On Tuesday I had the privilege of being invited to Faku County just north of Shenyang for a Siberian Crane festival and conference. The aim of the day was to raise awareness to try to get one wetland area protected. Thanks to Professor Zhou from Shenyang University for the invite and to Leighton (a Beijing birder based in Dalian) for his translation services and company during the trip. Terry Townshend was also invited and it was nice to spend a day with him again also. It was a miracle in itself that I was able to get the day off work and go. The trip was all expenses paid too so that was a treat and made it more possible. One fantastic part of the day was being able to speak directly to the government of the area about the importance of the site. Terry and I both had the opportunity to speak as well as do several interviews with Xinhua, CCTV, Tianjin news (now covering the Siberian Crane journey after a wounded one was injured near Tianjin and released where we were) and other local news. Terry summarized our trip well on his blog at
http://birdingbeijing.wordpress.com/ and I won't add to that other than post the list of birds we saw at the wetlands including 2 Siberian Cranes. We had a bit of time before the ceremony and following round table discussion for some birding. If we had more time for birding I'm sure there were some other goodies there as well. It's a fantastic birding site for the Cranes but for many other species as well. There is said to be as much as 2000 Siberian Cranes that use this place as a migratory stop over site on their way to Siberia. Next year there is talk of doing the festival again a few weeks earlier when more of the cranes are present.
The list: much of this was not carefully documented as we had plenty of other things going on while we were birding. This is a brief summary of some of the birds that were there.
Common Pheasant
Swan Goose -- quite a few fly overs on the way to the site. Maybe 50 confirmed?
Bean Goose - in the hundreds
Greater White-fronted Goose - also in the hundreds
Lesser White-fronted Goose - one group flew over that were confirmed but there could have been more
Whooper Swan - around 20
Ruddy Shelduck - 3
Gadwall - many
Eurasian Wigeon - 5?
Mallard
Spot-billed Ducks
Northern Shoveler - 6
Garganey - a few
Baikal Teal - hundreds of Teal present and when they flew I was able to see some Baikal but no idea about the number - quite a distance
Eurasian Teal - in the hundreds
Common Pochard - also in the hundreds and we were sure there must have been a Baer's in there but couldn't sneek away to sort through the hundreds of Pochard present.
Tufted Duck - a few
Common Goldeneye - a few
Smew - maybe 15?
Common Merganser - 20?
Great-crested Grebe - 30
Litte Grebe - 10
Grey Heron - 10
Little Egret - 1 my first for the year.
Osprey - 1 actively fishing
Eastern Marsh Harrier - 2 my first for the year
Eastern Buzzard - 1
Coot - 2 large groups and some singles, maybe 60?
Siberian Crane - 2 but we supposedly arrived just too late to see the hundreds that roosted there the night before.
Stilt - 15
Grey-headed Lapwing - 1
Northern Lapwing - 15
Kentish plover - 3
Dunlin - 2
Mongolian Gull - 10?
Black-headed Gull - 25
Eurasian turtle Dove - 10
Common Kingfisher - 1
Hoopoe - 4
Great-spotted Woodpecker - 1
Chinese Grey Shrike - 1
Rook - 10
Barn Swallow - 5
White-cheeked Starling - 10
Common Starling - 2 My second record for Liaoning and first in 3 years.