Birds of China

I was very pleased today, to identify the three birds I took photos of while in China. All three are exotic birds as far as I am concerned, and, with the aid of a friend, I not only tracked down all three, but found that one of them is a rarity even in China, its main place of origin.

sooty-headed bulbul
aka golden-vented bulbul, Pycnonotus aurigaster german, Turdus aurigaster, 白喉红臀鹎

This bird was in the bush just by the entrance to the hotel, as we were leaving DeRong. It was far less perturbed by our presence than we were, trying as we were to arrange luggage, and who went where in what car. This is a common bird in these parts apparently.

The adult has black head, chin and nape with short crest,  brown upper-parts with white rump, and white underparts. Juvenile resembles adult but has browner head and paler vent. 19-21 cm long.

It is found in China, and throughout south-eastern Asia. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests.

Kessler's thrush
aka white-backed thrush, Przewalski's Thrush, Turdus kessleri, 棕背鸫

Kessler's thrush
aka white-backed thrush, Przewalski's Thrush, Turdus kessleri, 棕背鸫

These two birds (male top, juvenile bottom) were foraging in the planted strip between a busy road and its pavement. They were just round the corner from the hotel we were staying at in Ganzi.

This bird is found in central China. Its natural habitats are temperate forests and temperate shrubland. It was sufficiently large, (28cm) that initially I thought it was a corvid, and spent some time looking through the lists of such birds as are found in China.

Blyth's kingfisher
aka great blue kingfisher, Alcedo hercules, Alcedo grandes

This is the surprise bonus in my photos. This kingfisher, originating in Yunnan, but found also in Vietnam and Myanmar. In China, the species is estimated to have fewer than 100 breeding pairs. It is thus not only an exotic (as far as I am concerned) but a rare exotic. In spite of it being described as a shy bird, I saw it in a very large, and densely populated People's Park in central Chengdu. I was just sitting by a stream, with my camera to hand, and I looked up, and there it was.

It has deep rufous underparts with a blackish blue breast patch, and brilliant cobalt blue or azure upperparts, tinged with purple. The wings are a dark blackish green, with blue speckles and tips to some of the feathers. The bill of the male is entirely black, while the female has a dark red lower mandible. Its size is 22-23cm.

The species feeds on fish and insects it catches by diving in water bodies. Unlike other Alcedo kingfishers, Blyth's kingfisher dives from a shrub close above the water, rather than from an exposed vantage point. The species is presumed not to migrate. It is described as a shy bird.

 Frequents small rivers and waterways in evergreen forest, hilly regions, or deep ravines. It is sometimes found near streams near well-wooded farmland. Its elevational range is chiefly between 400 and 1,000m above sea level, extending to a minimum of 200m and a maximum of 1,200m.

Start of the trip

2016-10-08T11:11 Chengdu elevation 501m

I went back to the station for some photos that I forgot to take yesterday. Back to the hostel, and after a light meal, over to the hotel to meet the rest of the party. The hotel is very grand - five star plus. In some places, the design got in the way of function. It took me two or three minutes to work out which tap was which and a further two or three minutes to work out how to switch the water flow from the bath to the shower head. Apart from that, very good. Met up with the tour leader and much of the rest of the group at 16:30. We had a meet and greet session, introductions, and an initial talk on what we are going to do over the next month, then off to a meal in the hotel. I was in bed by 19:30 and asleep within about 10 minutes, which is unusual for me. I slept straight through until about 01:30, woke up, had something to drink, went back to bed, and then woke up intermitently up to 05:30, breakfast, and down to the bus to go to the airport.

Back in China

2016-10-08T11:11 Chengdu 

Sim's hostel courtyard, Chengdu, Sichuan province, PRC

You may not realise it, but now is early October last year. These are details of my last trip to Tibet. It is four months later than the actual event, as I had multiple computer problems, and could not publish anything in the interval. Now everything is working, I am publishing my notes and photos taken during the trip.

I flew out to Chengdu a couple of days before I was due to meet the rest of the party. The flight itself was about as good as long haul flights can be. I had plenty of reading material - a stack of New Scientist, and Amateur Photographer, together with a mass of reading material on my Kindle. During the night though, my Kindle had a catastrophic encounter with the edge of a locker. It came out shaped like a pretzel. I had to junk it completely. 

In one way this is not a major problem. I can reproduce what was on the machine when I get back to the U.K. It rather dents my capacities over the next month. Even if I can get a replacement in China, I will not be able to use Facebook, Google or Amazon,all of which will be unavailable behind the Great Chinese Firewall. The one thing that I'm going to have to make some effort to reinstate, is all my Chinese language dictionaries, translator and character recognizer. As I'm on an organized tour, led by people who are English speakers this will not matter for the duration of the trip.

The really aggravating thing is that I was intending to use my Kindle as a half way stage in backing up my photos from my camera to portable hard disk. This is now impossible so I may just have to be careful to ensure that I've always got two copies of every photo on different storage media.

I got to Chengdu, took a taxi to Sim's, the hostel I'm staying at tonight. I then went for a walk to the main Chengdu railway station to pick up the tickets I'd ordered for use later on in the month. Then to the nearest Bank of China, to pick up a bit more money, and back to the hostel to flake out.

I had forgotten that 100% of the motor cycles and scooters, and about 20% of cars in Chengdu are electric. This means that they have, as if they needed it, an additional excuse to use their horns, but it also means they can creep up to within about 3" of you before using them. This makes crossing some of the road junctions very interesting, to put it mildly.