Phil Espin and I recently spent two weeks birding in Eastern China.
This was an independently organised trip with the principle aim of seeing a number of special species, namely Cabot’s Tragopan, Koklass, Silver & Reeve’s Pheasants, Siberian, White-naped, Hooded & Red-crowned Cranes, Swan Goose, Spoon-billed Sandpiper & Ibisbill.
We organised this trip with Zhang Lin, a Shanghai birder who operates as
http://www.shanghaibirdingtour.com, we contacted him by email, agreed an itinerary and he then organised and booked the 3 internal flights, 2 train journeys and cars and drivers for the trip. Hotels were generally found in the evenings depending on where we were and were readily available.
We covered the eastern part of China from just north of Beijing to as far south as Fuzhou.
Highlights of the trip were as follows (order follows Mark Brazil, Birds of East Asia):-
Cabot’s Tragopan
Koklass, Silver & Reeve’s Pheasants
1,000+ Swan Geese
15 Lesser White-fronted Geese
3 Baer’s Pochards
55 Smew on one pond
10 Scaly-sided Mergansers
300+ Oriental Storks
1 Black-faced Spoonbill
1 Pied Harrier
5 Upland Buzzards
1 Indian Black Eagle
1 Mountain Hawk Eagle
11 Great Bustards
c600 Siberian, 1 Sandhill, c80 White-naped, c400 Common, 10 Hooded & 23 Red-crowned Cranes
2 Ibisbill
5 Long-billed Plovers
1 Greater Sand Plover
2 Spoon-billed Sandpipers
Black-tailed, Vega, Mongolian, Relict & Saunder’s Gulls
11 Pallas’s Sandgrouse
Hill Pigeons & Oriental Turtle Doves
Asian Barred Owlet
2 Crested Kingfishers
3 Speckled Piculets
1 Lesser Yellow-naped Woodecker
5 Chinese Grey Shrikes
Azure-winged & Red-billed Blue Magpies
Grey Treepies
6 Daurian Jackdaws & 3 Collared Crows
Yellow-bellied, Yellow-cheeked, Yellow-browed & Black-throated Tits
Chinese Penduline Tits
Collared Finchbills
Chinese, Mountain & Chestnut Bulbuls
Streak-breasted Scimitar Babblers
Masked & Lesser-necklaced Laughingthrushes
Chinese Hwamei
Vinous-throated & Reed Parrotbills (the latter like Bearded Tits on steroids)
White’s, Grey-backed, Pale, Naumann’s & Dusky Thrushes
Plumbeous Redstarts
Little, Slaty-backed, White-crowned & Spotted Forktails
Brown Dippers
Orange-bellied Leafbirds
Fork-tailed Sunbirds
Eastern Yellow Wagtails
Olive-backed, Buff-bellied & Richard’s Pipits
Chinese Grosbeaks
Pine, Meadow, Tristram’s, Little, Yellow-browed, Elegant, Black-faced, Pallas’s Reed, Japanese Reed & Lapland Buntings
We saw a total of 212 species on the trip, which went very well. The only real disappointment was the weather in the Wuyi mountains where we had low cloud and rain on both of our days. This prevented us from seeing several passerine specialities of this area.
In all a very enjoyable trip and we would thoroughly recommend the services of Lin to anyone visiting this area.
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