Botanicals, wet feet and the folly of not taking the camera...
Saturday 3rd March saw a later than planned start but I was out the door by 0930. 8/8 cloud cover and light rain had seen me opt for travelling light with just bins for company...something I'd regret of course!
A day for exploring a bit more of the very efficient Metro saw me hop on Line 9 at Dapuqiao and head 4 stops west to Yishan Road. A quick change to Line 3 south towards the Southern Railway station and 3 stops more brought me to Shilong Road. De-training and walking under the tracks and over the Shilong Road itself by footbridge and 10 minutes gentle stroll down Dongquan Road saw me at the Number 4 Entrance Gate of the Shanghai Botanic Gardens. (
http://en.shbg.org/index.action)
Once me and the lady on ticket office duty had mimed our way through the cost...”no here, take what you need from my wallet”!...15 RMB...I could enter one of the peaceful havens in this frenetic city...indeed at one point in the morning I was sat on a bench with no other people in sight and the city but a distant roar...you could almost convince yourself it was the ocean!
With a light rain still falling I set about unearthing the birdlife...early score with a
Long-tailed Shrike atop a tree...still coming to terms with a “city shrike”...and
Blackbirds everywhere...plenty of opportunity to study their calls and songs as spring was most certainly in the air...some rather odd duck-like high-pitched peeps confused me until I caught a male in the act of delivering the call...
A bridge produced another
Long-tailed Shrike perched on a pole in the water (where's me camera...!) and a pair of
Common Sandpiper bobbing along the non too appetising muddy edge of the river...locked in by it's flood defense walls on either side
Chinese Bulbuls, Spotted Doves and
Tree Sparrows were also apparent but otherwise things seemed quiet...both on the avian and human front. On I ambled and a distant group of long-tailed birds in some distant trees attracted my attention...surely not
7 Long-tailed Shrikes?! No...closer inspection revealed these pranksters to be beige-bodied, black-capped, blue-tailed
Azure-winged Magpies. Now we'd found each other they became constant companions for the rest of my time in the gardens, flitting around in a loose rag-tag of a group.
I was now by the Tropicarium and the thought of a warm-up appealed but once again I was distracted by movement in the trees...two huge black-tipped, yellow bills attached to a couple of
Chinese Grosbeaks...very nice...then almost straight away more movement at my feet...a pair of
Vinous-throated Parrotbills moving rapidly through low bushes distracted me and the grosbeaks took advantage to move higher up the tree they were sharing.
All the warmth I need so onward for a walk around the periphery of the gardens...bamboo stands, a rose garden to be...now just clay-filled borders with stumpy twigs in waiting for spring warmth to get the growing season started. More
Azure-winged Magpies to keep me company and then another familiar friend appeared...a small bundle of cream, green and yellow resolved into one, then two, fly-catching
Pallas' Warblers...a repeat of my trip to Xujiahui Park two weekends ago.
Onward and the rain gave up and a watery sun poked it's head through the clouds before thinking better of it. A quiet corner delivered two washed out
Great Tits and a
Eurasian Magpie to boost the “trip list”.
A quiet seat by a small, reed-fringed pond, offered plenty but delivered nothing new...
Tree Sparrows and
Chinese Bulbul's played hide and seek,
Blackbirds chuckled and sparred,
Spotted Doves coo'd and
Azure-winged Magpie's messed about. The only surprise for 20 minutes quiet contemplation being a
leucistic Blackbird: mostly white with odd black feathers, a mottling on the breast, a bill a tubenose would be proud of - some deformity resulting in the final third of the upper mandible being very thin and so producing the seabird profile!
When it first dropped through the trees to the ground I had a flashback to last Spring's West Pacific Odyssey when a male
Chuuk Monarch looking not too dissimilar surprised us by being present several hundred metres lower than advertised (but that's just me showing off that I've seen the monarch (and the
White-eye :0)
On I wandered and found myself towards the eastern extremes of the gardens and a high-pitched call and some buzzing jogged Fair Isle memories...a quick scan revealed a tree-top pipit calling and tail-pumping for all it's worth...turning it's head so I could admire those black and white spots...
Olive-backed Pipit nailed. It stayed maybe 5 minutes and turning around to continue my journey I could see why it may not have wanted to linger...another
Long-tailed Shrike sat at camera height about 3m from me...I WANT MY CAMERA...NOW!
Ho-hum...a cheerful chappie in uniform came over to see what the game was and I offered him my Swaros to view the shrike...a quick glance and then he swung them on the work gang about 50m to our left...much more fun for my new best friend...thumbs up all around...well I tried to instil a love for shrikes in him at least...
I'd been seeing
White Wagtails intermittently but finally I got good views of a cracking white-faced,
leucopsis male...the black beady eye isolated in a mask of white...accompanied by a scruffier female or sub-adult bird (don't ask me, I was admiring the male...thinking...”camera moment”...)
A small stream almost concealed behind a wall of trees had some “noises off” so I stepped along a small path to see who was causing trouble...more aneamic
Great Tits and then on the edge of the stream...a
Little Egret! Who wasn't for hanging around and flopped and flapped off around a corner and lost from site.
Noting my position was now close to my port of entry and that the squelching noise I had been hearing was significantly correlated with the cold, damp feeling in my left boot, I came to two conclusions: I needn't have bothered packing this particular pair of boots as they are destined for the bin and that it was time to retire gracefully back to the warmth of home to plan tomorrow's adventure...which may contain me taking the 'effin camera along rather than being a silly boy and leaving it home in the dry...
...to be continued...if I go out tomorrow...
oops...reading Mike's HK thread reminds me I forgot the Crested Mynah's I saw this morning...