Trip Report - Tengchong & Gaoligongshan, Yunnan, China.
Baoligongshan - Tengchong
Weather : Sack the weather forecaster ! My lovely sunny weather for the whole week was sadly amiss with rain at least part of every day (usually the afternoons) at Gaoligongshan. Tengchong was good on both days bar one short shower hardly worthy of the name.
Transport : Taxi costs are generally noted below, by far the most expensive is the 600rmb each way (Tengchong to Baihualin) for a private car (I had been quoted as high as 800-900rmb so make sure you ask around and negotiate).
Accommodation : See below. In Tengchong it was way above expectations and I thoroughly recommend the hotel I used, everybody was really helpful and friendly. In the Baihualin, at the 'inn' it was again above expectations for 100rmb per night. However do note that the other guests are loud and drinking goes on usually until around 22.00 but one night it stretched to midnight.
Tips
1. Bring a copy MacKinnons Birds of China - in Chinese ! If you don't live in China then get someone to buy a copy for you because your local Bird Guides won't speak English and the book is worth it's weight in gold. Robson's is also indispensible for this area (but without range maps it is very tiresome to go through each species and guess from the explanations if this area is covered) however I found species missing from, or at least discrepancies in, both books and if you can manage the weight (and cost) or get pdf versions then both used in conjunction is best. If you have to buy only one then let it be Robson's.
2. Pretty much any beer in China is good (so says someone who is as far from a beer connoisseur as you can get) ! Beer at Mr. Hou's is 3rmb per 610ml bottle of Dali Beer.
3. Please note that 'Hide Etiquette' is somewhat different than some people may be used to in those in more 'Bird & Birding Aware' countries. Mobile phones ringing, loud conversations on said phones, smoking, loud conversation in general, rubbish discarded on the floor, and my favourite, listening to music on their mobile phones whilst waiting ! That said the birds seen from the hides are still generally excellent to amazing.
4. I found the guides to be excellent but please don't expect them to know every call and even every bird. They are self-educated via experience and inter-action with guests.
5. Don't expect everything to be perfect or run as professionally as you may want or as you may be used to, go with the flow and don't stress it. However please do note that this business is very important to the village and may prevent more dubious practices leading to damage to both the mountain and the bird population. My guide has 2 brothers and 3 sisters and all are involved in the business in one way or another (e.g. working in the kitchen at the inn, the brothers all run Hides etc.) !
6. Leave at least 2 hours between connecting flights ! See notes in the text below.
Successes
1. Mrs. Gould's and Fire-tailed completed my set of Chinese Sunbirds.
2. Ticked 9 Laughers - some quite spectacular.
3. I walked at least 10kms a day .... up as well as down. My body thanks me profusely for the exercise (I lost a very welcome 2.5kgs during the week).
4. I proudly claim that I carried my own 8 kgs camera rig everywhere myself (bar one 30 mins climb where I was totally knackered and my guide thought, quite rightly, he had better take it as I was probably about to pass out
The guide did however carry my 'lightly' loaded (cough) back pack everywhere - he insisted, honest !
Disappointments
1. Relative lack of visible Babblers (out of season or, much more likely, I need to improve my skulking bird skills) ! There are well over 25 Babbler species in the area.
2. Lack of Woodpeckers on GGS (excepting the wonderful Greater Yellownape).
3. Lack of Chickens - they are much higher up than the 2,400m max. I reached.
4. You need a 'several day stay' to get up and cover the top area of this section of the Gaoligongshan mountain range (I was told it's a 5 hour drive to cover the 18 kms to the drop-off zone, then a substantial hike from there).
5. Very few raptors (just 3 seen in one week covering both TC & GGS).
6. I dipped Slender-billed Scimitar Babbler (and I really did put in the effort) as well as the Chickens.
7. Bird Forum was inaccessible so I was unable to update the Trip Report on a daily basis.
.................
The Report.
TC : Tengchong
GGS : Gaoligongshan
BHL : Baihualin
WC : Wen Chuan
Note : all birds which were not easily identified from the photos, or by my guide, were referred to the Bird ID Q&A on Birdforum.net for confirmation. Searching for Yunnan on the ID sub-forum will find them.
And so it begins ....... a month of planning after the decision to switch this early migration time from Taman Negara (Malaysia) to the Southern fly route of the Gaoligongshan mountains in the exotic Southern Chinese province of Yunnan.
Yunnan holds a vast number of bird & mammal species, ca. 848 bird species (including 110 endemics) according to Birds in Yunnan (Weizhi Ji), from which the facts below are quoted, and that is comfortably the most of any province in China (Sichuan, the next most, having ca. 625). It runs 865kms from North to South and 990kms from East to West of which 84% is mountainous, sloping from 6,740asl in the North-West down to as low as 76asl in the South-East. It has borders with sichuan, Guizhou, Guangxi and Tibet domestically and Myanmar (Burma), Laos and Vietnam internationally.
Add to this the varied topography of the province from the mountains of the Himalayas (of which Gaoligongshan is a part) in the North West down to the tropical rain forests of the Xishuanbanna region (bordering Vietnam) in the South East, with this province also being the richest in terms of minority tribes in China, (26 in Yunnan with 16 in this area), with many still practicing traditional arts, crafts and life, and one can see that for birders and culture vultures this is one heady brew !
The beautiful bright, cloudless Shanghai March dawn was still packing a cold punch at 06.00, even though daytime Spring temperatures were now regularly climbing to 20-27C, as I heaved my hugely over-weight bags into the back of the taxi and set off ... stop ! Back-up ! iPad and reservation papers were still sitting next to the plant pot by the ornate metal front gates to my house - remembered in the nick of time.
I was confident everything else was packed as I use an app. called Packing Pro which works miracles in replacing my diminishing memory, but there's no accounting for crass stupidity
Less than 50 mins later Pudong airport loomed glitteringly into sight (truly, there was absolutely no sign of Shanghai's worsening smog crisis) amongst bright sunlight and I readied myself for the check-in battle to come, though in the end I had worried needlessly as China Eastern's lovely counter staff smoothly & efficiently took care of sending my bags to the aircraft hold.
Luckily by booking an Early Bird return flight to Kunming as soon as I made the decision to go on this trip meant that for very little more I'd upgraded to First Class (no business class) from economy, especially for the extra baggage allowance, however the free lounge coffee, sandwiches & breakfast and much larger seats (rather than the Chinese person sized seats in economy) didn't go amiss either, I could get used to this !
A problem however may still exist on the 2nd, Kunming - Tengchong, leg of the journey, as my heavy baggage load (46 kgs including hand luggage, which is a large hiking backpack adapted to hold my photographic gear as well as hiking gear) was now on;y economy since I had originally booked Kunming - Baoshan (which is actually a little closer to Baihualin, Gaoligongshan) and again as an Early Bird return ticket meant 1st Class (for the same price as an economy ticket that I booked a week later ! ) but as I later changed this to Kunming - Tengchong after reading more Trip Reports on the quality of birding at Jianfengshan, just outside the town, and so was no longer eligible for the Early Bird with the price now the normal 4 times the cost of an economy seat so it was back to slumming it in cattle class - oh well it was nice while it lasted and I'll enjoy the flight home in a week's time.
A tip here for anyone unfamiliar with flying in China, always leave plenty of time between flights especially if transiting or maybe for proposed meetings after landing - there are inevitably delays (in my experience usually between 20 and 60 mins per flight) on most flights (China recently came out easily the worst in Asia in a recent survey of officially recorded departure times) otherwise you could end up missing your connecting flight.
So my 09.00 flight went wheels up at 10.00 and was a pleasant smooth 3.5 hrs and 2,042 kms (or so the announcement said) to Kunming. After a couple of hours spent kicking my heels at the airport (there are only 5 flights a day to Tengchong, three in the morning and this afternoon flight the last before the sole evening flight), listening to the songs & calls of what would be the many new birds to me, it was chocks away again and a 1 hour flight over mountain ranges to cover the few remaining hundred kilometres between Kunming and Tengchong.
Note that Kunming Airport is new, modern and large and if you go down to the basement floor (B1 I think) you'll find nourishment and coffee for far more reasonable prices than on the ground (USA -1st) floor.
Arriving right on time (16.40) meant a snappy 15 mins taxi (40 rmb) from Tengchong Airport to the hotel which I chose for it's close proximity to Jianfengshan (Dongfang Xuanyi Holiday Hotel: 230rmb per night inc. tax - and this is a great hotel at any price, new, very very clean, modern, spacious rooms, beautiful bathroom, it's amazing value for money), a quick check-in and then 15 mins later I was out, bins & camera in hand, to hail the first taxi (6 to 10 rmb) up to the temple at Laifengshan, just 5-6 mins away. The late sunset here, this far South and close to the Burmese border, meant I could shoot until 19.30 and still bird until nearly 20.00, so the bonus of 2.5 - 3 hours birding at the end of a long travel day !
Day 1 : 21st March 2014 Laifengshan (Temple area).
Hours : from 17.30 - 20.00 (no new birds in the last 30 mins)
Weather : Sunny, some cloud cover.
Temperatures : from 24-25C to about 20C (20.00)
Altitude : 1,700 - 1,750m
Arriving at the temple, surrounded by woods on all sides, what was my first bird going to be ? A Lifer ? A substantial movement in the trees low down had me hoping for Laughers, but no my first birds were .... squirrels. Sigh. Then I was quickly aware of numbers of small, flighty birds in the canopy, eventually getting on them, as they turned out to be well known friends, Japanese White Eyes.
There were new-to-me calls everywhere, my downloading and studying of the bird calls of this region proving to be of ..... absolutely no use whatsoever But I was having enormous fun - every bird a potential Lifer
Anyway the time just sped by and in the end I was walking downhill against the flow ..... many people going up to the temple carpark to enjoy the cool mountain air, to socialise and to dance.
Back in the hotel I dumped my gear on the bed and went to the little restaurant near the entrance to the hotel, with it's raw wares laid out in neat rows, including some interesting looking grubs and crawly things - yum. Maybe I'll just give them a miss today though. Very spicy Yunnanese lamb & pork BBQ skewers, green beans, corn on the cob and Yunnan green tea to wash it all down. Excellent end to a good start !
Tengchong Bird List (Day 1) :
Bulbul, Black (several, mostly black-headed, also white)
Bulbul, Brown-breasted (several)
Bulbul, Mountain (1)
Bulbul, Red-Whiskered (2)
Bunting, Little (1)
Dove, Oriental Turtle (10)
Drongo, Black (2)
Drongo, Spangled (2)
Flycatcher, Grey-headed Canary (1 perched up)
Fulvetta, Yunnan (flock)
Hawk-Cuckoo, Large (2 or 3 calling in 2 notes repeated and rising to a crescendo, 1 seen, poor photo)
Laughingthrush, White-browed (1)
Leafbird, Orange-bellied (sitting atop a tree singing)
Nuthatch, Chestnut-vented (1 landed and explored a trunk 5m away)
Minivet, Long-tailed (small flock)
Minla, Blue-winged (2)
Minla, Red-tailed (2)
Pipit, Olive-backed (2)
Shrike, Grey-backed (1)
Thrush, Black-breasted (2)
Tit, Great (nubicolus I'm assuming in this area) (5-6)
Tree-creeper, Eurasian (1)
Wagtail, White (alboides, male in breeding colours)(1)
Warbler, Leaf (many, leaf warbler fans will be in their element)
White Eyes, Oriental (small flock)
+ 3-4 leaf-warblers requiring IDs. Not a bad start at all, at least 26+ species in 2.5 hrs including at least 12 Lifers
Baoligongshan - Tengchong
Weather : Sack the weather forecaster ! My lovely sunny weather for the whole week was sadly amiss with rain at least part of every day (usually the afternoons) at Gaoligongshan. Tengchong was good on both days bar one short shower hardly worthy of the name.
Transport : Taxi costs are generally noted below, by far the most expensive is the 600rmb each way (Tengchong to Baihualin) for a private car (I had been quoted as high as 800-900rmb so make sure you ask around and negotiate).
Accommodation : See below. In Tengchong it was way above expectations and I thoroughly recommend the hotel I used, everybody was really helpful and friendly. In the Baihualin, at the 'inn' it was again above expectations for 100rmb per night. However do note that the other guests are loud and drinking goes on usually until around 22.00 but one night it stretched to midnight.
Tips
1. Bring a copy MacKinnons Birds of China - in Chinese ! If you don't live in China then get someone to buy a copy for you because your local Bird Guides won't speak English and the book is worth it's weight in gold. Robson's is also indispensible for this area (but without range maps it is very tiresome to go through each species and guess from the explanations if this area is covered) however I found species missing from, or at least discrepancies in, both books and if you can manage the weight (and cost) or get pdf versions then both used in conjunction is best. If you have to buy only one then let it be Robson's.
2. Pretty much any beer in China is good (so says someone who is as far from a beer connoisseur as you can get) ! Beer at Mr. Hou's is 3rmb per 610ml bottle of Dali Beer.
3. Please note that 'Hide Etiquette' is somewhat different than some people may be used to in those in more 'Bird & Birding Aware' countries. Mobile phones ringing, loud conversations on said phones, smoking, loud conversation in general, rubbish discarded on the floor, and my favourite, listening to music on their mobile phones whilst waiting ! That said the birds seen from the hides are still generally excellent to amazing.
4. I found the guides to be excellent but please don't expect them to know every call and even every bird. They are self-educated via experience and inter-action with guests.
5. Don't expect everything to be perfect or run as professionally as you may want or as you may be used to, go with the flow and don't stress it. However please do note that this business is very important to the village and may prevent more dubious practices leading to damage to both the mountain and the bird population. My guide has 2 brothers and 3 sisters and all are involved in the business in one way or another (e.g. working in the kitchen at the inn, the brothers all run Hides etc.) !
6. Leave at least 2 hours between connecting flights ! See notes in the text below.
Successes
1. Mrs. Gould's and Fire-tailed completed my set of Chinese Sunbirds.
2. Ticked 9 Laughers - some quite spectacular.
3. I walked at least 10kms a day .... up as well as down. My body thanks me profusely for the exercise (I lost a very welcome 2.5kgs during the week).
4. I proudly claim that I carried my own 8 kgs camera rig everywhere myself (bar one 30 mins climb where I was totally knackered and my guide thought, quite rightly, he had better take it as I was probably about to pass out
The guide did however carry my 'lightly' loaded (cough) back pack everywhere - he insisted, honest ! Disappointments
1. Relative lack of visible Babblers (out of season or, much more likely, I need to improve my skulking bird skills) ! There are well over 25 Babbler species in the area.
2. Lack of Woodpeckers on GGS (excepting the wonderful Greater Yellownape).
3. Lack of Chickens - they are much higher up than the 2,400m max. I reached.
4. You need a 'several day stay' to get up and cover the top area of this section of the Gaoligongshan mountain range (I was told it's a 5 hour drive to cover the 18 kms to the drop-off zone, then a substantial hike from there).
5. Very few raptors (just 3 seen in one week covering both TC & GGS).
6. I dipped Slender-billed Scimitar Babbler (and I really did put in the effort) as well as the Chickens.
7. Bird Forum was inaccessible so I was unable to update the Trip Report on a daily basis.
.................
The Report.
TC : Tengchong
GGS : Gaoligongshan
BHL : Baihualin
WC : Wen Chuan
Note : all birds which were not easily identified from the photos, or by my guide, were referred to the Bird ID Q&A on Birdforum.net for confirmation. Searching for Yunnan on the ID sub-forum will find them.
And so it begins ....... a month of planning after the decision to switch this early migration time from Taman Negara (Malaysia) to the Southern fly route of the Gaoligongshan mountains in the exotic Southern Chinese province of Yunnan.
Yunnan holds a vast number of bird & mammal species, ca. 848 bird species (including 110 endemics) according to Birds in Yunnan (Weizhi Ji), from which the facts below are quoted, and that is comfortably the most of any province in China (Sichuan, the next most, having ca. 625). It runs 865kms from North to South and 990kms from East to West of which 84% is mountainous, sloping from 6,740asl in the North-West down to as low as 76asl in the South-East. It has borders with sichuan, Guizhou, Guangxi and Tibet domestically and Myanmar (Burma), Laos and Vietnam internationally.
Add to this the varied topography of the province from the mountains of the Himalayas (of which Gaoligongshan is a part) in the North West down to the tropical rain forests of the Xishuanbanna region (bordering Vietnam) in the South East, with this province also being the richest in terms of minority tribes in China, (26 in Yunnan with 16 in this area), with many still practicing traditional arts, crafts and life, and one can see that for birders and culture vultures this is one heady brew !
The beautiful bright, cloudless Shanghai March dawn was still packing a cold punch at 06.00, even though daytime Spring temperatures were now regularly climbing to 20-27C, as I heaved my hugely over-weight bags into the back of the taxi and set off ... stop ! Back-up ! iPad and reservation papers were still sitting next to the plant pot by the ornate metal front gates to my house - remembered in the nick of time.
I was confident everything else was packed as I use an app. called Packing Pro which works miracles in replacing my diminishing memory, but there's no accounting for crass stupidity
Less than 50 mins later Pudong airport loomed glitteringly into sight (truly, there was absolutely no sign of Shanghai's worsening smog crisis) amongst bright sunlight and I readied myself for the check-in battle to come, though in the end I had worried needlessly as China Eastern's lovely counter staff smoothly & efficiently took care of sending my bags to the aircraft hold.
Luckily by booking an Early Bird return flight to Kunming as soon as I made the decision to go on this trip meant that for very little more I'd upgraded to First Class (no business class) from economy, especially for the extra baggage allowance, however the free lounge coffee, sandwiches & breakfast and much larger seats (rather than the Chinese person sized seats in economy) didn't go amiss either, I could get used to this !
A problem however may still exist on the 2nd, Kunming - Tengchong, leg of the journey, as my heavy baggage load (46 kgs including hand luggage, which is a large hiking backpack adapted to hold my photographic gear as well as hiking gear) was now on;y economy since I had originally booked Kunming - Baoshan (which is actually a little closer to Baihualin, Gaoligongshan) and again as an Early Bird return ticket meant 1st Class (for the same price as an economy ticket that I booked a week later ! ) but as I later changed this to Kunming - Tengchong after reading more Trip Reports on the quality of birding at Jianfengshan, just outside the town, and so was no longer eligible for the Early Bird with the price now the normal 4 times the cost of an economy seat
so it was back to slumming it in cattle class - oh well it was nice while it lasted and I'll enjoy the flight home in a week's time. A tip here for anyone unfamiliar with flying in China, always leave plenty of time between flights especially if transiting or maybe for proposed meetings after landing - there are inevitably delays (in my experience usually between 20 and 60 mins per flight) on most flights (China recently came out easily the worst in Asia in a recent survey of officially recorded departure times) otherwise you could end up missing your connecting flight.
So my 09.00 flight went wheels up at 10.00 and was a pleasant smooth 3.5 hrs and 2,042 kms (or so the announcement said) to Kunming. After a couple of hours spent kicking my heels at the airport (there are only 5 flights a day to Tengchong, three in the morning and this afternoon flight the last before the sole evening flight), listening to the songs & calls of what would be the many new birds to me, it was chocks away again and a 1 hour flight over mountain ranges to cover the few remaining hundred kilometres between Kunming and Tengchong.
Note that Kunming Airport is new, modern and large and if you go down to the basement floor (B1 I think) you'll find nourishment and coffee for far more reasonable prices than on the ground (USA -1st) floor.
Arriving right on time (16.40) meant a snappy 15 mins taxi (40 rmb) from Tengchong Airport to the hotel which I chose for it's close proximity to Jianfengshan (Dongfang Xuanyi Holiday Hotel: 230rmb per night inc. tax - and this is a great hotel at any price, new, very very clean, modern, spacious rooms, beautiful bathroom, it's amazing value for money), a quick check-in and then 15 mins later I was out, bins & camera in hand, to hail the first taxi (6 to 10 rmb) up to the temple at Laifengshan, just 5-6 mins away. The late sunset here, this far South and close to the Burmese border, meant I could shoot until 19.30 and still bird until nearly 20.00, so the bonus of 2.5 - 3 hours birding at the end of a long travel day !
Day 1 : 21st March 2014 Laifengshan (Temple area).
Hours : from 17.30 - 20.00 (no new birds in the last 30 mins)
Weather : Sunny, some cloud cover.
Temperatures : from 24-25C to about 20C (20.00)
Altitude : 1,700 - 1,750m
Arriving at the temple, surrounded by woods on all sides, what was my first bird going to be ? A Lifer ? A substantial movement in the trees low down had me hoping for Laughers, but no my first birds were .... squirrels. Sigh. Then I was quickly aware of numbers of small, flighty birds in the canopy, eventually getting on them, as they turned out to be well known friends, Japanese White Eyes.
There were new-to-me calls everywhere, my downloading and studying of the bird calls of this region proving to be of ..... absolutely no use whatsoever
But I was having enormous fun - every bird a potential Lifer Anyway the time just sped by and in the end I was walking downhill against the flow ..... many people going up to the temple carpark to enjoy the cool mountain air, to socialise and to dance.
Back in the hotel I dumped my gear on the bed and went to the little restaurant near the entrance to the hotel, with it's raw wares laid out in neat rows, including some interesting looking grubs and crawly things - yum. Maybe I'll just give them a miss today though. Very spicy Yunnanese lamb & pork BBQ skewers, green beans, corn on the cob and Yunnan green tea to wash it all down. Excellent end to a good start !
Tengchong Bird List (Day 1) :
Bulbul, Black (several, mostly black-headed, also white)
Bulbul, Brown-breasted (several)
Bulbul, Mountain (1)
Bulbul, Red-Whiskered (2)
Bunting, Little (1)
Dove, Oriental Turtle (10)
Drongo, Black (2)
Drongo, Spangled (2)
Flycatcher, Grey-headed Canary (1 perched up)
Fulvetta, Yunnan (flock)
Hawk-Cuckoo, Large (2 or 3 calling in 2 notes repeated and rising to a crescendo, 1 seen, poor photo)
Laughingthrush, White-browed (1)
Leafbird, Orange-bellied (sitting atop a tree singing)
Nuthatch, Chestnut-vented (1 landed and explored a trunk 5m away)
Minivet, Long-tailed (small flock)
Minla, Blue-winged (2)
Minla, Red-tailed (2)
Pipit, Olive-backed (2)
Shrike, Grey-backed (1)
Thrush, Black-breasted (2)
Tit, Great (nubicolus I'm assuming in this area) (5-6)
Tree-creeper, Eurasian (1)
Wagtail, White (alboides, male in breeding colours)(1)
Warbler, Leaf (many, leaf warbler fans will be in their element)
White Eyes, Oriental (small flock)
+ 3-4 leaf-warblers requiring IDs. Not a bad start at all, at least 26+ species in 2.5 hrs including at least 12 Lifers
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