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Showing posts with label lammergier. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lammergier. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

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.