfect views.

The pain of deticking! :-C

Michael

Sorry it wasn't a Chiffie Michael, but there was no challenge from me - just genuine interest to see other birds. I've seen pix of birds in the plumage you describe from Europe and was curious to compare.

Black feet and bill have been the stand-out feature of our bird here, but I have also noticed the greenish tinge in the wings.

Every couple of years I try to turn a pale Dusky into a Yellow-streaked Warbler so I'm certainly in no position to be challenging anybody!

Cheers
Mike

Elephant lake, Thur 30 Jan 2014

A lovely still afternoon with hazy sunshine and a temperature of 18C. My first butterfly of the year (several brown ones)
A long walk around the southern end of Elephant lake, a reasonable day list. Best birds were a nice close Pallas’s warbler and 3 cracking male Chinese grosbeak.

No ducks, egrets or raptors
Moorhen 10+
Dabchick 10+
GC grebe 8
BH Gull 8+
Spotted dove few
Common kingfisher 2+
LT Shrike 6+
Cinereous tit 10+
Yellow-bellied tit several small flocks today, 20+
Yellow-bellied prinia, 1+ much more skulking than plain
Plain prinia 12+ some were flycatching
Chinese bulbul 40+ many catching midges
Dusky warbler 1+
Pallas’s leaf warbler 1 close bird
YB warbler 2+ heard
Masked LT several flocks, 15+
White-browed LT two family groups, 12+
Vinous-throated parrotbill, one flock of 30+ plus another of 20+ in the centre of the city when changing buses, in trees by the central canal
Crested myna 20+
Silky starling 10+
Blackbird 15+
Grey-backed thrush, an adult male and a very nice first-winter male today
Bluetail, 1 female
Daurian redstart 8+
Tree sparrow 60+
Grey wagtail 1
White wagtail 15+
Oriental greenfinch, several small flocks, 12+
Chinese grosbeak, several small flocks, 8+
Black-faced bunting 20+
Not sure whether buses will be running over the holiday period. But Elephant lake is clearly the place to be in mid winter.

Good stuff Mike.

Some really nice birds and lots of useful info. Despite numerous birding trips to China I've still to visit your patch so as you can imagine there are several really good new birds for me. Would love to team up with you some time if I get the opportunity and you're up for it.

You might be missing Filey but in reality you're not missing a great deal.

And just to make you feel a bit better, the circumstances surrounding the Brunnich's were disappointing i.e. single observer despite several regulars getting there shortly after news broke. I was at work.

Keep up the posts.

Cheers.

Frank

Male Crested Goshawk displaying

The weather in Nanchang this past week has been extraordinary, over last w/e the temp peaked at 26C on 1st/2nd Feb, very spring-like. Yesterday it was down to 10C, today heavy rain at 6c and snow forecast for tomorrow.
I have been exploring the outer reaches of Nanchang's municipal bus routes and discovered I can get to the town of Wanli to the NW of town. I was first here last November and traveled to the top of the ridge of hills known as Meiling hills.
In November we had a fruitful walk down the hill with sightings of streak-breasted scimitar babbler, elegant bunting and chinese bamboo partridge. Yesterday, Thur 6th Feb was my 4th visit to Wanli and I walked a little way up the Wujing road as far as Wujingcan at D.
I am so impressed by this place! A short trail into the woods at C produced a large flock of Huet's fulvetta and about 20 himalayan black bulbul, of which about 5 were cracking white-headed males.
On my way back down at C I had a displaying male crested goshawk.
The light was dull and other than general shape and banding on wings the most striking feature was the puffy white vent feathers. The bird was soaring and then holding its wings below the horizontal and fluttering them somewhat like a common sand flight action, I heard no call.
Questions.
Q1 The official range map doesn't seem to get anywhere near as far north as here but they are classed as fairly common in Wuyishan NNR in the far SE corner of Jiangxi, anyone else seen this bird in Jiangxi province?
Q2 Anyone else seen the male display flight? Do you concur?

Michael - Dev, McMadd and I had a Crested Goshawk in Hangzhou :
http://www.birdforum.net/showpost.php?p=2655827&postcount=224

The display is definitely Crested Goshawk - they used to display over my previous flat - something I always enjoyed.

Cheers
Mike

mjgrunwell said:

Q1 The official range map doesn't seem to get anywhere near as far north as here but they are classed as fairly common in Wuyishan NNR in the far SE corner of Jiangxi, anyone else seen this bird in Jiangxi province?

Click to expand...

On our trip last November, guided by Zhang Lin, we saw two Crested Goshawks at the merganser site (5/11) and one over the woodland at Tai Bai (6/11).

I was surprised as, like you say, these sites are outside the mapped range.

Steve

There have been Crested Goshawk records in Shanghai, too- not too many, mind you, but records nonetheless.

I have also seen the display of the CG (as well as Serpent Eagle) in Sabah, Borneo. Fits perfectly with what you described. o

Michael,

I've got Crested Goshawk several time at Yueyang, and they are alos breeding in Ba Da Gong Shan and Hu Ping Shan in NW Hunan.

All the best,

Jonathan

Crested Goshawk

Thank you for all your comments.

The status of this species in eastern China is probably best described as...

Fairly common resident in suitably wooded habitat. Becoming less common further north.

Probably under-recorded.

Saturday 15 February 2014, trawling for Swinhoe’s rail at Poyang Hu

After a week of unusually cold weather with snow, Saturday was much milder. I met with Dave Woodford in a search for Swinhoe’s rail.
We managed to drive to a point west of Wuchenzhen from which we could walk to the exact position that Stephen An and I had glimpsed a probable bird landing into rank, lush vegetation the previous November (see an earlier post on this thread).
We spent several hours walking through long, medium and short vegetation dragging a rope between us. We discovered that the rope did not properly disturb longer grass and so it was possible that the rope simply passed over a skulking rail. The ideal tool would be a heavy metal chain with jangling bells along its length. Last November the vegetation was green flowering grass, following a prolonged drought all vegetation was looking very brown and dry. We think it possible that any rails in the area may have moved off in search of better habitat. The fact that the whole area was blanketed in 8cm of snow a week earlier may also not have helped our quest.
A long tiring day with no success and very few other small birds in the grassland, the only birds actually flushed as a result of the rope rather than our feet were a few Japanese quail.
The Da Hu area is suffering from an unprecedented dry winter and the water has shrunk well below normal levels, consequently waterbirds are a great distance away from dry land, it is noticeable just how empty the shoreline looks compared to last November.

Best birds seen around Da Hu on Saturday
Swan geese, 100+ flew over
Many very distant geese in flight.
Common teal, a flock of 300+, nothing suspicious amongst them, unfortunately.
Goosander (CT) A nice drake on the river
Oriental stork, at least 600 today
Eurasian spoonbill, Very distant large flock
Siberian crane 30+
White-naped crane 20+ closest ever views
Common crane few
Hooded crane, this species seems to build up numbers as winter progresses, at least 50 birds today, some reasonably close views.
Long-billed plover 2
Japanese Quail 4
White-breasted kingfisher 1
Eurasian siskin (CT) 3

Michael

I'm enjoying these updates - have you managed to see Short-tailed Parrotbill yet?

cheers, alan