EASTERN CHINA IN WINTER – A veritable China Birding Spectacular!

PRICE INFORMATION

Birdquest Inclusions: Our tour prices include surface transportation, accommodations, meals and entrance fees.

We also include all tipping for local guides, drivers and accommodation/restaurant staff.

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EASTERN CHINA IN WINTER BIRDING TOUR: DETAILED ITINERARY

Eastern China in Winter: Day 1 The main section of our Eastern China in Winter tour starts this evening in Beijing where we will spend the night. Airport to hotel transfers will be provided.

Eastern China in Winter: Day 2  This morning we will take a high-speed train to Linfen in Shanxi province. From there we will drive into the mountains to the Huoshan area for a two nights stay. We should arrive in time for some initial exploration.

China’s fantastic modern ‘bullet trains’ travel at a speed that is hard to believe for a terrestrial means of transport! These clean and comfortable trains travel between stations at speeds of between 200-300 kilometres per hour (120-180 miles per hour)! The journey times are typically well under half the time it takes to drive.

Eastern China in Winter: Day 3  This morning we are due for a huge treat as we enjoy a close encounter with the Endangered Brown Eared Pheasant. This endemic species was once widespread in northeastern China but is now reduced to a few fragmented pockets. Soon after dawn their rolling, barking calls ring out across the wooded valleys and we will watch out for these huge pheasants as they forage across the adjacent hillsides, digging up roots and tubers with their powerful bills and claws. Better still, we are soon likely to be close to 20 or even 30 or 40 birds! What an amazing birding experience!

Other birds here may well include the endemic Silver-throated Bushtit and the near-endemics Chinese Nuthatch as well as Great Spotted and Grey-capped Woodpeckers, Oriental Magpie, the vocal Southern Nutcracker, Conereous, Coal and Willow Tits (the latter of the Songar group) and Eurasian Nuthatch.

Eastern China in Winter: Day 4  In the morning we will drive to Huozhou and catch a high-speed train to Xinyang in Henan province. From Xinyang, we will drive the relatively short distance to the Dongzhai National Nature Reserve for a two-night stay.

A major reason for visiting Dongzhai is to see the extraordinary endemic Reeves’s Pheasant – surely one of the world’s most spectacular birds  – and not just see it but see it close by and in all its glory! With subtle, scaled, golden and chestnut hues, a vivid pied head pattern, and a tail that is unfeasibly long (up to 1.8 metres in length!), this really is a must-see species. We will visit a photographic hide/blind this afternoon where we should see a number of these wonderful creatures, an experience that will surely live in all our memories.

Quite a lot of other birds frequent the hide and these regularly include the nerar-endemic Chinese Hwamei and  Masked Laughingthrush, Spotted and Oriental Turtle Doves, Streak-breasted Scimitar-Babbler, White-crowned Forktail and White-rumped Munia.

Eastern China in Winter: Day 5  Close by, a population of the Endangered and spectacular, near-endemic Crested Ibis has become established, and we should be able to watch them feeding in the paddies or along the river. The Chinese population is currently estimated to be in excess of 3000 individuals and they are recolonizing some of their old haunts.

Also here, the rapidly declining near-endemic Collared Crow is still fairly numerous, and we will make sure we get some good views of this charismatic species.

Adjacent to the village we are likely to encounter a number of other interesting species, including such near-endemics as the noisy, Collared Finchbill, the handsome Chestnut Bulbul, Vinous-throated Parrotbill and Yellow-bellied Tit, as well as the smart Daurian Redstart, Dusky Thrush, Oriental (or Grey-capped) Greenfinch, the impressive Chinese (or Yellow-billed) Grosbeak and the much-wanted Yellow-browed Bunting.

More widespread species that we are likely to encounter during our visit to the area include Little Egret, Black Kite, Common Pheasant (the grey-rumped decollatus subspecies here), Crested Goshawk, Crested Kingfisher, Eurasian Jay (the striking form here, pekingensis, is part of the ‘Brandt’s Jay group’), Mountain Bulbul, Red-flanked Bluetail, the perky Black-throated Bushtit, Swinhoe’s White-eye, Russet Sparrow, Brambling and Meadow, Little and Black-faced Buntings. Speckled Piculet, Green-backed Tit and Yellow-throated Bunting are also possible.

In the afternoon, we will return to the Reeves’s Pheasant hide for a second time.

Eastern China in Winter: Day 6  This morning we will return to Xinyang and catch a high-speed train to Jiujiang in Jiangxi province.

Not far from Jiujiang, we will check a lake where the Critically Endangered Baer’s Pochard is fairly regular during the winter months.

Afterwards, we will head southwards to the famous Poyang Hu for a three-night stay.

Eastern China in Winter: Days 7-8  Poyang Hu is the largest freshwater lake in China, covering an area of about 3000 square kilometres and situated to the south of the great Yangtze River. After the spring and summer rainy season, the water levels fall progressively – creating a mosaic of residual lakes surrounded by marshes and dry land around the periphery of Poyang Hu itself. It is these shallow residual lakes which are of prime importance to waterbirds and following the discovery of an enormous concentration of rare cranes and other species in 1981 a reserve of 22,400 hectares was established by the Chinese authorities. This extensive reserve, situated at the northwestern corner of the Poyang complex, is one of the great waterbird sanctuaries of the world, although as yet few people know much about it and even fewer have visited it (our first visit, in 1988, was the first-ever by a birding tour!). During our time here we will explore a series of lakes and their surrounding marshland.

The town of Wu Cheng is situated on a large island amid the Poyang wetlands, between the Gan and Xiu Rivers, and for part of the year, the causeway that connects the island to the mainland lies under deep water! There is a large pagoda positioned at the northernmost point of the island, built on the site of a lighthouse built centuries ago on the orders of the Chinese emperor to guide shipping heading up to Nanchang. Decidedly Chinese-style, flat-bottomed barges ply the river channels, often loaded down with unlikely cargoes such as piles of bamboo poles or mountains of hay that almost completely obscure their bulky wooden superstructures, whilst overhead small groups of cranes and geese make their way between the wetlands.

Undoubtedly the most exciting birds of the Poyang area are the cranes. Up to 2000 Critically Endangered Siberian Cranes, up to 1000 White-naped Cranes and much smaller numbers of Hooded and Common Cranes winter in the area and impart their own special magic to it. The V-shaped skeins passing overhead and the cranes dancing and calling to each other along the lake shores are amongst the most evocative sights and sounds in the avian world. We could also come across one or two Sandhill Cranes (of the ‘Lesser’ subspecies) that have failed to cross the Bering Strait from their Siberian breeding grounds and instead headed south to winter.

Up to 1600 Oriental Storks winter in the area, probably a large proportion of the world population of this Critically Endangered bird, as do many hundreds of Eurasian Spoonbills.

The star attraction among the hordes of wildfowl found in the area is the huge number of Swan Geese. Over 10,000 winter in the entire Poyang region – the majority of the world population. Other wintering geese include over 5000 Greater White-fronted Geese, several hundred Taiga Bean Geese and Tundra Bean Geese, and smaller numbers of Greylag Geese. Lesser White-fronted Geese are also present in small or moderate numbers, although they are often hard to locate amongst the far more numerous Greaters.

Up to 2000 Bewick’s Swans occur here as well as large numbers of ducks, including Common Shelduck, the handsome Falcated Duck, Eurasian Wigeon, Chinese Spot-billed Duck, Mallard, Eurasian Teal, Northern Pintail and Northern Shoveler, Common Pochard, Tufted Duck, the beautiful Smew and Common Merganser (or Goosander). We also have a modest chance of coming across the rare and endangered Baikal Teal, surely one of the world’s most beautiful ducks.

The diversity of wintering shorebirds is not very great, but there are large flocks of Pied Avocets and Spotted Redshanks. One of the most enigmatic birds in Asia, the poorly-known Swinhoe’s (or Asian Yellow) Rail sometimes overwinters here (indeed we have seen it on several occasions in the past), but it is a species in sharp decline and nowadays if we see this little mite flutter up from the ground displaying its broad white wing patches we will count ourselves extraordinarily fortunate.

Other specialities include the impressive, near-endemic Chinese Grey Shrike, the near-endemic Red-billed Starling, the range-restricted Marsh Grassbird (or Japanese Swamp Warbler), the tiny Chinese Penduline Tit and Pallas’s Reed Bunting.

More widespread species of the Poyang area include Little and Great Crested Grebes, Great Cormorant, Eurasian (or Great) Bittern, Grey Heron, Great Egret, Black-winged Kite, Eastern Marsh and Hen Harriers, Eastern (or Japanese) Buzzard, Japanese Quail, Brown Crake, Brown-cheeked Rail, Common Moorhen, Eurasian Coot, Mongolian and Black-headed Gulls, Northern Lapwing, Kentish Plover, Common Snipe, Common Greenshank, Green Sandpiper, Dunlin, Common, White-throated and Pied Kingfishers, Common Kestrel, Peregrine Falcon, Oriental Skylark, Barn Swallow, Pallas’s Leaf Warbler, Zitting Cisticola, Plain Prinia, Black-collared and White-cheeked Starlings, White Wagtail, Siberian and Water Pipits, Eurasian Tree Sparrow, Scaly-breasted Munia and Chestnut-eared Bunting.

Eastern China in Winter: Day 9  After some final birding at Poyang Hu we will travel to Wuyuan in eastern Jiangxi for a two-night stay.

Eastern China in Winter: Day 10  This morning we will explore a wide, fast-flowing river where the rare and little-known Scaly-sided (or Chinese) Merganser winters in fair numbers. We should obtain great views of at least a few and quite possibly a dozen or more of these beautiful ducks, watching them feeding in the river or chasing each other during territorial squabbles. We also have a good chance of finding the localized Long-billed Plover on the gravel banks.

The Wuyuan area also features a series of other specialities, notably including the endemic Huet’s Fulvetta and skulking endemic Grey-sided Scimitar Babbler, the range-restricted Mandarin Duck and Pied Falconet. We even have a chance of coming across the restricted-range Short-tailed Parrotbill and the near-endemic Moustached Laughingthrush.

Other species we may well find during our visit include Eurasian Sparrowhawk, Grey-headed Woodpeckers Long-tailed Shrike, Grey Treepie, Red-billed Blue Magpie, Oriental Magpie-Robin, Brown-flanked Bush Warbler, Rufous-capped Babbler, Greater Necklaced Laughingthrush, Red-billed Leiothrix, Crested Myna. Winter visitors from northern Asia include Grey-backed Thrush and Tristram’s Bunting.

[Interestingly, the Blue-crowned or Courtois’s Laughingthrushes that breed around several villages of the Wuyuan area in spring and summer retreat deep into inaccessible hill country in winter. You can see them on our spring Eastern China tour.]

Eastern China in Winter: Day 11  This morning we will take a high-speed train southwards to Jian’ou in Fujian province and then drive to Nanping for an overnight stay.

We should have yet another treat in store this afternoon as we visit a photographic hide/blind where we have a good chance of an encounter with a stunning male Cabot’s Tragopan and perhaps two or more females! Winter is the best time for seeing this species which is generally shy and not attending hides in spring.

Other birds are overshadowed by such a wonder, but the hide is good for the localized Tristram’s Bunting that is attracted by the grain.

Eastern China in Winter: Day 12  In the morning we will head westwards to Mingxi County for an overnight stay. We will be hoping to see the rare and sought-after Blyth’s Kingfisher in this area. It is not a predictable bird, especially in winter, so it will be a case of fingers crossed!

This afternoon we will attend another hide/blind where we could well be rewarded by stunning views of both Elliot’s and Silver Pheasants. As with the tragopans, winter is much the most reliable time for observing these pheasants at the hide. The range=restricted Chinese Barbet is an uncommon bird in the area and quiet in winter but is possible.

Eastern China in Winter: Day 13  After some final birding in Mingxi County we will travel to Fuzhou Airport where the main section of our Eastern China in Winter birding tour ends.

[Fuzhou is served by flights from all major Chinese gateway cities. We can easily arrange a domestic flight out of Fuzhou on request, even if you are not arranging your international flights through us.]

BEIJING & BOHAI EXTENSION

Eastern China in Winter (Beijing & Bohai): Day 1  The extension begins this evening at our Beijing hotel, where we will spend the night.

(The hotel has a shuttle bus service from Beijing Capital Airport, where most international flights arrive.)

Eastern China in Winter (Beijing & Bohai): Day 2  We will set out early and drive southwards to the Tianjin area.

Here we will visit the low-lying shores of the Gulf of Bohai, where our primary target will be the rare Relict Gull that winters in this area in considerable numbers. This rare species is rarely seen by birders other than in Mongolia in spring and the coast of Northeast China in winter, so it is a very special bird!

Other gulls that winter regularly in the area include Vega Gull, Mongolian Gull, the ‘taimyrensis’ form of the Lesser Black-backed Gull (which may, in fact, be a hybrid population with Vega Gull), Pallas’s (or Great Black-headed) Gull, the rare Saunders’s Gull, Kamchatka Gull (sometimes split from Common Gull) and Black-headed Gull. Black-tailed Gull and Glaucous Gull are also possible.

We will surely turn up many other coastal species, including Common Shelduck, the smart Falcated Duck, Common Goldeneye and perhaps Greater Scaup.

Areas of reeds hold the impressive Reed Parrotbill as well as Pallas’s Reed, Common Reed and Ochre-rumped (or Japanese Reed) Buntings.

Baer’s Pochard turns up on reservoirs around Tianjin with some regularity in winter so we have an additional chance for this rare bird during the extension.

Afterwards, we will return to the Beijing region for a further two nights (one night may be in the mountains, depending on the bird news available close to the visit).

Eastern China in Winter (Beijing & Bohai): Day 3  In some winters good numbers of Japanese Waxwing visit the Greater Beijing region, so if there are recent sightings at a convenient site we will try and find some during our stay. In addition, there are often a few wintering Pallas’s Rosefinches at sites in or near the city.

In the hills and mountains that lie to the west of the city, we can wander amongst woodlands, orchards and scrubby hillsides that most notably hold wintering Siberian Accentors as well as Dusky, Naumann’s and Red-throated Thrushes, Güldenstädt’s (or White-winged) Redstart and Rustic and Little Buntings. If we are fortunate we will find a Pine Bunting or two. Asian Rosy Finch is also a possibility but snow at higher altitudes often renders this species inaccessible.

Residents include such endemics as Beijing Babbler (formerly Chinese Hill Warbler), Plain (or Pere David’s) Laughingthrush and Silver-throated Bushtit and such near-endemics as Light-vented (or Chinese) Bulbul, Vinous-throated Parrotbill, Chinese Nuthatch and Chinese Beautiful Rosefinch. Other birds of note include Oriental Magpie, Oriental (or Grey-capped) Greenfinch, Siberian Long-tailed Rosefinch, Godlewski’s Bunting and the smart Yellow-throated Bunting. Hill Pigeon is also possible.

Additional species we are likely to find in the Beijing region include Eurasian Sparrowhawk, Oriental Turtle Dove, Grey-headed and Great Spotted  Woodpeckers, Pallas’s Leaf Warbler (yes, even in winter, they are such tough little birds!), Cinereous and Marsh Tits, Willow Tit (the form here is part of the ‘Songar’ group, sometimes treated as a distinct species), Azure-winged and Red-billed Blue Magpies, Large-billed Crow, Eurasian Tree Sparrow and Brambling.

Eastern China in Winter: Day 4  After some more birding in the Beijing region we will meet up this evening with those arriving for the main tour.