Chengdu Bird guiding – [email protected] - Chengdu, Sichuan, the gateway to Tibet - to see more travel pics of Sichuan go to my travel blog at - http://chengdutravel.blogspot.com/
To see more of our birding pics go to - http://sichuanbirds.blogspot.com/
Chinese Fulvetta - from a cold Zhedou Mountain. We saw this bird in a lot of locations during the trip - they come down during the colder months and are far more easy to spot. That very charecteristic eye is rather piercing. I think this is the first pic of Chinese Fulvetta at birdforum.
Well 3 trip are over - all went well - even though on our last trip, which included a 6 year old - the cold weather, a bit of frost and some slight snow, started to make things a wee bit difficult!!!! However we just got a mail today from the mum - who told us that when the small girl got back to Bejing she had so much to tell dad about her wildlife adventure - that the whole experience must have been a rather positive one.
Our trips have taken us between the grasslands on the Plateau, the valleys of Moxi and the forests at Erlang and Laba He. We even got a day's watching in at the base of Emei after dropping of the last clients at the Leshan Big Buddha.
Birding right now is rather tremendous with big bird flocks and lots of those difficult to see high-mountain dwellers seeking refuge in easier to access habitats.
We even got a brilliant passage moment - 4 distant Black-neck Cranes doing a fly-over at Erlang.
Great birds seen (I wish we'd got photos of them all) - flocks that included White-browed and Crested Tit Warbler, Chinese Fulvetta, Kessler's Thrush and White-cheeked Nuthatch in the small pieces of forest that are left around Tagong. And of course there are plenty of White-winged Redstart out here.
At Moxi flocks gave us Black-headed Laughingthrush, White-browed and Rusty-capped Fulvetta, Vinaceous Rosefinch, Sichuan Treecreeper, Pere David's Tit, a White-browed Bush Robin and large numbers of Grandala (just over the pass in the direction of Kangding). At Moxi we also got a rather hard to come by Rosefinch - the Sichuan version of Spot-winged Rosefinch - which according to some authorities has been split into its own species - Sharpe's Rosefinch. You can find pics of this in the Q and A forum - we had to have help in identification, since this one isn't in the book!!!
Laba He - is also giving easy to view Black -faced Laughingthrush and there was a Red-winged Laughingthrush seen very close to our hotel. Lots of Chestnut Thrush here and lovely Chestnut-vented Nuthatch.
Emei is as good as ever - with Grey Treepie and White-browed Shrike Babbler showing very nicely.
Here are pics of 2 other birds that dont have pics in the Opus database -
This one is - Pere David's Tit - otherwise known in the main China guide as Rusty-breasted Tit. We got the flock, this bird was part of, pouring in on us (with about 7 species), and it was hard for Meggie to shoot against the light. However what this pic does show is that this small bird sports a mighty fine beard - puts my greying fuzz quiet to shame!!!!
Since most of our present birding is now flock hunting - and in our typical type of scrub environment it can be hard to find those flocks, our tactic is to split and hunt in seperate locations. With this in mind we recently bought walkie-talkies - to avoid the kind of incident where 3 of us caught a huge amount of birds and a nearby Meggie saw nothing. With all the thick vegitation she couldn't see or find us - I wasn't a popular husband for for few hours after that one!!!!!
Again this isn't such a clear shot - but these birds are darn hard to photo-shoot. Rusty-capped Fulvetta.
As ever the birds were great but the locations where we see them were simply superb. The grasslands were bathed in the most wonderfull sunlight that actually gave us photographers problems!!!!
Three birders looking like a row of skittles - an early morning walk on the Tagong Grassland.
To see more of our birding pics go to - http://sichuanbirds.blogspot.com/
Chinese Fulvetta - from a cold Zhedou Mountain. We saw this bird in a lot of locations during the trip - they come down during the colder months and are far more easy to spot. That very charecteristic eye is rather piercing. I think this is the first pic of Chinese Fulvetta at birdforum.
Well 3 trip are over - all went well - even though on our last trip, which included a 6 year old - the cold weather, a bit of frost and some slight snow, started to make things a wee bit difficult!!!! However we just got a mail today from the mum - who told us that when the small girl got back to Bejing she had so much to tell dad about her wildlife adventure - that the whole experience must have been a rather positive one.
Our trips have taken us between the grasslands on the Plateau, the valleys of Moxi and the forests at Erlang and Laba He. We even got a day's watching in at the base of Emei after dropping of the last clients at the Leshan Big Buddha.
Birding right now is rather tremendous with big bird flocks and lots of those difficult to see high-mountain dwellers seeking refuge in easier to access habitats.
We even got a brilliant passage moment - 4 distant Black-neck Cranes doing a fly-over at Erlang.
Great birds seen (I wish we'd got photos of them all) - flocks that included White-browed and Crested Tit Warbler, Chinese Fulvetta, Kessler's Thrush and White-cheeked Nuthatch in the small pieces of forest that are left around Tagong. And of course there are plenty of White-winged Redstart out here.
At Moxi flocks gave us Black-headed Laughingthrush, White-browed and Rusty-capped Fulvetta, Vinaceous Rosefinch, Sichuan Treecreeper, Pere David's Tit, a White-browed Bush Robin and large numbers of Grandala (just over the pass in the direction of Kangding). At Moxi we also got a rather hard to come by Rosefinch - the Sichuan version of Spot-winged Rosefinch - which according to some authorities has been split into its own species - Sharpe's Rosefinch. You can find pics of this in the Q and A forum - we had to have help in identification, since this one isn't in the book!!!
Laba He - is also giving easy to view Black -faced Laughingthrush and there was a Red-winged Laughingthrush seen very close to our hotel. Lots of Chestnut Thrush here and lovely Chestnut-vented Nuthatch.
Emei is as good as ever - with Grey Treepie and White-browed Shrike Babbler showing very nicely.
Here are pics of 2 other birds that dont have pics in the Opus database -
This one is - Pere David's Tit - otherwise known in the main China guide as Rusty-breasted Tit. We got the flock, this bird was part of, pouring in on us (with about 7 species), and it was hard for Meggie to shoot against the light. However what this pic does show is that this small bird sports a mighty fine beard - puts my greying fuzz quiet to shame!!!!
Since most of our present birding is now flock hunting - and in our typical type of scrub environment it can be hard to find those flocks, our tactic is to split and hunt in seperate locations. With this in mind we recently bought walkie-talkies - to avoid the kind of incident where 3 of us caught a huge amount of birds and a nearby Meggie saw nothing. With all the thick vegitation she couldn't see or find us - I wasn't a popular husband for for few hours after that one!!!!!
Again this isn't such a clear shot - but these birds are darn hard to photo-shoot. Rusty-capped Fulvetta.
As ever the birds were great but the locations where we see them were simply superb. The grasslands were bathed in the most wonderfull sunlight that actually gave us photographers problems!!!!
Three birders looking like a row of skittles - an early morning walk on the Tagong Grassland.
