Thursday, 13th May
Hebei, Happy Island
I planned to leave the island at 9.30am, and get back to Beidaihe by 2pm to catch the train to Beijing, so I was determined to make the most of the little time that remained.
I made an even earlier start than yesterday - out at 4am and, following a brisk 30 minute walk, I was in the Temple Woods - the scene of most of yesterday's action.
Even in the half-light it was clear that there were still lots of birds there. There were several Siberian Blue Robins, including the first female of the year ("only" males yesterday... c20 of them!), c30 Eye-browed Thrushes, a White's Thrush and a flighty (aren't they all) Siberian Thrush - a female.
Yesterday I had struggled to get any kind of shot of Daurian Starling, so I was pleased to find one perched on the top of a bush. The only problem was it was about 5am and what little light there was, was directly behind it. Any adjustment more than 2 stops is destined to fail, so I put the camera down and picked the binoculars up instead.
On to West Wood, where I had found a tame Claudia's Warbler yesterday. On the way there, I saw the first of two Chinese Song Thrushes I would see that morning. I also accidently flushed an Indian Nightjar (failing to get my camera on it as it flew off).
The West Woods held several male Siberian Rubythroats (new in today), 3 Yellow-browed Buntings and a White's Thrush.
I then saw something just above the skyline flying towards me. My first thoughts were "Woodcock". I easily managed to put my lens on it as the bird flew level and straight for more than 200 yards - not very Woodcock like with the benefit of hindsight. Through the viewfinder, though, the heaviness of the bird did nothing to persuade me that it wasn't a Woodcock. Funnily enough I don't carry my reading glasses with me when I'm birding, so it was difficult to see any detail when reviewing the images.
After looking at the shots on the computer later that day, I felt sure that the bird was, in fact, a Swinhoe's Snipe (336) As well as its heavy build and "barrel-chestedness" (vis a vis Pin-tailed), and its straight flight, it was also flying low over an extensive area of dry grassland. I won't mention the plumage differences that I think support the identification (as per Brazil) because I am aware that the general consensus is that Swinhoe's is impossible to identify on plumage characteristics alone.
Interestingly, my only other claimed Swinhoe's was 8 years ago to the day, in exactly the same place on Happy Island!
Shortly after this encounter, a friend who was also birding the woods told me that his group had just found an Asian Stubtail. Although tempted (I haven't seen this species in more than three years), I decided to stick to my self-found mantra and ignored the bird.
But I couldn't ignore what I saw fly out of the bushes as I was talking to the group of birders... a small owl. Then another. And another. And yet another. There were owls seemingly everywhere (one person said there were "8", another "10". I'll stick to "several"). But several of what? Collared Scops Owl, although rare, is theoretically possible (although a flock of them would be unprecedented). They were of course Oriental Scops Owls (337). I don't use the word amazing very often, but I can't think of any other word to describe the experience of seeing several Oriental Scops flying around an area only slightly bigger than a postage stamp.
As I was walking to the boat, the sight of a starling flying into a bush just in front of me, stopped me in my tracks. After a few minutes, two Daurian Starlings (338) hopped in to view. The sun, which had been shining brightly for the past two days, bathed them in beautiful light. Amazing!
BTW Little Tern (339)