2007 Tour Narrative
The coach screeched to a halt, and out we piled. There, feeding in the paddy field below us, was our reward: our first Crested Ibis, and what a magnificent creature. Unbanded, it was an old bird, one of the genuinely native, non-captive-bred, stock. It was gorgeous, and the on-lookers were delighted. As the day unfolded, we saw seven more of these superb creatures, four more adults and three recently fledged youngsters near their nest. It was day nine of the tour and we were at Yangxian in western China’s Shaanxi Province. We’d already seen an impressive array of the Middle Kingdom’s cultural sites (Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace in Beijing, and the Terracotta Warriors on the edge of Xi’an), along with an even more impressive array of China’s avian delights.
We explored the gardens and lakes of the Summer Palace on our first full day, an area that yielded some quality birds, with a singing Manchurian Reed Warbler being the best. We’d have to wait until we revisited this site in mid-June before we caught up with the site’s other premier specialities, Yellow Bittern and Ruddy-breasted Crake; but the views that we then had of these two species made the 10-day wait well worthwhile.
Our ensuing overnight journey from the capital north into what used to be Manchuria went flawlessly, as did—thanks to Qingyu—all the ground arrangements. Here we were met by Mr. Sun, our knowledgeable local guide, and scurried off in search of Jankowski’s Bunting. I was fretting: on each of my previous eight visits this severely threatened species had been harder and harder to find. Sooner or later it would no longer be there. Our good fortune continued and the group’s perseverance earned a reward; we eventually found a pair of what appeared to be territorial birds. We were just about to focus in on them when a Great Bustard flushed from our feet. It was almost certainly nesting here, and we simply had to withdraw. Fortunately the gargantuan bustard soon returned. But where were the buntings? In our desire to leave the bustard alone and unhindered, we’d lost our primary quarry. It took us almost an hour to find another bird, this time a solitary male, and even then this individual was elusive. Nevertheless we all saw it. What a relief—only then could we relax and relish the other things that we’d already seen. This superb grassland had yielded up a few more jewels in the shape of a fine Daurian Partridge, some fly-over Oriental Pratincoles, good numbers of Mongolian Larks, and even a few Pallas’s Buntings.
The following day we enjoyed a fantastic full day’s birding at Xianghai NNR—a day that started with a Brown Accentor, possibly the first record for Jilin Province, spotted from one of the hotel bedrooms! This was soon followed by another local rarity in the shape of an elusive Japanese Waxwing, and we soon realized that the reserve, although clearly still suffering from an acute shortage of water, was thronged with migrant passerines and waders, and we spent a good part of the day searching for these. Of course we didn’t neglect the region’s specialties, the birds we’d traveled north to see, and we found most of them remarkably easily. Mr. Sun took us to a site he knew for Oriental Stork and promptly found one within minutes of our arriving (this site also held a couple of Ferruginous Pochards, yet another local rarity). Moving on, our next port of call was a marsh that held a seemingly solitary Red-crowned Crane, our only Grus of the tour. Other goodies here included three tumbling Eastern Marsh Harriers, impressive numbers of Amur Falcons, and a couple of cooperative Great Bitterns. We also found the reed beds alive with vociferous Oriental Reed Warblers, while the surrounding African-style acacia scrub yielded several Chinese Gray Shrikes, breeding Chinese Penduline Tits, and even a female Tiger Shrike.
Water birds included a party of eight Falcated Ducks and quite a few Swan Geese, while we added a single female Siberian Rubythroat and Siberian Blue Robin, several Thick-billed Warblers, and numerous Phylloscopus warblers to our burgeoning list of passerine migrants. Elsewhere we scoured pool edges and built up an impressive list of shorebirds, a list that included local specialties such as Gray-headed Lapwing and a single breeding-plumaged Asian Dowitcher, as well as good numbers of north-bound migrants (more than 100 Red-necked Stints, 115 Sharp-tailed, and 350 Curlew Sandpipers being the pick of the bunch).
Heading back to Beijing and then south down to Xi’an, a cultural interlude took the form of Xi’an’s terracotta warriors, an outstanding and rewarding detour. After another comfortable overnight train and a short coach ride, we arrived in Yangxian, where our quest to see Crested Ibis was reaching its climax. Our multiple encounters with this, easily the rarest species we saw on the tour, left no one disappointed, and almost as a bonus we stumbled across a fine Eurasian Eagle Owl and several Swinhoe’s Minivets.
Moving back north we headed to the bird-rich forests at Taibaishan in the northern Qinling Mountains. No Giant Pandas for us (we didn’t expect any, and most had to make do with a handful of squirrels), but the birds were a fantastic compensation. Second place in our post tour “Bird of the Trip” poll was Temminck’s Tragopan, a species that “fell” at dawn on our third full day on the mountain as a male flew to within 50 feet of us, perched in full view, shuffled, turned through 180°, shuffled again, and moments later flew to a better-lit perch. It stayed there, in full view, for almost a full hour. Spectacular! And appreciated all the more after the previous morning’s experience, when we’d been surrounded by three close-range calling tragopans and had scored nothing other than a fleeting fly-by. Almost as spectacular were the two pairs of Blood Pheasants that we encountered shortly after our tragopan fest. Other goodies on this attractively forested mountain included several well-seen Lesser Cuckoos, Brown Dippers, a single Ferruginous Flycatcher, a juvenile Little Forktail, and several bush warblers, with David’s, Spotted, and Yellowish-bellied putting on outstanding “in-our-face” performances.
And then of course there were the Phylloscopus warblers. None made it in to the Top Ten in our poll: was this a reflection of our inability to decide which of the 16 species we’d seen deserved a vote? Or was it a reflection of the fact that many of us thought they all looked the same in any case? Other Taibaishan jewels included several vociferous Sichuan Treecreepers (China’s most recently described species), a couple of massively confiding Golden Bush Robins, an equally showy pair of Spectacled Parrotbills, multiple Vinaceous Rosefinches, some truly exquisite Gray-headed Bullfinches, and several Slaty Buntings.
Returning to Beijing, we spent part of the next day admiring the Great Wall at Badaling—but not before the site had yielded a number of new birds: an elusive Forest Wagtail, several endemic White-browed Chinese Warblers, a pair of Plain Laughingthrushes, some stunning male Yellow-rumped Flycatchers, and a couple of cripplingly close Eurasian Crag Martins among the most memorable. In all, our tour finished with 262 species, a very, very satisfying tally indeed.
All too soon it was all over. We’d seen so much in the two weeks we’d been in China. We’d marveled at downtown Beijing and the massive construction projects that were underway; we’d gawped at the contrast between there and rural China, where fields were still being plowed with cattle and grain dried on the roads. We’d been treated to some outstanding food, met some delightful people, and had a thoroughly good time. Now is clearly the time to be visiting China, and we’d timed this trip perfectly.
- Paul Holt
Updated: May 2008