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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FXM" data-source="post: 1640722" data-attributes="member: 48286">Hi Martin,Good to hear from you. Last saw you in Filey, Cobble Landing one or two years ago. Before that you jointly led the Sunbird trip I was on to Beidaihe with GR in 1999. Great trip."We'd thought the air dirty in late 80s - mountains could be lost in murk on some days..."Interesting that it's been poor for so long and probably before that late 80s also. Can't be doing peoples lungs much good."... heading someplace to look for resting cranes etc. Of course, Qilihai to south is good. But Tian Ma Hu - Heaven Horse Lake, or Pegasus Lake, to west of town could be well worth a go."Have just arranged to visit Tian Ma Hu on my last day unless the weather changes. Going to give Qilihai a try tomorrow morning but it was incredibly dry when I was there in June this year. "I've suggested a Crane and Stork Festival for next autumn; Mark interested, and Jean Wang to mention to local govt. Could interest some of the growing band of bird photographers in and around Beidaihe - tho of course, need cranes too! Seems it could be hard to pick optimum dates."Been hearing about the proposed festival from Jean and Mark mentioned it also. Great idea. Hope it all works out and with luck I'll be there. There's sure to be a feenzy of photographers. I've been on Happy Island until the last week in October on several occasions and cranes are obviously moving at that time. They use the mudflats there as a staging post. Although 'early' Sibes are seen passing over in very low numbers I have not seen one myself during that period. The optimum period, in my humble opinion, should not be prior to the last week in October based on my observations. Perhaps 23rd October onwards but then it might need to extend to at least 14th November."Almost lucky for the Sibes they haven't gone by in numbers, as I've seen photo of Poyang with large expanse of dried, cracked mud."The Sibes have gone from Shen Yang so presumably they went through during the period of dreadful conditions at Beidaihe though what route they took is anyones guess. Sounds like bad news at Poyang. There are more than 2000 Sibes at Mo He to the north of Shen Yang. The excellent feeding/restings grounds that have been provided have begun to freeze so they are on their way to Shen Yang. Poyang had better get some rain soon. It was trying hard today so they might be lucky.More later.Frank__________________</blockquote>

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