Qinghai delivers

This year's trip to Qinghai delivered mammals in spades. We had the first lynx (3) and snow leopard (1) of the tour to date. This mountain weasel (Mustela altaica) was stealing food from a hut in the mountains...

china crisis

The incredible Greentours 'Mammals of the Roof of the World' tour in China's stunning Qinghai province is struggling to fill up this year amazingly. If you fancy accompanying me and Jesper Hornskov to look for Pallas' cat and the suite of other species present at high-altitude in this region check out the Greentours website at

http://www.greentours.co.uk/Asia/MAMMALS-OF-THE-ROOF-OF-THE-WORLD/

argali who art in heaven

We had amazing views of argali this year in Qinghai...

red panda

The highight of the Sichuan leg of our China tour is always the red panda, there was a lot of disturbance from roadworks at Laba He this year but we had great views on the first day.

pallas' cat

The jewel in the crown of the Qinghai leg of the Greentours trip I do is undoubtedly Pallas' cat. We have run four trips so far and seen this little beauty on every occasion. But we have never got as close as we did this year!

Jeff Blincow's China showcase

 Tibetan fox

The recent Greentours trip to Qinghai and Sichuan was a great success. We were lucky to have Jeff Blincow on board and his hard work as a photographer produced some great photos (and great bird records). Jeff is a bit cagey about releasing his images for general consumption but if you are in the UK he is on the bird talk circuit so why not book him for your bird club meetings. All the photos in this post are his! Jeff certainly inspired me for one and I have just bought a 300mm lens for my D7. Slippery slope...

You can see more photos from the participants of the tour in the Greentours gallery.

More photos of Przewalski's pinktail - it is just a stunning bird!

Pinktail

The male Stolizcka's tit-warbler, just amazing and common too.

One of the must-see endemic species on the Tibetan plateau is the Hume's groundpecker - fortunately rather common in habitat.

I finally saw Lady Amherst's pheasant at Laba He, ending a 29-year quest to see all the birds in the front section of the old Shell guide!

Jeff gripped the hell out of us at Laba He, he spent a lot of time on his own wandering about and finding gems like this grey-hooded parrotbill.

Postcard from Qinghai

We saw both the resident giganteus and the nominate subspecies (as above) of the Chinese grey shrike.

My last redstart - the lovely chaffinch-like pastel shades of a male Przewalski's redstart.

A walk in the Dulan Mountains was fantastic for rutting kansuensis red deer, the roars of the males providing a memorable soundtrack to the day.

Our big day walk for Pallas' cat - it produced the goods, Jesper spotted one on a nearby ridge that gave great 'scope views as it looked out over the pika colonies below us.

A new family! Przewalski's pinktail (Urocynchramus pylzowi) - just amazing and worth the price of admission alone.

 Robin accentor

Tibet

 Black-necked crane - a much-wanted tick for me. We saw over 90 of these superb birds.

Glover's pika - a cute denizen of rocky cliffs and scree slopes on the plateau.

Ibisbill

The Tibetan plateau is hooching with lammergiers - we watched birds dismantling skeletons and flying away with the bones carried fore-and-aft (like an osprey with a fish).

Tibetan wolf sightings were one of the highlights of two weeks on the Tibetan plateau. We saw 11 individuals in five contacts.

Stolizcka's tit-warbler - I never did get a photo of a male...

Henderson's ground-jay - one of the most-wanted birds for the birders on the tour and it did not disappoint.

鳥北京

After my recent tour in China I was lucky enough to be able to spend two days birding with Terry Townshend in the Beijing area. Terry and his wife Libby looked after me splendidly and our birding netted me a number of new birds.

You can read Terry's account of the two days on his blog (Birding Beijing). We kicked off by visiting Terry's local patch (Wild Duck Lake and Yehayu) in the excellent company of Jesper Hornskov. The drive out to this site is rather long and often the traffic is awful but I know now why Terry bothers. These two sites always seem to throw up something special and our visit was no exception.

Chinese grey shrike was one of the new species for me on the day out to Wild Duck Lake.

In the brutal cold we checked a partially frozen Wild Duck Lake first, highlights here included: Daurian partridge (2), great bittern (3), Baikal teal (<10), Chinese grey shrike (4-5), Asian short-toed lark (13), Chinese hill warbler (4), Pallas’ reed bunting (common) and Japanese reed bunting (1). But also ruddy shelduck, Chinese spot-billed duck, gadwall, ferruginous duck (1 late bird), goosander, merlin (1), sparrowhawk, goshawk (1), hen harrier (4), common crane (120), grey-headed woodpecker and vinous-throated parrotbill.

At Yehayu, after negotiating the fence around the site, highlights included a black bittern (1, a great rarity in this part of China and at this late date too), great egret (1), grey heron (1), upland buzzard (3), great bustard (2 flying past), black-headed gull (2), a common kingfisher dying on the ice, Naumann’s thrush (1), chinese penduline tit (heard only) and pine bunting (2). A tolai hare here was nice too. Towards the end of the day we started losing momentum from fatigue and headed for Jesper’s home for an enjoyable evening meal.

The next day we headed out again, this time to the botanical gardens on the outskirts of Beijing. In the garden proper were berry-laden bushes with plenty of light-vented bulbuls and both dusky and Naumann’s thrushes in good numbers. Azure-winged magpies were common and three introduced crested mynas flew over. At least two Chinese grosbeaks perched up nicely for scope views. We checked an area of conifers briefly for Chinese nuthatch and then moved on to tackle the ridge behind the gardens for a few special birds. The ridge walk produced a small group of curious plain laughingthrushes and we heard the Chinese hill warbler.

When we finally got down (after searching in vain along the busy paths for Siberian accentor) and found a pair of very busy Chinese nuthatches storing pine nuts for the winter. A great bird. A good flock of Pallas’ warblers was present here too, we had seen odd individuals during the day and also a handful of red-flanked bluetails. Mammals seen here were red and Père David’s rock squirrels. Another great day out.

So huge thanks to Terry and Libby, I sat on my flight to Delhi absolutely exhausted after 48 hours non-stop socialising and birding - a great stay in Beijing.

Postcard from Yangxian and Xian

Sympetrum infuscatum was still on the wing just south of Foping town. Other Odonates went unidentified sadly, next year I will take a net!

Our China trip ended with a short journey south to see crested ibis, something of a conservation success story this species. It has bounced back from a population of just four adults in 1981 to a still wobbly but infinitely preferable 500 or so.

The drive south took us along a wide river valley south of Foping town, here we caught up with spectacular Daurian redstart.

Another eagerly awaited species at this site was ibisbill, no problems finding one on this trip.

A riverside walk outside Yangxian gave us plenty of new birds, not just showy birds like this crested kingfisher but also a chance to look at rosy and blakistonii water pipit. One of the better birds here was a pair of long-billed plover.

Our main target here of course was the crested ibis, we never got great photographic opportunities sadly. The lack of light, a shortage of time and the wariness of many individuals conspired against us.

The tour ended with a mad dash around the Terracotta Army site just outside Xian. It was good but after an hour some of us slipped away to bird the grounds and came away with this male Hodgson's redstart added to our life-lists. I have been after this one for some time, so it was a nice way to end the tour.

Giant panda!

Giant panda is perhaps the most iconic mammal in the world and this month I got a chance to spend eight, sometimes gruelling, days searching for them in the Foping reserve in the Qinling Mountains of central China. The terrain was appalling, steep valley sides covered in dense bamboo made for some excellent exercise and not a little swearing. We lost four days to rain and low cloud but the other four days netted us two panda sightings.

The first came on our first day in the field and was a rather distant 'birder's' view, binoculars and close observation required. The animal was above us on a bamboo-covered hillside and slowly ate it's way into view before eventually running out of food and moving off out of sight. Nice because it was behaving naturally and the view was long but also frustrating because it was partially obscured and at long-range.

So another sighting was much desired and after a great deal of personal exertion on our third day tracking and huge and expert effort from our local team we had a brief but close encounter with a young, radio-collared male. I made an effort to record this on video (see below). Next year the tour includes an extension to see red panda, it just gets better! Roll on next year!

Postcard from Foping

Just completed an enjoyable and successful giant panda tour at Foping (China). China was amazing and I cannot wait to return. We saw two giant pandas, so stay-tuned for a panda video in a later post.

One of the mammal highlights of the start of the tour was a close encounter with a group of golden snub-nosed monkeys at a feeding station near the access gate to the panda reserve.

Despite the late date, a few butterflies were still flying in the Qinling Mountains, including this common beak (Libythea lepita).

The area around our chilly accommodation block at Sanguanmiao research station was great birding in the mornings before we headed out and on rainy days when panda tracking was not possible. We definitely developed a patch mentality about these orchards and clearings and enjoyed finding birds like this Asian barred owlet and a handful of late migrants like olive-backed pipit, Pallas' warbler and little bunting.

The Foping forest is in great shape and white-backed woodpeckers occurred at a density I have never experienced before. We got used to daily sightings of this special woodpecker.

Another mammal highlight was a morning devoted to climbing up a valley to see the enormous red-and-white flying squirrel. Our trackers 'encouraged' them to fly down the valley for us. Awesome.

Rufous-breasted accentor was a common inhabitant of the abandoned and overgrown fields on the edges of the nearby village.

An eagerly awaited tick for me was grey-headed bullfinch, we saw small flocks daily in open areas.

Chinese babax was also a bird I was looking forward to and they proved to be common around the research station.