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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Sichuan Birding (3 Viewers)

Due to conservation reasons there was an agreement to keep the details of the Rufous-headed Robin sites under wrap, for anybody, groups and individuals.
Hopefully the bird is able to stabilize and recover from its obvious disappearance, and will be visible for many more people in the future.
 
But, there’s some good news as well: Rufous-headed Robin is still amongst the living! After a few seasons without seeing or hearing this rare bird in Jiuzhaigou, there were three records in different locations in Sichuan this spring.

And here's one of them, taken a week ago.
 

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In general, urban birds and resident birds in nature reserves seem to be all in good state, despite huge development projects (such as expressways). Parrotbills and pheasants seem to even be on the rise. In certain areas in Ya’an such as Tianquan or Yingjing I have seen a lot of signs of a governmental anti-poaching campaign. Posters and wallpapers emphasize that wildlife trade, poaching and 'wildlife dishes' are illegal and will be prosecuted. I guess a lot of restaurants will stop or at least minimize their offer of ‘wild chicken soup’. Definitely a good sign, indeed!
 
There are also a few new places to go, since traffic has been advancing during the last years:
One of them is Heizhu Gou (黑竹沟). This is a reserve ca. 100km south of Emei Shan. It belongs to Leshan and is now reachable by car in about 4h from Chengdu (actually, a new expressway is under construction). Accommodation in small chalets (see picture attached) was quite pleasant and birding last winter was surprisingly rewarding: Temminck’s Tragopan, Red-winged Laughingthrush, Dusky Thrush, Grey-winged Blackbird, many Blyth’s and Green Shrike-babblers, Sichuan Treecreeper, Wallcreeper, but unfortunately no Sichuan Hill Partridge. I hoped to find an alternative site for latter.
 

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Another site is Hailuogou – the famous glacier park at the foot of Minya Konka. With the new expressway in place, a journey to Moxi/Hailuogou only takes 4h. Sichuan Treecreeper, Rufous-bellied Woodpecker, Alpine Thrush, Chestnut-crowned Bush-warbler, Spot-winged Grosbeak and Blue-fronted Robin are almost certain rewards. Interestingly, Rufous-bellied Woodpecker seems to be a resident in this park; I’ve seen it during various seasons.
The big disadvantage here is that you can’t really overnight in the park (unless you are willing to pay 800-1200Yuan for the hotel below the cable car station). Moxi Town at the park entrance instead offers plenty of accommodation, but you have to wait until 8am to take the bus into the park (during peak season sometimes 30minutes earlier ).
 

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Another update that might be of interest:
Huge parts of Western Sichuan and adjacent parts of Gansu and Shaanxi Province will be linked and combined into a mega Panda National Park. This park will contain most of the nature reserves between the Sichuan Basin and the Tibetan Plateau, at least all those which correspond with ‘Panda requirements’. This park will be administered by Beijing directly, with new rules being introduced regarding accessibility, conservation issues, human activities, development, etc. At this moment it’s difficult to say how heavily it will affect bird watching activities in the future.
Certainly, some nature reserves or core areas will be completely locked off, others might ‘just’ lose their accommodation facilities – all for the sake of the animals obviously; however any detailed information on which reserves will be affected in which way is not publicly available yet.
Bird watching very likely might have to focus on those reserves which have been previously opened and developed for tourism (such as Labahe, Tangjiahe, etc), and even these sites might require special permits in the future…
 
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In some ways it’s good to see that the government have realised that all the pandas from the breeding programme need habitat they can be moved into, the new reserve area should help. This comes at a price though with a report of 170,000 people being removed from farms etc in the reserve.If this is true then I think your concerns over entry for birdwatching in the new super reserve are justified. At least, I would expect, it will be a strictly controlled entry.
Thanks for refreshing the page, as always it’s interesting news.
 
Yes, it is very interesting news. Sounds very positive from a conservation perspective. From a selfish perspective it would be sad to lose access from currently accessible areas (assuming this will be a consequence), but if the outcome will be huge areas of well protected habitat then on the face of it this would be great.
 
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