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Sichuan Birding (2 Viewers)

Bulbuls are pretty cool birds - for a North European, like myself, a taste of the exotic. The Bulbuls we meet in our part of Sichuan are the Light-vented (now commonly called Chinese Bulbul), Brown-breasted, Black, Collared Finchbill, Sooty-headed (that is if you go right down to the south of the province), Red-whiskered (they're at Emei, but I have to admit I've never seen them in Sichuan) and of course Mountain. I've put up a better pic of Mountain - one we took in the spring. Again the MacK plate isn't that hot for the Sichuan birds - since our birds have a light chin which can can look like a salt and pepper beard when its puffed up. They also have jazzy red eyes - but that isn't too obvious in the field.

We've finally finished a batch of work that's kept us at home - and now were free to get out birding.
This morning I took a look in the fields around our apartment.
The winter is moving in - some of our winter vistors - Sand Martins, Daurian Redstarts and Plumbeous Water Redstarts have already turned up.
One of the more interesting winter birds, which has also arrived, is - House Sparrow. We first got to see these last winter - we have have quite a winter population that keeps to the long grasses and scrub on the river bank. I reckon the the ssp. must be bactrianus - there's a population of these birds up around the high grasslands of Ruo Er Gai.
Other birds photographed today were an Aberrant Bush Warbler - that was easily located through its characteristic soft Churrr type call - and Chestnut-eared Bunting about to scoff a rice grain.
 

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Really nice Picture of that Bulbul. I like this one with its beard. I also did some shots the past days, but the quality is worse. Light and camera only allow identification:

During the past three days I went to the ‘famous’ bird yard of the Sichuan University every morning. And I was quite lucky. The first day I already got a couple of birds which usually need a few days to spend in for example Aba Zhou (Ngawa) until you can find them: White-browed Bush-Robin, Orange-flanked Robin, White-tailed Robin and Chestnut-headed Tesia. Besides there were Blue whistling Thrush, Alstroem Warbler, Pallas’s Leaf warbler, Rufous-gorgeted Flycatcher, Fujian Niltava, Common Buzzard, Grey-cheeked Fulvetta and some more common birds.
 

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Yes, a great view of your Mountain Bulbul - it's quite nice to see such dramatic angle and plumage next to a more ordinary picture of one as well. The little aberrant seems a bit tousled - a youngster? or just a little scruffy - still a handsome bird, just this one looks like a character. I'm happy to see your Chestnut Eared Bunting too, as I supposedly saw one earlier this year, but didn't actually get much of a view - this one looks pretty clearly marked. Now House Sparrows ... okay, they're a rare for you, but still ... Of course they do look a little more natural there on the grasses than they look on our sidewalks in the States.

Jiujiu - very interesting to hear that at the right time there's good birding at the University there. I do see some birds of interest (to me at least) on our campus - but not a collection like yours.
 
Never thought I'd get excited about House Sparrow, but with bactrianus as a subspecies name and a terrific atmospheric photo . . . it seems anything is possible!

Cheers
Mike
 
Of course there's a secret to identifying bactrianus from plain old domesticus domesticus - you count the humps!!!!!
But for the life of me I can't remember which should have one and which should have two!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually those sparrows look a lot different to Anything we call House Sparrow back home.
 
Actually those sparrows look a lot different to Anything we call House Sparrow back home.

Ok, apart from the two humps, what are the relevant features? I can't see too much yet from the male on the grass - except perhaps a larger white cheek patch? (I'm not sure if our NA ones are the same as you have in Europe or not, either, should be?) I see there are no pics in OBC of the bactrianus....

It's interesting to hear these guys are pushing west - and I guess you are pretty far west of their traditional location (Afghanistan/Turkestan, via Wikipedia). Wonder how they get over the mountains....
 
Hi Gretchen, here's about the best photo we've got of them - the first obvious point is they're much cleaner than the house sparrows we have back home in the UK - all the markings are far clearer - from the grey crown down to the finer patterning on the backs. And yes those cheeks appear whiter - and the black of the breast is different - more of it and bolder.
Habits and habitat choice are also special - these birds stick to grassy patches of scrub - we nearly always see them in long grasses on river banks. Unlike back-home,they don't associate themselves with buildings and human activity - Tree-sparrows hold that niche down here.

As for spread - well this bird could just be an over-looked locally occurring winter species down here - we never see birders at any of the places we find this bird.

The closest Sichuan breeding population is, very roughly, about 500km to the NW of us on the high grassland around Hongya - but then again there could well be other breeding places we know nothing about. Whether this really is the wonderfully named bactrianus is also speculation that's built on the theory that this is the sub-species found in Qinghai and we assume the same ssp will breed on the northern grasslands of Sichuan.
There are also birds to the west of us in Tibet - but apparently they winter in Northern India.

All in all this bird could have a good future in Sichuan - it's not likely to sing if put in a cage, doesn't carry too much meat, not known for any medicinal values, Can't be trained to say the Chinese equivalent of "pretty polly" - and although we recognise its beauty - well it ain't going to be top seller in the bird market!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ohh and i forgot - the bills on these birds have a different lighter coloring
 

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It's interesting to hear these guys are pushing west - and I guess you are pretty far west of their traditional location (Afghanistan/Turkestan, via Wikipedia). Wonder how they get over the mountains....

They are migrating from Central Asia over the Pamir mountains to Pakistan and north India, so they won't have any problems getting over any mountains;)

André

PS: And thanks for the picture, china guy. I used it for the Opus article. I'm pretty sure that bacterianus (together with indicus) will be split in the future as Indian Sparrow. They both occur in Central Asia where they have different habitats and bacterianus is a migrant. So it seems that they are genetically isolated.
 
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They are migrating from Central Asia over the Pamir mountains to Pakistan and north India, so they won't have any problems getting over any mountains;)

Well, the Himalayas are pretty significant. Still though they have been a pretty strong barrier for people movement, I guess birds are more mobile. Are a lot of central Asian and east Asian birds the same? In the MacK maps, a lot of birds ranges are pictured as ending at the Himalayas, but I don't know if that is accurate. Or perhaps these birds come in from the north (and thus would be found in Xinjiang too?) ? (I know my geography about that area is not great...)

Sid - thanks for the description and pic. I can see the grey crown and large black bib, and I should have seen the lighter beak, even on your first picture |:$| I need to be more observant of even the "common" birds...
 
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I've just checked Cheng and discovered that bactrianus is the race I saw in Xinjiang a few years ago. I don't remember them looking as good as this, more typical "Garbage Weaver" settings - rooting about in the dirt near a roadside restaurant and a filling station.

Cheers
Mike
 
Here's an excellent site with some fantastic pics of bactrianus - from Kazakhstan. They actually label this bird as Indian Sparrow.
http://www.birds.kz/Passer%20indicus/indexe.html

All the adult males are pictured with dark bills - and there's no mention of bills lightening to a straw colour during non-breeding - otherwise the bird matches up well to my birds - and the descriptions of not living directly within human habitation also fits.

In Mack they mention another ssp. - partini - but since there doesn't seem to any web leads to this race partini could well be a typo - and mean - parkini a race that's far more documented, and also occurs quite close to our region.

Mack says there is a population of Partini (Parkini) in SW Tibet - so there's also a possibility that may bird could be this ssp, although it seems strange that the birds from this area would migrate in winter in NE direction to Sichuan ( but of course partini may occur in areas closer). In the description of this race Mack talks about the straw coloured bills of non-breeding males.
To make things more confusing if you check through OBC images you see lots of pics Indian birds - with two images of near identical birds with light bills - one marked parkini one marked indicus both taken in exactly the same place - during the winter at Kutch in N India - but maybe the lighter non-breeding bill is one of the field marks of partini.
http://orientalbirdimages.org/search.php?action=searchresult&Bird_ID=2108&Bird_Image_ID=37809&Bird_Family_ID=&p=2
I'm afraid there doesn't seem to be such authoritative images of the parkini race - as the KZ pics of bactrianus.

Parkini or bactrainus - our birds certainly ain't your normal - London Sparrow domesticus. Which makes me think that the bird Mike saw Xinjiang could well have been our good old garbage weavers - domesticus. This race should occur in neighboring Mongolia and Kazakhstan - and so maybe also in Xinjiang - after all it ain't a big tick with most birders so nobody really looks into the races or bothers to note them down.

The other thing is that in my pic - of a few posts back - I think all the birds are of the same race - and that the bird with greyer cheeks is a juv.

Great to see this thread breaking new grounds in science of House/Indian Sparrow distribution in China - far more interesting than all those boring Pheasants, Laughingthrushes, Parrotbills etc etc - we usually gabble on about :-O
 
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Here's a follow-up to that last post - after rooting around on that KZ page - I found they also had a domesticus domesticus page - with pictures of nicely marked light billed males - that don't look a 1000 miles different to our birds!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.birds.kz/Passer%20domesticus/indexe.html
However characteristic points for this race (maybe species if Indian becomes a split) - is that they stick to human habitation and apparently only make local migrations.
 
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Great to see this thread breaking new grounds in science of House/Indian Sparrow distribution in China - far more interesting than all those boring Pheasants, Laughingthrushes, Parrotbills etc etc - we usually gabble on about :-O


So we should try to gather together to form the Far -Eastern House Sparrow research group :-O

It does seem like lack of interest from the assumption that all house sparrows are the same, certainly by me, and therefore lack of clear guidelines may have resulted in some not so careful identifications. I looked through the OBC a fair amount the other day, seeing the parkini and indicus (sp???) as well as unlabeled and domesticus. I wasn't looking at bill color as an obvious difference at the time.

By the way, Brazil only mentions domesticus - but he's not really looking at the west, just mentions them in Siberia and Japan.

Can races be decided on habitat? (Though I look at the taxonomy forum occasionally - I still don't understand much.)

PS Mike - what's Cheng?
 
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I'm afraid I'm a traitor to the cause of Sparrow research - today we're heading off in the direction of Lao jun Shan - Sichuan Hill Partridge country - but you never know some unknown ssp. of Passer domesticus could be lurking in the bamboo (I don't think ;) ).

As for splitting - without DNA evidence - it goes on size and plumage difference, call differences, habit and habitat differences - and a really good paper that gets accepted by the powers who write books and make up check-lists.
OBC seem pretty hard on splits - on their checklist they don't accept some of the splits that are found on others. The most liberal checklists of course come from the birding tour operators - more ticks for your money. They may jump at the chance of being able to make two species out of House Sparrow and Indian Sparrow.
 
Cheng is a mis-speling of Zheng - Zheng Zuo xin was the grandfather of Chinese ornithology who wrote a book called the Economic Significance of Birds, which persuaded Mao's governemnt to stop killing birds in the four pests campaign.

He is also important for writing "A Synopsis of the Avifauna of China" which is the gigantic foundational work on distribution and taxonomy of all China's birds. He gives distribution of races as well as species.

Well worthwhile obtaining but its a pretty big book

Cheers
Mike
 
Mike, thanks - I thought it sounded vaguely familiar. I see I had read about it in MacKinnon. Do you have the English version then, and did you get it in China (HK)? (I guess its a Chinese publisher?)

Cheers,
Gretchen
 
I bought mine in 1990 when I was a student in Beijing.

The only other time I saw it was in a cloth cover by a German scientific publisher Paul Parey for more than £100 in the UK.

Sorry not to be of more help.

Cheers
Mike
 
Hi Jollydragon - nice to see you enjoying the threads.

We've just come back from a trip that has included South Sichuan and Northern Yunnan.
The main purpose of this trip was to check the accessibility of the best known Sichuan Hill Partridge site - Laojunshan Nature Reserve.
This Partridge has been listed as one of the world's most threatened gamebirds, its only known present distribution being restricted to a small bamboo dense area of primary forest that's found in a mountainous area around the Sichuan, Yunnan border.
Although Laojunshan is a nature reserve area - its pretty open - there are several paths that lead into the primary forest that can be explored by a track that leads along the ridge of the low 2000m mountain. It's on these paths that most Chinese tourist get up to this area - so we followed suite.
Getting up by this method means a very steep and slippery climb - especially for an old-codger like me who's carrying a big backpack. As always with these ill-repaired mossy stone stairway tracks - going up is one thing - while going down can be......well I best not swear on birdforum.
On the top is a simple stone Farmhouse and temple - here you can get a bed and food - hardly 5 star - but far more fun than Chengdu Hilton.
We ended up paying 200RMB for my entrance ticket while Meggie as a Chinese national paid 100RMB - while our accommodation and food was very cheap - 20RMB/person/bed and 10RMb/meal/person.
However - if you want to do this one properly you have to get a permit that's obtained through the Forestry Bureau in Chengdu - and them I'm afraid costs are far higher. 200 admission + a compulsory guide at 100RMB/day + 100RMB/day for accommodation + 100RMB/day for food. To put these prices in perspective - the old couple who live on the top - and are the on-site protection employees are paid a right royal 150RMB/month salary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But the one big advantage of taking this guided route is that you go to the top via a far gentler path - having a far shorter length of steep and difficult track.
Lets hope all that extra revenue is put into habitat protection - saving the Partridge from encroaching tea-plantations that are creeping up the mountain and the tree felling and bamboo harvesting that have boomed after the provincial logging moratorium - something that had lasted 10 years - was lifted last year.
And birds and seeing that partridge - it was dead hard going - one of those times Sichuan hits you as bird-dead. Out of the three of of us I was the only one who didn't see the Partridge - although we heard its characteristic call all over the mountain top. The other bird we wanted - Gold-fronted Fulvetta - plain refused to show up. Of course the habitat of dense primary forest which rests in a bottom layer of impenetrable bamboo has something to do with this. You can hear the birds in there - you can call them in to almost nose scratching distance - but inside that protective barrier of a bamboo curtain - well its a story of shadowy shapes that may just reveal themselves for a split second. These areas are far easier during the breeding season when calls get then to show - or mid-winter when species often travel about in mixed flocks.
Between the three of us the final list actually wasn't that bad, and included - Red-winged and Rusty Laughers - Bay and Darjeeling Woodpeckers - Long-tailed Thrush - but nothing that spectacular apart from very brief glimpses of Partridge that the other two got.
The only decent pic we made was of female Temminck's Tragopan - but that pic is rather special - a female who decided to sit tight in a tree.
And the pics - well that Tragopan - and the the endless steps that led us to summit - and the ridge path, about 4km of bamboo/forest birding habitat where you have a chance to see the Hill Partridge.
 

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Sounds like it was not easy birding, but the sense of exploration does seem fun.

I'm wondering about the mandatory guide. Do you think this is someone who knows a fair amount about the local flora and fauna (I assume not just birds), or is the requirement more to make sure that one is accompanied and doesn't do any illegal (harmful to the environment) activities? Is this fairly common practice?
 
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