China observations (14 Viewers)

[Jeff Hopkins]

Great shot, Dev. Spectacular find!

 

[Owen Krout]

I'm jealous, Dev. I am longing for a confirmed crane or stork. Every time I check out a rumor of some in the area I draw a blank and am told 'They were here yesterday'. Only one probable Black Stork only glimpsed briefly in flight and at long range. Couldn't count it as I didn't get a good enough look to be sure that it wasn't just me wanting to see one.

Great photo BTW.

 

[thirudevaram]

WOW Dev! Awesome stuff!!

Good job, Dev!!!

Great shot, Dev. Spectacular find!

Thank you, Gentlemen. The passion and knowledge you have shared were over the years were very helpful.

I'm jealous, Dev. I am longing for a confirmed crane or stork. Every time I check out a rumor of some in the area I draw a blank and am told 'They were here yesterday'. Only one probable Black Stork only glimpsed briefly in flight and at long range. Couldn't count it as I didn't get a good enough look to be sure that it wasn't just me wanting to see one.

Great photo BTW.

Thanks, Owen. I can totally understand the feeling of dipping something. I have missed the Siberian Cranes atleast two times. There were few Storks reported in Shanxi over the weekend, hope you get that monkey off your back soon.

 

[mcaribou]

on 11 Nov there was a Black Brent and two Bar-headed Geese,48 DPelicans and still quite a few NGreenshank at Dongtai.
on 16 Nov at Poyang Lake still many migrants incl. 20~30 Great Bittern.
on 20 Nov at Yancheng one Pallas's Rosefinch,and very late Common Ringed Plover.
on 21 Nov at Dongtai a juv. Long-taild Duck.
on 21 Nov at Rudong a 1st-win Pine Bunting.

 

[thirudevaram]

Cranes,(C)Rooks & Chongming

For the benefit of the good'ol twitchers and the greater good, the Siberian Crane trio are still in Hengsha island. Its been 3 weeks now, the Cranes havent moved anywhere from where we saw two weeks ago. Most likely, they might spend the winter here.
One more visit to Hengsha again, surprisingly the waterfowl is still absent. Our first bird of the day started with a much closer views of a single Baikal Teal in eclipse plumage. Nothing compared to the previous weekends low light search or dealing with crooks ordering to bird elsewhere.

The best birds in Hengsha were two female Greater Scaups and a late Black-winged Kite. Not sure, if "late" is a right term. Usually they are seen during mid to late October in Shanghai and I have seen it in Yancheng in January 2014. May be they are expanding northwards?

Back in Chongming, we were so tempted to tick a "Black Swan" on the sole basis of unknown origin. :king:
The Cranes have gathered up in pretty good no's compared to the total two weeks ago. We had 70 Cranes with 65 being Hooded and 5 Commons. Best birds in Chongming were big flocks of Swan and Tundra Geese, two Rooks which were supervising a cell tower installation and a mesmerizing flock containing 100+ Lapland Longspurs.

 

[Dong Bei]

Hi Dev, what an amazing shot of the Longspur!

 

[thirudevaram]

Thanks, Tom. It wasn't easy. They were hardly resting on the ground. Hope Home feels good after all these years in China.

 

[MKinHK]

2 Siberian Cranes (ad and jug) were at Mai Po yesterday. These are Hong Kong's second record. the first was for a day in 2002.

http://www.hkbws.org.hk/BBS/viewthread.php?tid=25747

Cheers
Mike

 

[Firethroat]

Thank you, Owen and Terry, for your suggestions. I've given further thought to the bird I saw and checked some online photos.

I agree with you, Terry, that it has to be either a Meadow or Godlewski's Bunting.

I've looked for features of adult birds of these species that might be present in the juvenile. The median coverts -black with white tips- are consistent with Godlewski's but not with Meadow. The heavy marking of the breast and nondescript facial markings are also more consistent with Godlewski's based on the few photos of these two species I could find online. The uniformly slanted beak/forehead profile seems good for Godlewski's. Given that I found adults Godlewski's nearby, I think it is reasonable to call this a Godlewski's Bunting juvenile.

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S30772541

Thank you so much for your input!

Giovanni

Yes its definitely a juvenile Godlewski's Bunting. Great image!

 

[johnjemi]

Siberian Cranes at Mai Po, HK

2 Siberian Cranes (ad and jug) were at Mai Po yesterday. These are Hong Kong's second record. the first was for a day in 2002.

http://www.hkbws.org.hk/BBS/viewthread.php?tid=25747

Cheers
Mike

following on from Mike's post, the two Siberian Cranes spent the morning of 3rd Dec. at the bottom (south) end of Mai Po Nature Reserve.
In the late morning of the 3rd they flew off. Only the adult returned that evening, and it spent Sunday 4th and Monday 5th Dec at Mai Po. Whereabouts of the juvenile are unknown, obviously.

 

[thirudevaram]

Great Photos, John. I'm pretty sure Mai Po would have attracted a solid crowd in the last two days.

 

[mcaribou]

Great cranes.
We had good time with birders from HK around Napahai,Shangri-la and counted 200+ Black-necked Cranes.
There were also many other common birds eg. 17000 Coots.
In three days(5,6,7 Dec) the number of Pochard dropped from 3000+ to 2000+ to 1000+ and maybe they were still in migration.
While the number of White-tailed Eagle rose everyday to 40 on 7 Dec,with one Pallas's and two Steppe.
Didnt see any Imperial which was recorded in last month's birding festival.

 

[mcaribou]

A male Long-tailed Duck was in Dongtai on 14 Dec.

 

[jonathmartinez]

A juvenil Christmas Island Frigatebird was present at Xitou in Guangdong province on 18th and 19th of december, I thought it was quite appropriate to post tis today...Only the second Guangdong record it seems...Merry Christmas...
Jonathan

 

[jonathmartinez]

seems the first pic has problem when uploading...

 

[jonathmartinez]

finally...

 

[mcaribou]

finally...

:t:

 

[MKinHK]

In Hong Kong there's been a Buff-breasted Sandpiper in a fishpond near Mai Po (at San Tin) since Wednesday and the Siberian Crane is still present at Mai Po.

Cheers
Mike

 

[Jeff Hopkins]

That's a good bird for here in PA, Mike, but a great bird for HK!

 

[MKinHK]

Just the second record Jeff, after in April that very few people saw.

Cheers
Mike