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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Sichuan Birding (2 Viewers)

On Mt. Emei I have tried for Blandford's Rosefinch a few more times this year. Unfortunately, each time thick mist and rain didn't allow for more sights. Half way down between Golden Summit and Leidong Ping we have found some 'suspects', but the sight was too poor to get grip of any ID.
I am convinced that one and a half day of good weather on the upper part of the mountain shall be enough to guarantee good views of this bird!

Lower down, on the "longer hike" down from Leidong Ping bird habitat is really great and near Xianfeng Monastery birdwatching always has been a nice event. However, this hike requires more time and effort than a 'usual' trip can offer (ca. 2days).
If you want to try, don't forget a sleeping bag inlet for a night at one of the monasteries (for a more comfortable sleep) ;)

Attached I have a picture of another Rosefinch: Red-fronted on Balang Mountain, my favorite rosefinch, actually.

Best,
Roland
 

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Sid, Roland, James and others,

thanks a lot for all your advice on my Barwing, Cochoa, Blanford posting.

I might make an attempt for barwing later in the autumn, depending on when the Labahe area opens fully after the earthquake. Does anyone know if they move to lower altitudes during winter or if they are very resident? Having tried twice at the "white dove resort" in oct and jan I doubt they are actually there all year round.

For cochoa, James Emei proposal sounds great. But assume it is mainly a spring job. So will have to wait a little.

And for the rose finch, I guess it is just a matter of putting in more hours in the field at suitable sites.

Off to Jianfengling, Hainan in two weeks....! Should yield a few china ticks.

Cheers
jocko
 
Hi Jocko

Just called Labahe. Theoretically it is open. Just with the 10 days of recent rain they might let you in, but stop you to go anywhere - landslide risk (!).

The Barwing is pretty local. It apparently doesn't migrate in altitude. It just moves within a wide range and is very shy. You'll definitely need a call to attract it.
Try along the road, preferably close to old mossy trees and thick wet shrub, and the path to the old nursery (ca 1km down from the Hetao Ping area).
You'll need to bring a lot of patience as well.
Good luck and a lot of fun in Hainan!

Roland
 
Hi Jocko - sorry for not replying sooner. I think that the absence of Streaked Barwing during autumn at the White-dove area of Labahe - shouldn't be connected with altitude - but more to do with habitat, and where the flocks are feeding.
This Photo of the bird was taken on a cold grey November 18th (2010) on the track that now follows the route of the Old Erlang road - which, borders Labahe reserve. According to Google Earth, the site where we found our birds is a tad under 2200m in elevation
http://www.birdforum.net/showpost.php?p=1983229&postcount=382
Looking at the White-dove resort in Google Earth gives a slightly lower altitude just bellow 2000m - so this site shouldn't be too high for the Barwing.
That day, on the Old Erlang Road, we had 5 birds moving about in a very loose flock in the dense moss covered secondary woodland that lines the route - habitat which made the birds difficult to see and I think there could well have been other birds in that flock. The birds were picking out food from the moss - so moss covered vegetation seems an attractive habitat. We've recorded the Barwing at least 4 times from this location. If I was going to concentrate on finding this bird I'd stake out the first section of the east side of the Old Erlang Road - about 5 km in from the entrance. However the problem is that the accommodation is pretty ropey - just trucker's hotels on G318.

I've been pretty busy this last couple of months - at the moment we have some birders out on a Sichuan tour. I had some time around the airport before the group arrived and on a new road going around the northern perimeter of the airport - about 10 minutes walk from terminal 1 - I discovered a piece of development land that had strong growth of long grasses and had shallow flooded patches of wetland. Birds found included - Greater Painted Snipe (10+ all males), Asian Short-toed lark, Cirtrine Wagtail,
a Wryneck, Spot-billed Duck, 25 Oriental Pratincole (flying low over the site) and one adult female Eastern Marsh Harrier. With a list like this I'll have to take on Mike and HK Airport!!!!!

I've also uploaded some pics from my summer Qinghai trip with Ben Dielissen; Tibetan Rosefinch, Tibetan Babax, Przevalski's Finch, Henderson's Ground Jay - but the first photo is of an intrepid explorer slogging through the mud on the perimeter of the airport at the site of Painted Snipes etc. Trouble is this guy is an over-excited plane-spotter who screams "WOW" and "LOOK DADDY" every time a jet passes overhead - which doesn't help the birding!!!!
 

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...the first photo is of an intrepid explorer slogging through the mud on the perimeter of the airport at the site of Painted Snipes etc. Trouble is this guy is an over-excited plane-spotter who screams "WOW" and "LOOK DADDY" every time a jet passes overhead - which doesn't help the birding!!!!

It's mini-Sid !!! 3:)
 
Thanks for putting the photo of Saker, he has grown so much I think it won't be long before he will be guiding the trips for you.

Would it be possible to check with Ben to see if we can put the Tibetan Babax photo in Opus as it is a species we are lacking in.
 
By all means do start a thread on Chengdu Airport!

I will of course point out that you have the grossly unfair advantage of actually having some decent habitat!

Cheers
Mike
 
Hi Margaret just had a mail from Ben - you can use his Tibetan Babax in Opus. I've also uploaded calls I recorded at the same time - listen carefully and you can hear Ben taking his photo.
Those Babax were rather easy to find around the forestry protection buildings at Baizha Forest. It must have taken under 2 minutes for them to appear in the allotment area.

It's mini-Sid !!!
Hi Jeff - jumbo-Sid wishes he still had the energy levels of the mini version - that little guy never stops!!!!!!

I will of course point out that you have the grossly unfair advantage of actually having some decent habitat
But its all evened out due to the fact that our airport is surrounded by folk who are constantly trying to kill our birds - for example the kilometers of bird net surrounding the new runway.
One of my Chengdu birdwatching friends went there a couple of days back and apart 20+ Asian Short-toed Lark, and 2 Oriental Pratincole got some new species on the list - 3+ Bluethroat and 15+ Oriental Honey Buzzard migrating overhead

I'm out on survey work in the NE - also raptor passage - today a nice flock of 50+ Black Baza, which, flying in and out of trees, seemed to be local birds that were flocking and getting ready to migrate. A great bird to watch.
 

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Wow 50+ Baza sounds amazing! and some more very good-sounding airport birds!

Do you have a pic of the nets at Chengdu airport?

I'd like to put one in a presentation I'm to the environmental NGOs in Hong Kong to show them what we're not doing in HK.

Cheers
Mike
 
Hi Mike - here's the rather ghastly pic of the nets - taken by our top Teutonic, Chengdu sleuth - who's name will go unwritten since it's probably a crime taking pics of Chinese airports. The pic is almost two years old and those nets cover the new runway area - I hope they have long since rotted away - but doubt it.
Luckily there are no nets close to our new birding spot - but if we make too much noise about how good the perimeter areas are for birding - then I fear the worse.

I truly can't believe that small passerines unless in massive concentrations would harm a modern Jet turbine. If larger birds are a danger then those flimsy, rather too close to the ground nets can't be very effective. Since its apparent that Chengdu airport staff may have no real idea over how to manage the problem of bird-strike, it looks to me - not just on a bird conservation angle but also a passenger safety one - that the management is in need of expert consultations!!! It would be nice if one of the HK airport bird-strike protection persons could somehow get in touch with them. I have tried to complain through the airport's English website - but although it looks very pretty none of the contact features work :smoke:
A shame because the airport could probably save a bit of money with a humane bird scarer like this - http://www.birdbusters.com/airport_bird_scare_1.html - rather than for ever replacing tattered nets.
And they could set it up to scare them birds right on to our patch

Hey Mike sounds like you need Black Baza at the magic roundabout - so as a good mate, even though i ain't seen this bird at Chengdu Airport, I'll give you a hand. I've attached a Black Bazza call (serenaded by Collared Finchbill) - that I recently made at Longcanggou. This thing actually works - you can call in Baza :t:
All you need now is your old 70's heavy metal stereo system - full amps - and if you get enough sound out of it you'll get every Baza for 50 miles (and a few Finchbill)
 

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Many thanks for this Sid.

Our consultants in HK are strong proponents of regular human patrols with noisemakers.
Birds become habituated to mechanical devices so they can be an expensive way to not solve the problem.

You're right that small birds pose little threat - the issue is larger birds such as kites and egrets here.

Thanks for the Baza recording - I would indeed love to have one on passage here.

Cheers
Mike
 
The grounds of Sichuan University are pretty big - but the area that gives most of these exciting passage bird records, tucked away in the NE grounds of the uni, is pretty tiny. About the size of a football field, its an old courtyard surrounded by some oldish, cultural revolution style, brick buildings. The courtyard has some bigger broad-leaved trees and a little scrub and one side is bordered by back gardens. On good birding days you can't miss it, since there will be a lot of local photographers - who use meal-worms to lure out Robins and other shy visitors. The site is also in the shadow of new housing development and was slated for demolition - but I think action by Chengdu Bird Watching society has managed to save it for the time being.
I've attached a map of the university - the red circle in the NE indicates the area.
This is certainly the cheapest area to to see the Blackthroat - Changqing in Shaanxi, at the moment the only certain site where you can find the bird, put their already very steep prices further up during October!!!!!!!

However I think the strangest Sichuan autumn passage bird so far this year was an Arctic Skua - found by local birders on Duck River - just a few kilometer north of Chengdu
 

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Sid and Roland,

thanks a lot for insights in the Barwing!

Perhaps a camping session on the Old Erlang Rd is the way to go. Or, perhaps easier just to sit it out at the university site. I am sure a flock will pop up there together with Blackthroats at some point ;)

No Sichuan plans in the near future though.

Keep in touch, cheers,
jocko
 
Just back from latest trip with Ron and Sue McIntyre - where we combined Red Panda and a journey south into the warmth of the of the Xichang lake and Miyi areas.

We got our Red Panda at Longcanggou - but, mainly due to foggy weather, it took a couple of days watching. For our journey it made more logistical sense to take Longcanggou over Labahe, since our journey was taking advantage of the G5 motorway - which gives very quick and easy travel into that part of Central South Sichuan that juts into the Yunnan border around Panzhihua.

As far as Labahe is concerned - it's apparently very recently reopened, but we still don't know the situation with regards to access for the best Red Panda areas - and if the track leading to our Panda sites is again open to tourists.

At Longcanggou you can find autumn Red Panda behaving in the same way as the Labahe animals - climbing and feeding off berry bearing trees.
We saw our RP near the top of the of the track - but about a week before our trip started Robbi got one much lower down - for those who know the site, below the area of this year's Grey-hooded Parrotbill nest site. The animals should be looked for in all the areas where the natural mixed forest takes over from the the lower plantation and broad-leaved forest areas.

On the subject of the Parrotbill - just as we watched the Red Panda - a pair of curious Grey-hooded Parrotbill came in and stayed around for a good while. There were also a flock of Three-toed Parrotbill in the area.

Another exciting thing about this trip was the ease with which we found Yunnan Nuthatch around Xichang (and further down the road at Miyi) - which is just around 3 hours drive from Longcanggou. You can find them in the hill pine plantations - in some areas they appeared as abundant!!!!!
The other exciting bird that should appear in this area is Brown-winged Parrotbill - but although we've found it in the Ninang area, on this trip we were unlucky.

Pics come from Ron and Sue - they show me and Ron scoping our Red Panda - while the habitat pics shows, with the area marked where our Red Panda berry tree was found, how difficult it can be to find the animals in the 'tree clutter.' Thanks to Ron's sharp eyes we got it - I'd already long walked past!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

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Hi Sid,
Thanks for the trip summary - thought I'd better post some pics including the red panda digiscoped and a few I've sorted out so far. Longcanggou was perhaps a gamble but it finally paid off on our last full day and the grey-hooded parrotbills were fantastic arriving just after the red panda find.Once again thanks Sid and Meggie for making a superb trip so successful.
 

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Just back from my latest trip - which took me to a new site - Simian Mountain, which, being 8 hours from Chengdu, is located inside Chongqing. Although a very brief trip - we were helping Professor Scott Robinson survey potential study sites - we picked up a couple of species not usually found on the Sichuan routes - Red-headed Trogon and Grey Laughingthrush. Tawny Fish Owl is also present at this site - although we only found pellets - they were pretty impressive being full of fresh-water crab shell.

Afterwards I took George Powell on to Balang, The Old Erlang Road, Labahe and Longcanggou.
Bird-wise - the numbers of wintering birds in the scrub on the west side of the Old Erlang Road was interesting - lots of Crimson-browed Finch, including mature male birds, and plenty of both Sharpe's and Long-tailed Rosefinch.
Otherwise brief views on Monal at Balang, Lady A on the Old Erlang Road and very tame Male Temminck's Tragopan at Labahe. That last bird gave us 10 minutes of watching and walked up to within 3m of George.

However not all good new - lots of destructive development going on at Labahe - which was even more disturbing since fresh Giant Panda scat was found on the boardwalk by Roland and Per Alstrom, who being there a couple of days before us, could accurately date it to animal passing through the area on the 13th. This is the second year we've found Giant Panda scat on the boardwalk - the development of a new road, cable-car, ski-slope a small hydro-plant to power the cable car and yet another hotel (the old luxury hotel is also being renovated - which now makes for 3 accommodation complexes and over 1000 beds in a park where I've rarely seen more than 50 guests at one time) can't help but destroy bamboo rich Giant Panda habitat!!!

Development at Longcanggou is also going ahead - they have pegged out the road construction markers along the whole track going right up to the top. I have feeling that the park could be closed, at least to traffic, next season because of this construction.

The pictures in this post are all from Labahe -
1- a Google Map image showing the coordinates of the Giant Panda scat and showing how close the development runs to this area. The presence of a ski-slope seems particularly worrying since the Giant Pandas seem to use this site during winter

2 - George, Giant Panda scat and the boardwalk

3 - those Red Deer are still there - in an incredibly ugly rusting enclosure. There were also a few Sambar Deer in there - no ear tags indicating that they might have been taken from the wild!!!!
 

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Just back from a trip that took my guests and I - Dr. Wendy Wright and Dr Steb Fisher - up to a very snowy and Icy Ruoergai Grasslands.

Birds on the grasslands as expected for a winter trip - large flocks of Larks and Snowfinches - mammals included Blue Sheep, which is the first time I've seen them out here. However our time was very limited and we didn't see either Wolf or Pallas's Cat. One piece of interesting action involved Saker, Upland Buzzard, Steppe Eagle and a Tibetan Fox all fighting over a Pika that was originally caught by the Buzzard. Outcome off the fight resulted in Pika being ripped out of the Buzzard talons by Eagle - the Saker quickly backing off - with the fight then continued,on the ground, by a heated confrontation between Eagle and Fox. The Tibetan Foxes are pretty small, and can't have been that hungry, since even in the winter there are many Pikas, so it didn't take that much for the Eagle to keep fox at bay.

The most interesting observations from this trip involved the numbers of wintering Mandarin Duck we saw on the way home - 30 in all - we counted from the S205 that skirts the Fujiang River. Our first ducks - a group of 13 occurred not far outside Pingwu and we got more ducks all the way to the point the road leaves the river (about 50km of river) - between 32° 22.289'N 104° 38.508'E and 32° 4.826'N 104° 46.065'E
Although 30 doesn't sound many - these are big numbers for Sichuan. I'm also sure with more time and careful watching that the numbers of ducks would have been far higher.
References over numbers for Chinese populations of Mandarin Duck seem very vague - there is a large range in estimates given by Birdlife International -
http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/speciesfactsheet.php?id=418
While Wetlands International seem to base their population estimates on non-breeding winter counts - http://wpe.wetlands.org/search?form[species]=mandarin&form[population]=&form[publication]=5
It would be very interesting to find out where our wintering Sichuan birds are coming from - and also carry out wildfowl surveys on rivers that are so rarely visited by birders.

Some pics from the trip

1 - Fun on the Ruoergai roads - I got around this one by driving over the frozen verge

2 - still lots of Pika during the winter

3 - White-browed Tit Warbler proving what a tough little bird it is

4 - Rufous-necked Snowfinch was the commonest Snowfinch
 

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