After my recent tour in China I was lucky enough to be able to spend two days birding with Terry Townshend in the Beijing area. Terry and his wife Libby looked after me splendidly and our birding netted me a number of new birds.
You can read Terry's account of the two days on his blog (
Birding Beijing). We kicked off by visiting Terry's local patch (Wild Duck Lake and Yehayu) in the excellent company of Jesper Hornskov. The drive out to this site is rather long and often the traffic is awful but I know now why Terry bothers. These two sites always seem to throw up something special and our visit was no exception.
Chinese grey shrike was one of the new species for me on the day out to Wild Duck Lake.
In the brutal cold we checked a partially frozen Wild Duck Lake first, highlights here included: Daurian partridge (2), great bittern (3), Baikal teal (<10), Chinese grey shrike (4-5), Asian short-toed lark (13), Chinese hill warbler (4), Pallas’ reed bunting (common) and Japanese reed bunting (1). But also ruddy shelduck, Chinese spot-billed duck, gadwall, ferruginous duck (1 late bird), goosander, merlin (1), sparrowhawk, goshawk (1), hen harrier (4), common crane (120), grey-headed woodpecker and vinous-throated parrotbill.
At Yehayu, after negotiating the fence around the site, highlights included a black bittern (1, a great rarity in this part of China and at this late date too), great egret (1), grey heron (1), upland buzzard (3), great bustard (2 flying past), black-headed gull (2), a common kingfisher dying on the ice, Naumann’s thrush (1), chinese penduline tit (heard only) and pine bunting (2). A tolai hare here was nice too. Towards the end of the day we started losing momentum from fatigue and headed for Jesper’s home for an enjoyable evening meal.
The next day we headed out again, this time to the botanical gardens on the outskirts of Beijing. In the garden proper were berry-laden bushes with plenty of light-vented bulbuls and both dusky and Naumann’s thrushes in good numbers. Azure-winged magpies were common and three introduced crested mynas flew over. At least two Chinese grosbeaks perched up nicely for scope views. We checked an area of conifers briefly for Chinese nuthatch and then moved on to tackle the ridge behind the gardens for a few special birds. The ridge walk produced a small group of curious plain laughingthrushes and we heard the Chinese hill warbler.
When we finally got down (after searching in vain along the busy paths for Siberian accentor) and found a pair of very busy Chinese nuthatches storing pine nuts for the winter. A great bird. A good flock of Pallas’ warblers was present here too, we had seen odd individuals during the day and also a handful of red-flanked bluetails. Mammals seen here were red and Père David’s rock squirrels. Another great day out.So huge thanks to Terry and Libby, I sat on my flight to Delhi absolutely exhausted after 48 hours non-stop socialising and birding - a great stay in Beijing.
