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/
While a flock of Yellow Wagtail feed, rice plants are being machine planted into the paddies close to our home. This is the first year that we've seen these fields being mechanically cultivated - we wonder what changes this will make to the birding around here.
Last week a sad notice was put up in Oriental Birding - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orientalbirding/message/11111 - indicating the possible demise to extinction of a bird who's distribution had shrunk to a small area of East China - Jankowski's Bunting.
This bird has seemingly been victim to development that is seeing Chinese agriculture gradually evolve into the kind of mechanised factory industry that we know so well in the west. With rural poverty and a huge population to feed one can understand this reach for progress, but also at the same time lament the fact that even though areas of nature reserve had been created for the Bunting - that the conservation boundaries were seemingly ignored and the machines had also entered these areas.
To envisage the effect that the lightening speed of modern changes is having on birding in China, one only has to read the new, published this year, and excellent Helm Field guide to the Birds of East Asia, by Mark Brazil - here Jankowski's Bunting is not even classified as endangered or critical, but merely vulnerable - a status that unfortunately needs editing in the next edition.
The news of the plight of the Bunting was further brought home to us when last week,for the first time ever. we saw a large tractor cultivating the paddies just over from our home (before this job has been by small motorized rotovators) - and afterwards being mechanically planted (formerly done by hand).
The mechanisation must have an immediate effect - by speeding up planting and pushing harvesting dates forward - thus creating problems for Rails/Crakes or other wetland species that still attempt to breed on this land. Future effects will probably see paddies become bigger (making one field out many) - with scrub, ditches and other features, that often make good bird habitat - but could block or slow-down the progress of the tractors and other machines - being removed.
In our paddies. In the future we expect to see far fewer - Greater Painted Snipe, White-breasted Waterhen, Watercock, Rudy-breasted Crake and Cinnamon Bittern.
Meadow Bunting - a bird that has a superficial resemblance to Jankowski's Bunting - but is still alive and kicking. We sometimes find this bird in scrubby marginal farming areas - but it's not a common bird in our part of Sichuan.
On a brighter note - we'll soon be taking out on another trip - so today I'll start getting the van ready - and begin the chore of sorting and packing our gear. Traveling within Sichuan is pretty easy - the roads are generally quite good, there are always towns where you can find a shop that - even if it's not quite the same as those you've got back home - resembles a supermarket. Hotels and restaurants are always numerous and cheap in comparison with western standards - even though many currencies have fallen so much in comparison with the RMB. You can now even find ATM's in the bigger towns on the western grasslands. However these machines still don't take foreign cards - but that will surely come!!!!!
White-rumped Snowfinch - an old photo of a bird we haven't seen for some time. Maybe this summer our tour will take us into habitat for this bird - but you're birding high, and have to drive pretty far out west before you bump into this species.
But we still have our paddies for the next few days - a more recent photo of a nicely marked Red-throated Pipit that, just recently, stopped off with us.
To see more of our birding pics go to - http://sichuanbirds.blogspot.com/
While a flock of Yellow Wagtail feed, rice plants are being machine planted into the paddies close to our home. This is the first year that we've seen these fields being mechanically cultivated - we wonder what changes this will make to the birding around here.
Last week a sad notice was put up in Oriental Birding - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orientalbirding/message/11111 - indicating the possible demise to extinction of a bird who's distribution had shrunk to a small area of East China - Jankowski's Bunting.
This bird has seemingly been victim to development that is seeing Chinese agriculture gradually evolve into the kind of mechanised factory industry that we know so well in the west. With rural poverty and a huge population to feed one can understand this reach for progress, but also at the same time lament the fact that even though areas of nature reserve had been created for the Bunting - that the conservation boundaries were seemingly ignored and the machines had also entered these areas.
To envisage the effect that the lightening speed of modern changes is having on birding in China, one only has to read the new, published this year, and excellent Helm Field guide to the Birds of East Asia, by Mark Brazil - here Jankowski's Bunting is not even classified as endangered or critical, but merely vulnerable - a status that unfortunately needs editing in the next edition.
The news of the plight of the Bunting was further brought home to us when last week,for the first time ever. we saw a large tractor cultivating the paddies just over from our home (before this job has been by small motorized rotovators) - and afterwards being mechanically planted (formerly done by hand).
The mechanisation must have an immediate effect - by speeding up planting and pushing harvesting dates forward - thus creating problems for Rails/Crakes or other wetland species that still attempt to breed on this land. Future effects will probably see paddies become bigger (making one field out many) - with scrub, ditches and other features, that often make good bird habitat - but could block or slow-down the progress of the tractors and other machines - being removed.
In our paddies. In the future we expect to see far fewer - Greater Painted Snipe, White-breasted Waterhen, Watercock, Rudy-breasted Crake and Cinnamon Bittern.
Meadow Bunting - a bird that has a superficial resemblance to Jankowski's Bunting - but is still alive and kicking. We sometimes find this bird in scrubby marginal farming areas - but it's not a common bird in our part of Sichuan.
On a brighter note - we'll soon be taking out on another trip - so today I'll start getting the van ready - and begin the chore of sorting and packing our gear. Traveling within Sichuan is pretty easy - the roads are generally quite good, there are always towns where you can find a shop that - even if it's not quite the same as those you've got back home - resembles a supermarket. Hotels and restaurants are always numerous and cheap in comparison with western standards - even though many currencies have fallen so much in comparison with the RMB. You can now even find ATM's in the bigger towns on the western grasslands. However these machines still don't take foreign cards - but that will surely come!!!!!
White-rumped Snowfinch - an old photo of a bird we haven't seen for some time. Maybe this summer our tour will take us into habitat for this bird - but you're birding high, and have to drive pretty far out west before you bump into this species.
But we still have our paddies for the next few days - a more recent photo of a nicely marked Red-throated Pipit that, just recently, stopped off with us.
