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China Birding Trip: September-16-30, 2013 |
Day 12 September 26 -
Visiting Happy Island
Bird of the
day: Eurasian Sparrowhawk
The early morning birders
checked out Magic Woods again just as the sun was rising. A few
posed with Snow. Sightings included White-cheeked Starling,
Common Pheasant, Yellow-browed Warbler, Chinese Grosbeak,
Tristram's Bunting, Black-faced Bunting, Olive-backed Pipit,
Common Kestrel and Black-capped Kingfisher.
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On the way back to the city, workers were heading to the office
and parents were starting to take their children to school.
This morning breakfast was at the Legend Western restaurant
– eggs, toast, french fries, cheese, juice, tea and very
strong coffee.
After breakfast we hopped on the bus and left the city for the
ferry to Happy Island / Puit Island: puit = Buddha – Buddha
discovered basic tenants of Buddhism under a puit tree on this
island.
Near the ferry we stopped for a little birding at the shore. We
had a good sighting of a Relict Gull and a Japanese Sparrowhawk,
as well as the prolific swallows, tree sparrows and other gulls.
Then we were back on the bus and heading to the ferry.
It was a pleasant ride – we, of course, were on the lookout
for water birds. We spotted Great and Japanese Cormorants.
A few of the group visited the Buddhist temple but most went
birding. The temple visitors explored the monastery buildings and
statues, lit incense and spoke with monks – June, Sharon,
Phil and Nuncio had their futures forecast by drawing numbers
– the monk referred to a book explaining their meaning.
Meanwhile the rest of the group checked out trails and found
birds, such as Little Grebes, an Eastern Marsh Harrier, Arctic,
Radde's and Two-barred Greenish Warblers, Common Rosefinsh, Brown
Shrike, Black Drongo, Black-faced Bunting and an Osprey.
We enjoyed lunch together in a local restaurant (George had a
rest) and then headed for the beach where the tide was going out
and there were many gulls and shorebirds enjoying their lunch
too. We picked up a couple of Saunder's Gulls (target bird) and
many Kentish Plovers and Black-tailed Godwits. A Gull-billed Tern
flew right overhead and we saw another Reclict Gull.
Suddenly a local television crew approached our group and asked
Ian if they could interview him about our birdwatching. They
videoed Ian and then Dave who made some conservationist comments.
Check out the video with June acting as translator: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENvrFgeUHSA&feature=youtu.be. We birded a short path by the beach so the
crew could observe birding in action.
When they left, we did a bit more birding. Our late afternoon
sightings on Happy Island were Hoopoe, White Wagtails, Pallas's
Warbler, Hen Harrier, Japanese Quail, Common Shelduck,
Spot-billed Duck and Siberian Rubythroat. We also got another
chance to photograph a Black Drongo. Finally it was time to take
the ferry and return to the city.
On our way back, we made a stop at a forested river area called
Big Woods, that had been good for birding in the spring.
Unfortunately there was deforestation and digging going on. We
made our way over this to reach a remnant forest in the distance.
Walking was challenging. The only decent birds we saw were a
group of Orange-flanked Bluetails. We were discouraged to find
mist nets used to capture small birds for food, with some dead
birds in them, so we destroyed the nets, hopefully to save some
small songbirds. This stop was a sad way to end our birding day.
While making our way back to the bus, we saw a number of
Black-crowned Night-Herons heading to roost.
June arranged supper at a local barbeque restaurant. This cheered
us up, as we relaxed with a young happy crowd. It was smoky! We
had shish kebabs on small metal skewers, corn, bread, beans, soya
beans, and boiled peanuts with our usual Chinese beer.
English signs of the day:
