china guy
A taff living in Sichuan
Well we're just between trips at the moment - I have a new birder coming on the 8th - so have a few mornings to check out the rice-paddies that lie just across from where I live.
The harvest is on - at the moment it's about 50% complete (at least on our local patch). Last night we had a lot of rain - so this morning was misty, which together with the harvest colors, made for nice landscape photography - but didn't do much for birding pics.
Although the big migration push hasn't stated - there were Common and Swintail Snipes - and we had the usual gang of Painted Snipe (there were 6 of then this morning). I saw a single White-breasted Waterhen chick slip into cover, which means, for some species, that the breeding season isn't quite over, and the noises of Zitting Cisticola perculated out of the ranks of rice-stalks. Latter on we'll be getting many Wagtails, Pipits and Buntings passing through this little area - but most interesting today were smart looking Amur (White) Wagtails - M a leucopsis.
Last autumn we also had Von Schernck's Bittern - but this morning we just got our usual mix of Chinese Pond and Little Egret together with a single imm. Black-crowned Night Heron.
The pics show a female Amur Wagtail from a couple of weeks back - a male Chestnut-eared Bunting, we caught this spring, which is a regular passage visitor to the paddies - and how those paddies looked very early this morning.
The harvest is on - at the moment it's about 50% complete (at least on our local patch). Last night we had a lot of rain - so this morning was misty, which together with the harvest colors, made for nice landscape photography - but didn't do much for birding pics.
Although the big migration push hasn't stated - there were Common and Swintail Snipes - and we had the usual gang of Painted Snipe (there were 6 of then this morning). I saw a single White-breasted Waterhen chick slip into cover, which means, for some species, that the breeding season isn't quite over, and the noises of Zitting Cisticola perculated out of the ranks of rice-stalks. Latter on we'll be getting many Wagtails, Pipits and Buntings passing through this little area - but most interesting today were smart looking Amur (White) Wagtails - M a leucopsis.
Last autumn we also had Von Schernck's Bittern - but this morning we just got our usual mix of Chinese Pond and Little Egret together with a single imm. Black-crowned Night Heron.
The pics show a female Amur Wagtail from a couple of weeks back - a male Chestnut-eared Bunting, we caught this spring, which is a regular passage visitor to the paddies - and how those paddies looked very early this morning.