BirdForum is the net's largest birding community dedicated to wild birds and birding, and is absolutely FREE!

Register for an account to take part in lively discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="mjgrunwell" data-source="post: 3282908" data-attributes="member: 89962">Weekend birding the coast to the northThanks to all contributors, very busy recently, little time to write. I did visit the heron site, lots of information but rather shaky taxonomy with a split on great egret and no mention of western reef.Last weekend I had the whole time birding away with Craig and Elaine. We first visited Chongming, driving the seawall and checking the extensive bushes, the highlight here was a flyby male Siberian thrush. We then drove up to the coast east of Dongtai. In my view the 15km stretch of open seawall affords some of the best wader watching in China. Highlights were close views of red and great knot. We stayed overnight in the plush but cheap Tea Tree Inn in Jianggangzhen (see map).At dawn on Sunday we drove down to Yangkou and spent time looking for migrants around the temple. The best birds were at least 6 siberian thrush, some giving superb views.We decided to head back up to Dongtai to look for waders again, in particular we wanted views of asiatic dowitcher. We had no luck with dowitchers, it does seem this is a very scarce and local bird, the best known site is in spring on the Jiangsu/Shangdong border. Just as we were leaving on Sunday afternoon we met the SBS task force team on a recce, they confirmed what the large posters were proclaiming: every inch of the mudflats we were working were planned for enclosure and destruction over the next few years! Not good.Best birds of trip to Chongming and Dongtai, Sat/Sun 12/13 September 2015BF spoonbill, 5 at Dongtai mudflats, distant, one with a south Korean colour ringOystercatcher, 20+Grey plover, 200+(CT) red knot, 28+Great knot, 25+Sharp-tailed sand, 10+Broad-billed sand, 30+Oriental pratincole, 5+Saunders’s gull, common on the mudflats, 200+Several distant large white-headed gulls included heuglins (LBB), Mongolian-type, Vega-type and a few black-tailed.Gull billed tern, 50+White-winged tern, very common, 800+Many cuckoo sp, probably mostly lesser.Himalayan swiftlet, excellent views of two around the temple at YangkouVarious phyllosc, pale-legged type, several arctic-type (we tried playing Kamchatka and Artic to see if we got a response; something when we played Arctic. A few eastern-crowned and YBReed parrotbill, two noisy and easy-to-see flocks totaling 20+ at Chongming(CT) Siberian thrush, 6+ males, 2 females. What a cracker! My best-ever viewsBlue rock thrush, 2+philippensisBrown flycatcher common also had views of grey-streaked, dark-sided, yellow rumped, taiga and B+W flycatcherEastern yellow wag, 100+Richards pipit, 20+Chinese grosbeak, 2Craig also spotted meadow bunting on the sea wall at Yangkou, by far my biggest bogey bird, but it eluded me again.Out again tomorrow, Saturday</blockquote>

Verification