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

China Birding Notes (1 Viewer)

Frogfish said:
Also note Craig, that in addition to the four Varied Tits we documented on Lesser Yangshan Island (and which Dev registered in our names with the Zhejiang Natural History Museum, which has classified the birds, from their condition, as a 'Natural Occurrence') and that you have also now seen, we also photographed one in Nan Hui and another has been documented last month in Hong Kong.
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Hmm . . . very interesting, Frogfish. Very interesting indeed. I was unaware of the record from Nanhui. That's an important record. I'm not sure about the relationship of the bird from Hong Kong and the mystery of the Lesser Yangshan varied tits.

So what do you think, Frogfish? Where do you think the varieds on Lesser Yangshan came from?
 
I've received a report from a birder friend that a varied tit has been found on Poi Toi in Hong Kong. Still awaiting word on the subspecies. In the photo attached here, one of the varied tits on Lesser Yangshan Island prepares to drink from a spigot. With the spigot and the tiny forest behind the garbage dump, the varied tits have a small area that approximates their natural habitat.
 

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thrush said:
Hmm . . . very interesting, Frogfish. Very interesting indeed. I was unaware of the record from Nanhui. That's an important record. I'm not sure about the relationship of the bird from Hong Kong and the mystery of the Lesser Yangshan varied tits.

So what do you think, Frogfish? Where do you think the varieds on Lesser Yangshan came from?
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Well since the Zhejiang museum believes there to be no signs of being caged (and I think Mark felt the same if I'm not mistaken) then I'm wondering if perhaps the storms/typhoons we had a few weeks ago could have blown the birds off course ? it's a long way but there may have been other birds that didn't make it. A wild guess because otherwise I have no idea !
 
A varied tit feeds on a branch on Lesser Yangshan Island on Sunday. In a previous post, I said that the varied tits on Lesser Yangshan are "probably not" fully wild birds. I was leaning toward the theory that the varieds escaped or were set free. I am now reconsidering that proposition. There are now reports of varied tits being found in Hong Kong, Nanhui (Shanghai), Nantong (Jiangsu), and Shandong.

If it turns out that the varied tits currently along the Chinese coast are indeed wild, then the status of the disjunct population in Nanling National Forest Park in Guangdong may become clearer. For if varied tits can be found naturally as far south as Hong Kong, then it's perfectly possible that a group of them established themselves in Guangdong, and are not ferals.
 

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A varied tit poses ever so briefly during yet another high-energy forage in a small forest on Lesser Yangshan Island. It's unclear whether the varied tits on Lesser Yangshan escaped from a cage or were blown across the sea by the recent typhoon. One thing is certain: The varied tits we observed were acting every bit like typical wild tits, being full of energy and making all the acrobatic twists for which the family is famous.
 

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MKinHK said:
The Hkbws website has an interesting posting from Korea stating that numbers of Varied Tits have been seen migrating , and there is more evidence from Japan. Go to

http://www.hkbws.org.hk/BBS/redirect.php?tid=16952&goto=lastpost#lastpost

Mike
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MKinHK, thank you for the link. I just read the posts. I'm thinking more and more that the birds on Lesser Yangshan may be wild. If so, wow! Congratulations to the birders who have been finding the varieds along the coast of China; and thanks to forums like this one, where information can quickly be shared and conclusions drawn. All signs are pointing to at least some of the varieds being part of a westward irruption. If this is the case, then perhaps the disjunct population in Guangdong is a remnant of an earlier irruption.
 
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Cross-post.

I was on Yangshan yesterday and the population has to be at least 8-10 Varieds. Whilst a group of Chinese birders were photographing a few Varieds outside the dwellings I went up the paths and found 3-4 more up one path and then another 3 up the other path ! So unless they are following me around that should put the figure in double figures and indicate that a small migration of these birds is underway.

On a side note this influx of photographers has trashed the area where we found the birds about a month ago. There is rubbish everywhere (much more than usual), the undergrowth has been trampled and removed (in one patch covering an area of around 10-15m2, a local I spoke to agreed with my observation/memory) and branches and in some cases small trees have been snapped off or uprooted. It is disgusting.
At least it seems most are happy to come, spend an hour getting their shots, and then leave without exploring the pathways to either side of the patch. One of a group of four, literally pushed past me and set-up 3 or 4 yards closer with his 800mm when they arrived after I was set-up ! They are coming from up to 5 hours drive away.
 
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Frogfish said:
Cross-post.

I was on Yangshan yesterday and the population has to be at least 8-10 Varieds. Whilst a group of Chinese birders were photographing a few Varieds outside the dwellings I went up the paths and found 3-4 more up one path and then another 3 up the other path ! So unless they are following me around that should put the figure in double figures and indicate that a small migration of these birds is underway.

On a side note this influx of photographers has trashed the area where we found the birds about a month ago. There is rubbish everywhere (much more than usual), the undergrowth has been trampled and removed (in one patch covering an area of around 10-15m2, a local I spoke to agreed with my observation/memory) and branches and in some cases small trees have been snapped off or uprooted. It is disgusting.
At least it seems most are happy to come, spend an hour getting their shots, and then leave without exploring the pathways to either side of the patch. One of a group of four, literally pushed past me and set-up 3 or 4 yards closer with his 800mm when they arrived after I was set-up ! They are coming from up to 5 hours drive away.
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The thing about forums like this is that, thanks to them, information flows quickly. That's good and bad. The good thing is, a clearer picture is emerging of the varied tits on Lesser Yangshan and along the Chinese coast. They very likely migrated here. The bad thing is, everyone knows about the varieds now and wants to go to Lesser Yangshan to get a look. Trashing the wooded area may or may not be influencing the tough little tits, which probably were blown 500 km across the sea; but it is definitely callous.
 
thrush said:
The thing about forums like this is that, thanks to them, information flows quickly. That's good and bad. The good thing is, a clearer picture is emerging of the varied tits on Lesser Yangshan and along the Chinese coast. They very likely migrated here. The bad thing is, everyone knows about the varieds now and wants to go to Lesser Yangshan to get a look. Trashing the wooded area may or may not be influencing the tough little tits, which probably were blown 500 km across the sea; but it is definitely callous.
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Quite agree Craig. The worst thing is that this is also someone's home as the occupied dwellings indicate - and they are lovely people, they recognise me now and wave or come and chat as yesterday - the old lady even brought Mark and I tea one day. People really should be more respectful.

It seems these Varieds are everywhere from ROK through Qingdao and down the coast to the Shanghai region now. And if more are arriving as seems to be the case, then this is an unusual irruptive migration (and a long one at that for these little homely birds).
 
Frogfish said:
Quite agree Craig. The worst thing is that this is also someone's home as the occupied dwellings indicate - and they are lovely people, they recognise me now and wave or come and chat as yesterday - the old lady even brought Mark and I tea one day. People really should be more respectful.

It seems these Varieds are everywhere from ROK through Qingdao and down the coast to the Shanghai region now. And if more are arriving as seems to be the case, then this is an unusual irruptive migration (and a long one at that for these little homely birds).
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Frogfish, congratulations once again to you and Mark for being the first to find the varieds on Lesser Yangshan.
 
On Tuesday, the highlight of my non-birder friend's day was seeing this hoopoe raise its crest. How delightful it was for me to explain basic taxonomy to my friend. I told her, "The hoopoe isn't just sui generis, it's sui familis." Get it?
 

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On Tuesday, an afternoon's birding at Century Park in Shanghai was rewarded with some amazing moments with a rufous-tailed robin (红尾歌鸲, hóngwěi gēqú, Luscinia sibilans). The shy little bird emerged from some thick bushes near an artificial stream. I dropped to my knees and started shooting. The robin was venturing out onto the grass from the cover of the bushes, foraging vigorously. The bird appeared healthy and was not disturbed by my work; in fact, the bird seemed accustomed to the humans passing close by. In this image, the robin approached to just 5.3 m of me. The rufous-tailed robin breeds in Siberia and passes through Shanghai on its way to its winter range in southeastern China and Southeast Asia.
 

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I photographed this pipit on 15 September at Yangkou. I'm calling it a Richard's pipit, juvenile molting into first-winter plumage. Note the "retained secondary coverts and tertials with narrow, clear-cut, whitish tips" (Alström and Mild, "Pipits & Wagtails"). The trouble is, Alström and Mild say the exact same thing about the Blyth's pipit. Knowing the closeness of a Richard's to a Blyth's, and mindful that at Yangkou one is more likely to encounter a bird far out of range (which would be the case with the Blyth's), I did my best to maneuver my car into a better position for a close shot. To no avail; the bird flew off, but not before I got this image. Note that although it's hard to say whether this pipit has the characteristic long hindclaw of a Richard's, we do nonetheless see the "strong bill with decurved tip to culmen." What do you think? Any chance that this is really a Blyth's?
 

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On the photo, I've marked the main reasons why I consider this bird to be a greater sand plover. The main differentiator from the lesser sand plover is the length and structure of the bill. The white fringing of the feathers on the upperparts tells us that this bird is a juvenile. The green in the background is from the non-native spartina grass that clutters many of the mudflats at Yangkou, Jiangsu. I took the photo on 15 September.
 

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