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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jeff Hopkins" data-source="post: 3021339" data-attributes="member: 44242">Day 3 – June 26, 2014The day dawned grey and cloudy, supposedly a good omen for chicken hunting, but it was very windy.  I heard a few things singing and found a few white wagtails including a fledgeling around the cabins, but that was about it.  At 5:30 we started the first of our many runs down and then back up the mountain.The first bird we heard well was a pygmy cupwing.  I tried with a tape to coax him into a spot where I could see him, but no matter how I tried and where I moved, he stayed hidden.  After about a half-hour of trying we gave up.  A little further down we heard a white-necklaced partridge, and while we were trying to see him, Forest found a female chestnut bellied rock-thrush.  As we turned our attention back to the partridge, Forest excitedly whispered “Tragopan! Tragopan!”  There, no further than 3 meters from us was a male Cabot’s tragopan*, slowly walking along the rocks!  We watched him until he walked out of sight, and celebrated our good luck.We continued downhill finding a “bird wave” which consisted of yellow-cheeked tits*, Indochinese yuhinas*, a lone fire-breasted flowerpecker, and a few gray-chinned minivets.  Forest commented that the song of the yuhina in Chinese was “Shi shei?” (Who’s there?)  Further down we found a gorgeous male chestnut bellied rock-thrush and heard a bay woodpecker.  As we progressed down, Huet’s fulvettas were common along with more yuhinas and tits, one of which was a sultan tit, a bird which got Forest excited.  But with no more pheasants seen, we made it down to about the 7 km point where we did a U-turn and headed back up.  On the way back up we found our first black-chinned yuhina*.  Forest would stop at every stream to listen for forktails.  Eventually we found our first of several white-crowned forktails along the road.  They were the most common of the forktails on the mountain.  We also had a couple blue magpies and gray treepies.  They must have been on territory because we found them at the same place every day.Forest had arranged for someone to bring up a jerry-can of gas, so while he gassed up, I took a quick walk along the boardwalk at the top of the mountain.  Unfortunately there was nothing to see – probably too much construction.  So we headed back down, hoping for chickens, and stopping when we heard something interesting, although often any strange sound we heard turned out to be a black bulbul – both the black-headed and white headed versions were present there.  We also had an orange-bellied leafbird flying away from us – better view desired – and heard a calling Chinese bamboo partridge.It was now lunch time, so we went to a small restaurant in the town of Xinqiaoxiang (New Bridge Town) at the bottom of the mountain.  In town we had some of the common lowland species – light-vented bulbul, Eurasian tree-sparrow, collared finchbill, crested mynah, and barn swallow. We stocked up on snacks and drinks and headed back up the mountain.This time we spotted a soaring crested serpent-eagle, and while watching that, I spotted a swift among the barn swallows.  It was probably a pacific swift.  Further up we heard a familiar song which forest said was lesser cuckoo – an uncommon bird for the area.  We tried several times to coax him into view, but he would just move away.  Then a second cuckoo started calling. But neither would come out.  Forest said he was playing us.  While trying for the cuckoos, a great barbet*started calling.  This guy was more responsive and flew over the road several times.As we continued up, a forktail was calling at a stream crossing.  I walked a little way up a path along the stream and saw a long-tailed, immature brown-headed forktail before it flew off.  I had to check online, since the field guides don’t show immatures, but eventually decided it was an immature spotted forktail*.  After that, we headed back to the lodge to let Forest take a break from all the driving.I walked down to the locked gate at the end of the road, decided not to climb through the barbed wire fence, but found a path that led up through the woods beside it.  There I found another mixed flock of tits, mostly yellow-cheeked with a black-throated tit mixed in, and a couple of Huet’s fulvettas.  The path eventually came to an open meadow where I heard another white-necklaced partridge calling.  But it was getting late, and the bird was far off, so I headed back to the cabins for a rest.Another quick run down the mountain took us to the restaurant in Xinqiaoxiang.  I was able to check the internet there where I found out some details about the road heading north from Xinqiaoxiang to the Jiangxi border.  Then we drove back up in the dark seeing plenty of toads and a greater green snake on the road to find a beautiful starry sky waiting for us at the lodge.Bird of the day:  Cabot’s Tragopan Day 4 – June 27, 2014Another gray, cloudy, windy morning with only the white wagtails singing around the lodge.  However, the pygmy cupwing had been replaced by a spotted-wren babbler*.  This guy was more responsive and eventually perched where I could see him.  We spent a little more time this morning walking along the road – I think Forest was getting tired from driving so much.  One stop produced a flock of tits followed by a huge flock of minivets.  They were mostly gray-chins, but there were a few scarlet minivets mixed in.  While watching them, they were joined by a chestnut bulbul.  After a couple more runs up and down, and several walks down some logging trails, we’d added a bay woodpecker* to the “seen” list, and a grey-sided scimitar-babbler to the “heard” list, but still no more chickens.  I began to think that June was just a bad time for chicken-spotting, but Forest assured me they were there.  Eventually we ended up in Xinqiaoxiang for lunch, at which point Forest and I agreed that we’d explore the road north of Xinqiaoxiang to the Jiangxi border, just to see what we might find.  As it turned out, the species there are quite different than those on the Emeifeng road.  The first surprise was a blue-throated bee-eater on the wires at Shuibu reservoir and then a second further along the shore.  We found a white-crowned forktail foraging in the drainage ditch on the side of the road and while watching him, heard a Chinese hwamei.  The inlet stream to the reservoir held a pair of plumbeous water-redstarts.  A small town along the road had a red-rumped swallow building a nest on the front of a house and we even found a Japanese tit in the tress along the road.We picked out a likely spot for pheasants along the way, but decided to go straight to the top, although we noted even more bee-eaters on the wires along the way.  We arrived at the top of the ridge where the pavement ended to find a black eagle soaring right at eye level on the far side of the ridge, but it disappeared before we could get out to look at it better.  Forest then bravely drove down the dirt road a bit until we reached a point that was unpassable and we turned around and headed back down the paved road.We walked a bit down one of the side roads near the top (also paved) and turned up a couple of rufous-capped babblers and more bee-eaters.  Then we came back to the car just as it began to pour.  This prevented us from getting out and looking for pheasants, so we simply headed back to Xinqiaoxiang and back up to Emeifeng.  On the way up, we had a good look at a great barbet* and heard the lesser cuckoos again (still playing us!).  A noisy bird turned out to be a mountain bulbul, but besides those, the climb was uneventful until we got to the top where we found a female orange-bellied leafbird* perched on the roof of the lodge’s main building.  And during our afternoon siesta, I may have heard a Hartert’s leaf-warbler, but couldn’t bring him in to confirm.At about 5 PM we headed back down the road for one last pass.  This turned out to be a lucky choice because we had another Cabot’s tragopan shoot across the road a few kilometers down from the top.  About halfway down we found a flock of greater necklaced laughingthrushes*.  After a quick U-turn we headed back to the lodge for a quick dinner.  As we walked to the dining room, Forest pointed out the call of a buffy laughingthrush.  But while we were eating, a major thunderstorm rolled in, so we called it an early night.Bird of the day:  Black eagle</blockquote>

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