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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mjgrunwell" data-source="post: 3288073" data-attributes="member: 89962">Birding the Jiangsu coastFirstly, welcome starburst! Yes there are a lot of birds out there, you have just got to get out to the coast to see them!Saturday 26 September we worked Yangshan island hard with not a lot of return. Best birds were dollarbird, grey nightjar, usual warblers and flycatchers. Back on the mainland the highlight was 200+ oriental pratincole around Dongtan, many seemed to clinging onto the last scrap of land as their habitat was being utterly destroyed around them, really depressing.On Sunday travelled up to the Jiangsu coast with Craig and Elaine, Sunday  at Yangkou then all day Monday at Dongtai coast, Tuesday morning at Yangkou then back early before the rain came.The wind on Sunday and Monday was a brisk north-easterly, by Tuesday morning it had swung round to south of east. It was clear that if you want migrants at Yangkou you need a northerly! Almost nothing of note on Tuesday morning compared to a constant stream of new arrivals on Sunday.Highlights Jiangsu coast, 27-29 Sep 2015 D = Dongtai coast, YT = Yangkou templeBlack swan, one on the coast at D, origin suspect(CT) Black-necked grebe, one with dabchick on a coastal pool at DDalmatian pelican, 2 on sea at DHuge numbers of waders at Dongtai, best were 8+ Far eastern curlew, many grey plover, few great knot.Nordmann’s greenshank. Huge numbers congregate at Dongtai in mid September, their numbers building up through September. At high tide they roost inland then just after the mud is exposed they flock up and roost for another hour around the point marked. I walked out onto the mud on Monday afternoon, stood in one place and panned through about 160 degrees over 20 minutes, counting the mostly sleeping birds, mixed in with grey plover and other species.  Not looking too far out, only counting reasonably close birds I counted 718 Nordmann’s! World population is surmised to be around 2000 so we are looking at around a third of the entire world population within 800m of a single point on the mudflats. Numbers may peak in early October, more counts required. If you want to see this species then you need to get them on their post-high tide roosting as 10 minutes after I finished my count the entire mixed flock upped for the rich feeding grounds way out. We never saw any Nordmann’s at any other time, all other greenshank seen along the coast were common. I guess they feed together way out at the water’s edge.(CT) Woodcock, one tired migrant dropped in by the seawall at DGulls : Hundreds of Saunders’s gull along the coast. A few black-tailed and assorted other white-headed gulls which will need more research.(WT) Northern boobok, one found in the lighthouse copse at the temple on Sunday morning. This or another in the main temple forest on Tuesday morning. A cracking bird, recently split off from the brown hawk owl of south and SE Asia.Grey-headed woodpecker, one near the coast at DBull-headed shrike, a total of 3 birds seenGrey-backed thrush, the first of the Autumn on Sunday at YangkouSibe thrush, 2 at YTWT rock thrush, 5+ seenYB bunting, the first few arriving.Unsettled wet weather for the next few days, maybe try to get out to Nanhui after the rain has moved through.Oh, did I mention that where I saw a third of the world's population of Nordmann's greenshank the plan is to enclose and destroy the entire stretch of mudflats? Yeah, great plan boys! Not a clue.</blockquote>

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