Nov-10-2015
Weather up here has been nasty since Thursday of last week with three days of rain, sleet, ice, followed by snow and all with gale force winds. Yesterday was reasonable outside, but big sheets of ice were coming off the high rises, making just being outside hazardous. I decided it was a good time to just stay inside since I don't have to get out any more. My wife runs one of the evening line dance groups for the neighborhood and even she decided it was too bad to be out. As anyone living in China knows, almost nothing cancels out those sessions.
Today was considerably better and hoping for a fall of some new migrants, I made a trip around the areas with habitat in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, not a lot in evidence. Seems to more have chased away what was here. Sparse pickings, but a couple of nice finds.
About 15 minutes into walking thru the park areas I had absolutely nothing. Not a bird in evidence. I was about ready to give it up when a flock of something unusual flew over. Tracking them down I turned up
11 Hawfinch. First I have seen so that alone made the trip out worthwhile.
That was encouraging so I trekked on. For the next three kilometers, or so, I had nothing more than
one Eurasian Kestrel terrorizing a pigeon coup by perching about 50 meters away on the top of a high rise and obviously eyeing the pigeons and
10 Tree Sparrows. Not so encouraging and the late afternoon light was failing fast so I headed back home.
Just at the last 50 meters before being out of the birding area I heard a call that I was not familiar with and stopping to determine where it was coming from I spotted
two Great Spotted Woodpeckers flying off from a large, partially dead tree where I have seen them before. Then I noticed movement and ended up watching
three Grey-Headed Woodpeckers and two more Great-Spotted Woodpeckers arguing over who had rights to the tree. They were playing King of the Hill using the flat stump at the top where the tree had been topped. The same tree had
6 Coal Tit scolding away and I am fairly sure there was a
Tree Creeper also but I was too far away and too interested in the woodpeckers antics to verify that for certain. Finally topped it off with the usual flock of
19 Azure-winged Magpie which hang out in that area.
The pictures look better in the original format so if anyone wants a better look they will be up for a while at:
https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B085Uzl7Vdwbwj