China Trip April 19 to May 7
Although primarily a business trip (continuing education) and with lots of
group tours, I still managed to see nearly 90 species of birds. The only
quality birding time included 4 hours with a local birding-pal from Beijing
and a couple of hours myself in Century Park, Shanghai. There is no doubt we
would have seen a lot more if we had more time to explore by ourselves to
different areas out of the Cities we visited.
Also whilst staying in Guilin I did some early morning walks from the Hotel
for around an hour or so as we were right on the Li River and there were
many trees and bushes close by. We visited the limestone caves here as well
and did a 3 hour trip on the Li River and saw many species of birds.
Xian was fairly quiet for birds in the areas we went to but still managed to
add extras where ever we went.
We spent 3 days on a Yangtze River cruise from Chongqing to Yichang with a
couple of stop offs for land trips ,of which the Ghost City of Feng Du was
the most productive.
Beijing's best was the Baihe Canyon; about two and a half hours drive north
of the city. The Summer Palace would have been productive as well but not
the day we went as it was the May Day holiday and we shared it with 96,000
other people! The only birding highlight was a Black-crowned Night Heron
catching a fish right beside our boat!
Century Park in Shanghai was very productive and I only covered a very small
part of it. We also visited a garden in Suzhou to the west of Shanghai and
added a few more birds here.
I will list birds seen in each area in case people are planning to visit
these and not other parts.
We also found that the Field Guide we used (Helm's Birds of East Asia by
Mark Brazil), whilst excellent in many ways, erred in some of the
distribution maps. The most out of range appearing to be the Godlewski's
Bunting which were common in the Baihe Canyon area.
Many thanks to all that provided information before I went.
Guilin and Li River (in order seen)
Great Egret (several)
Chinese Pond Heron (dozens) The Li River was in flood and they were
feeding as the water was receding.
Yellow-rumped Flycatcher (2)
Eurasian Collared Dove
White Wagtail (several)
Chinese Bulbul (several)
Light-vented Bulbul (?) not in Field Guide but certainly seemed to be this
species rather than Brown-breasted.
Common Magpie (several)
Feral Pigeon (several)
Common Swift (several)
Large-billed Crow (several)
Yellow-browed Warbler (several) (?)
Southern Great Tit
Thick-billed Warbler
Japanese White-eye
Barn Swallow (several)
Oriental Magpie-robin
Yellow-bellied Prinia
Fork-tailed Swift (several)
Crested Myna ( a few)
Dollarbird (2)
Black-capped Kingfisher
Cattle Egret (several)
Collared Crow (6)
Black-eared Kite (2)
Black Drongo
Little Egret
Greater Coucal
Mugimaki Flycatcher
Asian Brown Flycatcher
Two-barred Leaf Warbler ( ? )
Red-rumped Swallow (4)
Tree Sparrow
Ashy Minivet (5)
Oriental Turtle Dove
House Swift
This was the area where we saw the Chinese fisherman with their "Cormorants
"
(?)Means I am not 100% sure of identification so any advice as to whether
this species is likely in this area would be most appreciated. The numbers
in brackets indicate number of birds seen, otherwise , the common birds I
didn't count numbers and all others were one off sightings.
More to follow.
Lynn and Dick Jenkin
Tashkent Friesians
PO Box 92 Dungog NSW 2420
02 49921158
<http://www.facebook.com/pages/Django-of-Cacharel/147336717447?ref=ts>
Djangos Facebook Page
<http://tashkentfriesians.com/> Tashkent Friesians
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