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

Sichuan Birding (2 Viewers)

Thank you Jeff, that's my best photo of the Monal and the closest view of a male one ! Had a closest view of a female one in 2014, because the female was worrying it's baby, waiting on the roadside for long time until the baby flew down form the other side of road to her.
 
Hi Summer!
Great Pictures, indeed! How did you get so close to the Monal - with all the photographers around? At least one of them always makes some noise...
I also attached a picture, too cute not to share!
Cheers
Roland

Hi Roland, we spot it on the slope, so I climbed up getting closer to it slowly, later it noticed me, but it was not afraid of me and walking towards me ! getting to close to my camera sometimes...
 
I will be visiting Chengdu with friends and family next week (1st to 10th Sep) and I hope to slip off for a couple of days of birding at Longcanggou. From what I have been able to find on the internet, it is pretty hard to do on your own. Can anyone offer any advice on how to get there and where to stay. I need to keep the costs down, but I am prepared to pay for private transport if I have to. Many hotels do not accept foreigners, so it would help to have a recommendation. It seems that some people stay in Yingjing. Are there any local guides in Chengdu that can do it for a reasonable cost (say, a few thousand RMB?). Any help or suggestions appreciated.
Thanks

Tom

EDIT: I have contacted Birdforum member and bird guide Summer Wong, and have arranged my trip.
 
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That's a cracking list Sid!

Graham Speight was was one of the very first western birders to cover Sichuan in the modern era. His report is a classic and a rare source of guidance when I visited around Chinese New Year in 1991.

Cheers
Mike
 
Temminck's Tragopan

Hi all, I wonder what the 2016 update is for this species - I'm told most sightings were on the bends below Balang Shan with some sightings at Longcanggou. Are there any tame ones (still) at Labahe? Is there any access? Having missed it a few years ago (flight views of female, good views of a chick!), I'd like to go back in the near future.

cheers, alan
 
Hi Alan,
were some very tame Tragopan this year - can't remember if it was Andy's or Chris Gooddie's trip where after an evening airport to Balang drive - the very first bird we laid eyes on was a male Temminck's Tragopan.

However things could be a little different for 2017 since the new road to Wolong is open and traffic going over Balang will greatly increase.

Don't know if anyone has birded Labahe yet - so present tragopan situation there is unknown.

At Tangjiahe the situation with getting to the best Tragopan site on the tourist track up Motianling has been made more complicated than the last time you visited - now a barrier on that stretch of road, which, unless you pay a big fee, only opens at 8.00 and you have to go up with the tourist herd.

If you're Thinking of a Pete type twitch - give me a shout - Balang is still probably best place to go - and ZZ (same guy who took Pete) will probably be game to give it a go!!!!

Hi Mike,
some great birders this year - more than just Graham who came in that early period. Guy Kirwan gave lots of great stories about birding China 30 years back - they got Giant Panda at Wolong - in habitat that has now been very degraded by cattle and other domestics!!!!!

Another great birder on last trip was Dave Sargeant -
http://www.norththailandbirding.com/

Another birder with a big China list, I was lucky enough to bird with him in the great company of Richard Carden.
Dave's report over trip can be found here - http://www.norththailandbirding.com/pages/trip_reports/foreign/china_2016.html
Pictures a couple of very desirable birds from that trip -
Gold-fronted Fulvetta from Longcanggou
Brown-winged (Yunnan) Parrotbill from Xichang
 

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Hi Alan
In Longcang Gou I had good luck with the Tragopans this year. So they are still there, but often require a big portion of good luck.
I will check out Labahe this autumn, and hope that their previous stakeout hasn't been altered. I will report on that matter later then.

I am just on my way into Qinghai - and have encountered a Black Fox. What a surprise! The Black is a variation of the Red Fox.
 

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Silver Oriole just found in back mountain of Qingcheng

Just got the latest news from a local bird photographing friend, Luo Yongchuan, he found a pair of Silver Oriole, and managed to get photos of the female.
 

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Hi Alan,

In Longcanggou, all of my 4 groups from May to July got the tragopan, the first group in May was the hardest time to get tragopan, but eventually got a male one on another valley, not the normal one where most birders went to. The other 3 groups just got them easily on the roadside when drove up in the morning. The Lady Amherst's Pheasant usually went out earlier than the tragopan, if start a little bit later instead starting in the dark morning it will be easier to spot tragopan on the roadside when drove up. In early July we got 16 tragopans in 2 days there, most of them are juveniles with adult, usually 1 adult with 2-3 juveniles in one group.

In May, we also got a male tragopan in the tunnel place in Balangshan, where usually the place for the Chinese Monal.

The best place for Tragopan in Labahe was broken, the officer there confirmed will build new road and boardwalk there, guess won't be available in near future.

Tangjiahe is the best place for tragopan where you can get the best chance to see them very closely, as they are just on a tourist place, they get used to people, so not afraid of people, and on the same trail there is a Koklass Pheasant, a very funny one there is like a domestic chicken, it won't move even when you are only 2 meters away from it.

In Mar 2016, I got male and female adults and juvenile there, all very close view and good photos.

But as Sid said since this year, it become quite complicated to go there for birders, and very expensive.
 

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A few more pics from the July/August visit with Sid.
 

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Hi Ron - the pic of the Horned lark is interesting. We found the bird in N Gansu on the southern edge of the Gobi - I reckon the ssp must be brandti

Unfortunately birding was rather sparse in the desert - but we did run into a fascinating, but largely unknown, mammal that has had a major impact on mankind; Great Gerbil. We found a colony - and, as the their name implies, they were a bit of a beast, haring around, digging the dessert for food, sand flying in every direction. However we were lucky in not making closer contact - Black Death plague now blamed on giant gerbils, not rats
Rats, long believed to be the scourge that brought the Black Death to 14th-century Europe, may not be the disease-bearing scoundrels we thought they were. *
Scientists have shifted blame for the medieval pandemic responsible for millions of deaths to a new furry menace: giant gerbils from Asia.

Apparently Xinjiang is currently suffering a catastrophic infestation of this species.

Those Silver Oriole pictures from Qingcheng Shan are very exciting. I live just at the base of these mountains - I just wish I had more time during the peak seasons of May/June to bird the area. The habitat is a combination of maturing secondary forests and small pockets of primary species interspersed with plantation and orchard. Although the area still suffers from clearance for tourist projects and Kiwi fruit production the good mix of ever maturing native species must make this favorable place to find breeding Silver oriole. At the moment we only make brief stops here for Grey-winged Blackbird, which is an easy tick in the Lingyan area of Dujiangyan.
Only an hour and half from Chengdu airport, with lots more interesting birding, good hotels, clean air, Dujiangyan and Qingcheng, makes for an interesting alternative, to Chengdu, as first or last night destinations.

Luckily many areas of the Qincheng Mountains survived the worst of mainstream Chinese plantation policy which came to the fore in the late 90's.
Just the other day I got a mail from Dr Fangyuan Hua of Princeton Uni who both Roland and I have assisted in her Chinese bird surveys, that her paper on biodiversity in Sichuan plantations has now been published. it gives a lot of food for thought!
The press release can be found here -
http://wws.princeton.edu/faculty-research/research/item/opportunities-biodiversity-gains-under-world%E2%80%99s-largest-reforestation

Seeing the Forest for the Trees: World's Largest Reforestation Program Overlooks Wildlife
After years of environmental destruction, China has spent billions of dollars on the world's largest reforestation program, converting a combined area nearly the size of New York and Pennsylvania back to forest.
The government-backed effort, known as the Grain-for-Green Program, has transformed 28 million hectares (69.2 million acres) of cropland and barren scrubland back to forest in an effort to prevent erosion and alleviate rural poverty. While researchers around the world have studied the program, little attention has been paid to understanding how the program has affected biodiversity until now.

New research led by Princeton University and published in the journal Nature Communications finds that China's Grain-for-Green Program overwhelmingly plants monoculture forests and therefore falls dramatically short of restoring the biodiversity of China's native forests, which contain many tree species. In its current form, the program fails to benefit, protect and promote biodiversity.

The full paper can be download from
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160906/ncomms12717/full/ncomms12717.html
However one good conclusion from the project is that it gives an indication of a new emerging generation of Chinese environmentalists, who could guide the country on better and more effective ways of preserving China's incredible natural wealth.
 
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Yeah, there's a shock.

Chinese authorities thinking that planting something that just happens to be colored green is environmentally sound? Sounds about right.

Seems like every mountainside or wetland that has been planted with grass and ornamental trees.
 
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Seems like every mountainside or wetland that has been planted with grass and ornamental trees
The ornamental landscaping is very sad.
Unfortunately, because it makes people money and provides jobs, it isn't going to go away quickly!!!
If they are going to landscape it would be nice if they used native species that would benefit nature - but I'm sure it's a concept far removed from the heads of those managing these projects. Even in protected areas you can find roadside, fauna rich habitat suddenly hacked up and replanted with lawn grass, ornamental trees and garish garden flowers. But as one of my guests once pointed out to me - that's mostly 'our' fault, since it was us who invented the 'cultured status-symbol' of the manicured lawn
 
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