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/
Apologies to readers in China - due to current censorship of Flickr picture storage, many of our blog pictures can no longer be accessed through the Chinese internet. Lets hope this problem soon disappears!!!!!!!!
Green Shrike Babbler - at Wuyipeng in Wolong. Identifying this bird in the field, via the MacK China bird guide, can be quite a head-scratcher - the plates in the book just don't really give the proper "ID-jizz". Far better is the illustration in the new Helm Field Guide to Birds of East Asia - shame that book series doesn't go a wee bit further west!!!!
By the way our Sichuan birds have a white eye-ring - and if anything look, at first glance, like Grey-cheeked Fulvetta. They'll readily respond to playback - but are hard to photograph as they flick around in the branches - especially during the type of grey, misty, drizzly day we caught this one.
We've just got back from an 8 day trip (6 complete days birding) - that included a run to Wolong and Balang Pass. Although both of these locations were badly damaged, during last May's quake, both are now accessible - and the habitat around the famous birding locations of Wuyipeng and Balang pass, only suffering minor landslides, are quite intact compared to the devastation nearer the epi-center. At the moment the biggest problem for birders is the continuing road construction - but even that is better than when it was at its worst during 2007. However for those planning a trip this summer/autumn - remember that from Chengdu to Wolong town (Sawan), the road that leads into the Wolong entrance is now one-way - with alternative days given to traffic moving in and out of Wolong from or towards Chengdu!!!
Here's a picture of the road up on the Balang Pass - on many bits they've already added a surface. Unfortunately other sections of the road are still bad - most of it unsurfaced - and if there are trucks you may have to wait in mini jams as the local drivers try and "work out" who has the right of way. We managed to get up the worst parts of the road in our van loaded up with 2 guests and combined gear - it was raining heavily on the day we got into Wolong - we witnessed some mini-landslides - but no real need for 4WD.
As for the birds - well, even in the wet weather, the chickens of Wolong were still showing - we got Golden Pheasant and Temminck's Tragopan at Wuyipeng. However Monals at Balang are still difficult because of disturbance. Luckily there were no problems with Rubythroat and (rather distant) Grandala.
Rufous-gorgeted Flycatcher - a common bird in the forest at Wuyipeng.
Even with bad weather conditions, at Wolong/Balng, we got a host of good birds including - Barred and Spotted Laugher (Wuyipeng) and both Tit-warblers (the Rilong side of Balang).
Rufous-bellied Woodpecker - this is a bird we don’t often see. We got this pair the day after we left Balang (male right, female left) - in the Baoxin area - on the loop that leads towards Ya'an and Wawu Mountain. We had a good range of woodies for a short trip - Darjeeling, Crimson-breasted, Great Spotted, Grey-headed Pygmy, Bay and Speckled Piculet
The complete trip made a circle that took in Baoxin, Forktails at Bi Feng Gourge (all nailed including Spotted) and then Wawu. In all we got 185 species - and near cleaned up on possible Parrotbills for our route by nailing Grey-hooded on Wawu - and got 3-toed, Brown, Great, Fulvous, Golden, Ashy-throated (amazingly we missed Sichuan's commonest Parrotbill - Vinous throated) The complete trip list of laughers was also good - apart from the fore mentioned Barred and Spotted we got Giant, Black-faced, Elliot's, Moustached, Rusty, and Emei Liocichla. We also got more Chickens at Wawu - again Temminck's together with 4, all too fleeting, views of Lady Amherst's.
Icing on the cake was a politely photogenic Red Panda at Wawu - we'll post pics of that on our next blog article.
To see more of our birding pics go to - http://sichuanbirds.blogspot.com/
Apologies to readers in China - due to current censorship of Flickr picture storage, many of our blog pictures can no longer be accessed through the Chinese internet. Lets hope this problem soon disappears!!!!!!!!
Green Shrike Babbler - at Wuyipeng in Wolong. Identifying this bird in the field, via the MacK China bird guide, can be quite a head-scratcher - the plates in the book just don't really give the proper "ID-jizz". Far better is the illustration in the new Helm Field Guide to Birds of East Asia - shame that book series doesn't go a wee bit further west!!!!
By the way our Sichuan birds have a white eye-ring - and if anything look, at first glance, like Grey-cheeked Fulvetta. They'll readily respond to playback - but are hard to photograph as they flick around in the branches - especially during the type of grey, misty, drizzly day we caught this one.
We've just got back from an 8 day trip (6 complete days birding) - that included a run to Wolong and Balang Pass. Although both of these locations were badly damaged, during last May's quake, both are now accessible - and the habitat around the famous birding locations of Wuyipeng and Balang pass, only suffering minor landslides, are quite intact compared to the devastation nearer the epi-center. At the moment the biggest problem for birders is the continuing road construction - but even that is better than when it was at its worst during 2007. However for those planning a trip this summer/autumn - remember that from Chengdu to Wolong town (Sawan), the road that leads into the Wolong entrance is now one-way - with alternative days given to traffic moving in and out of Wolong from or towards Chengdu!!!
Here's a picture of the road up on the Balang Pass - on many bits they've already added a surface. Unfortunately other sections of the road are still bad - most of it unsurfaced - and if there are trucks you may have to wait in mini jams as the local drivers try and "work out" who has the right of way. We managed to get up the worst parts of the road in our van loaded up with 2 guests and combined gear - it was raining heavily on the day we got into Wolong - we witnessed some mini-landslides - but no real need for 4WD.
As for the birds - well, even in the wet weather, the chickens of Wolong were still showing - we got Golden Pheasant and Temminck's Tragopan at Wuyipeng. However Monals at Balang are still difficult because of disturbance. Luckily there were no problems with Rubythroat and (rather distant) Grandala.
Rufous-gorgeted Flycatcher - a common bird in the forest at Wuyipeng.
Even with bad weather conditions, at Wolong/Balng, we got a host of good birds including - Barred and Spotted Laugher (Wuyipeng) and both Tit-warblers (the Rilong side of Balang).
Rufous-bellied Woodpecker - this is a bird we don’t often see. We got this pair the day after we left Balang (male right, female left) - in the Baoxin area - on the loop that leads towards Ya'an and Wawu Mountain. We had a good range of woodies for a short trip - Darjeeling, Crimson-breasted, Great Spotted, Grey-headed Pygmy, Bay and Speckled Piculet
The complete trip made a circle that took in Baoxin, Forktails at Bi Feng Gourge (all nailed including Spotted) and then Wawu. In all we got 185 species - and near cleaned up on possible Parrotbills for our route by nailing Grey-hooded on Wawu - and got 3-toed, Brown, Great, Fulvous, Golden, Ashy-throated (amazingly we missed Sichuan's commonest Parrotbill - Vinous throated) The complete trip list of laughers was also good - apart from the fore mentioned Barred and Spotted we got Giant, Black-faced, Elliot's, Moustached, Rusty, and Emei Liocichla. We also got more Chickens at Wawu - again Temminck's together with 4, all too fleeting, views of Lady Amherst's.
Icing on the cake was a politely photogenic Red Panda at Wawu - we'll post pics of that on our next blog article.
