China Trip Report Highlights

Here are some of the highlights from Dave Gosney's recent trip to China.

Imagine seeing Yellow-browed Warbler, Pallas's Warbler, Radde's Warbler and Dusky Warbler all in one day at a migration watchpoint.

That's what it's like at Beidaihe, on the east coast of China, even on a really bad day! On a better day it isn't too difficult to add Siberian Rubythroat, Red-flanked Bluetail and Siberian Blue Robin, and on a good day there's a chance of Siberian Thrush and White's Thrush too, all within a few hundred yards of your hotel.

The aim of my latest trip was to find and film as many of these Siberian goodies as possible. Finding the birds wasn't too difficult, especially with the help of Paul Holt and Hannu Janes, the two leaders of the Sunbirder party that we travelled with. Filming the birds though was another matter. For some time it seemed as though the warblers would never sit still, the thrushes would never come out from the backs of bushes, the chats would always stay hidden, the waders wouldn't let us get close enough and the pipits would only ever be seen flying over. At times I was close to despair.

Thank goodness the flycatchers were easier to film. The commonest of these was Red-breasted Flycatcher.

You'll notice that they don't have as much red in the throat as the European birds, so there is a suggestion that this subspecies will soon be split as Red-throated Flycatcher.

If that happens it will be very hard to separate the females, although this race is said to have more extensive black in the upper tail coverts.

Brown Flycatcher was also quite numerous…

…and we had several sightings of male and female Yellow-rumped Flycatcher. What a stunning bird the male is… just look how fiery the yellow becomes in his throat.

The only other birds that were easy to film were the buntings, especially Black-faced and Little Bunting.

Less common buntings included Tristram's Bunting...

... and Pallas's Reed Bunting.

Eventually I did manage to get to grips with at least the 4 common warblers listed above. Even if you couldn't see either the pale crown stripe or the yellow rump, the Pallas's Warblers could be told from the Yellow-browed Warblers by their bolder dark eyestripe and brighter yellow in the face and wings.

Radde's and Dusky Warblers are dead easy to separate on call, since Radde's has a softer 'plipping' note instead of the hard ticking of Dusky's.

Often, though, both birds were in the same place so you had to check the face pattern, soft, vague and rounded on a Radde's, sharp neat and pointed on a Dusky.

To make the most of a trip to eastern China, it's important to include at least a visit to Happy Island, a migration-watcher's paradise. It's a small island with just a few dormitory-style buildings surrounded by a few copses, lines of bushes, ditches and gullies. A succession of migrants dive into here during the spring, so it was here that we located more thrushes and flycatchers including this female Elissae's Flycatcher...

...and several male Mugimaki Flycatchers too.

The other great thing about Happy Island is the profusion of waders that gather to roost there at high tide. At first these birds would take flight long before I got close enough to film them but after hours of trudging across the mudflats I did finally get close enough to nearly all the key species, including birds such as Pacific Golden Plover, Far Eastern Curlew and Lesser Sand Plover.

I also visited some coastal wader pools where I got even closer views of birds such as Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, Long-toed Stint and Marsh Sandpiper.

Back in Beidaihe, before returning home I did manage to get much better footage of some of the more sought-after species such as Amur Falcon (below), White's Thrush and several of the rare pipits…

…and patient waiting near a favourite bush eventually rewarded me with superb views of that star bird Siberian Blue Robin.

Before long we'll be offering downloadable video clips of all these birds on our online video library. We'll also be putting together another video in the Gosney In… series (Gosney in China) which will feature all these birds plus Siberian Rubythroat (male and female), Red-flanked Bluetail, Pechora Pipit, Brown Hawk Owl, Painted Snipe, Pied Harrier, Jungle Nightjar, Blue Magpie, Great Knot, Terek Sandpiper, Chestnut Bunting, Yellow-breasted Bunting, Yellow-browed Bunting, Oriental Scops Owl, Golden-spectacled Warbler, etc. It will also feature me, Dave Gosney in various states and moods including frustrated, wet, exhausted, joyful and naked!