Another weekend of extraordinary contrasts
This weekend has been quite a rollercoaster of visual contrasts. I had been invited to participate in a group excursion of the Shanghai Birding Group, so I left Suzhou on Friday evening and stayed over in a hotel in Shanghai with a couple of my new birding friends, and we were duly picked up at 05.30 on Saturday morning for the drive to Nanhui, the fabulous but gravely endangered birding area out on the coast beyond Pudong International Airport.
We arrived at the northern end of this highly important wildlife area just as it was getting light, and within a few minutes, we were treated to a wonderful sighting of a Brown-cheeked Rail, which appeared on the edge of a pool, skulking in and out of the waterside vegetation and every now and then rewarding us with outstanding views of what is normally a highly elusive species. A great start.
We worked our way southwards along the seawall road, meeting up with various other car-loads of Chinese birders who had also been invited along, and eventually we arrived at what is known as “the magic parking lot”, and it lived up to its magical reputation for turning up some marvelous birds again on this occasion.
The car park is favoured by Chinese bird photographers, who place live mealworms on a couple of hunks of wood, and this bait lures the birds in, and it was not long before we were treated to outstanding views of an extraordinarily beautiful male Japanese Robin. Unlike the familiar European Robin, this species has a fiery orange face and breast, bordered below by a deep slaty-grey band. It is not common at all on the China coast, least of all this late in the year, and we savoured this splendid viewing for quite some time.
The Japanese Robin put on a splendid show
The photographers in the Magic Parking Lot are almost as much of a sight as the birds they photograph
Hair-crested Drongo was a nice bird to see; the hair crest can just be seen sticking up from its forehead
A Blue Rock Thrush of the race philippensis posed nicely on the seawall
An Osprey sat on a post offshore
The Shanghai birding group team
The rest of the day was spent birding along the coast and at the nearby Dishui Lake, and by the end of the day we had notched up a respectable list of 72 species. We then headed back towards the city, and ended what had been a great day with some German beer and food in the newly opened Paulaner Bräuhaus, which was well worth a visit.
Sunday morning saw the three of us who were staying in the hotel meeting again at 06.00AM, and heading on the metro to Century Park, a sort of Shanghainese equivalent of Central Park in New York. We birded that park intensively between around 7.00 and 11.00AM, when the crowds began to build up, and reached 32 species of bird, not a bad total for a park in the centre of a huge city (by some measures, Earth’s largest metropolis). The total included some quite interesting birds, including Red-billed Starling (a lifer for me), Pallas’s and Yellow-browed Warblers, Chinese Grosbeak, Azure-winged Magpies, Dusky, Pale and White’s Thrush, and Hoopoe.
Century Park is an oasis of calm in the teeming city of Shanghai
Looking north across the lake in the park
These flats have a good view of the park
The lotus plants have died back for the winter now
Night Herons are not rare in Shanghai
A splendid gingko tree in all its autumn finery
A charming bridge in Century Park
There are some quite wild parts in the corners of the park
Little did I know that I would be near the top of the tallest building later that day
We then headed to the metro station, and I split from the others as I had arranged to meet my ex-boss and friend Brian in the skyscraper zone of Pudong for lunch, and when I emerged from the underground station, I was confronted by a plethora of stupendous buildings towering into the sky above me.
Completed in 1994, the Pearl Oriental TV Tower was the tallest building in Shanghai until 2007
Futuristic skyscape in Pudong
The Shanghai Tower stands proudly above all its neighbours
We first wandered down to the waterfront, directly opposite the stately buildings of the Bund, symbols of western power during the early half of the 20th century. These are utterly dwarfed by the immense structures on the Pudong side.
The stately buildings along the Bund as seen from Pudong
After lunch, we headed for the tallest of all, the unimaginatively named Shanghai Tower. Designed with a unique curve that twists all the way up the 632 metres to the top, this structure is currently the second tallest building in the World.
The Shanghai Towers towers over its neighbour, the 492m World Financial Center, nicknamed “The Bottle-opener”
After some difficulty in finding the entrance, we were surprised at having to go down two floors in order to then go up, but then we shot up in what are apparently the fastest lifts on Earth, travelling at 18 metres/second. I was surprised that I did not feel dizzy rising at this pace, but it was a smooth ride, and despite the air pollution and haze that obscured the view from the viewing platform on the 118th floor, the vistas in all directions were quite simply stupendous. All the other skyscrapers nearby were like toys in comparison to this monster, and I found myself almost at a loss for words. The pictures say it all.
The Huangpu River curves its way through Shanghai
The other buildings in Pudong look like toys from this extraordinary viewpoint
The Jinmao Tower looks tiny in comparison
“The Bottle-opener” is an appropriate nickname for the second highest building in Shanghai
These blocks of flats are not small in themselves, yet they look insignificant from this height
Into the frozen North
Last weekend was one of the highlights of my time in China to date. Friday afternoon saw me hurrying to Shanghai to meet a group of birdwatchers and to catch the bullet train for a 1000km journey north to Tianjin, a vast metropolis with 15.5 million inhabitants and apparently the sixth largest city on Earth. The journey took just 3 hours and 20 minutes, indicating that our average speed was well over 300kph.
The most noticeable difference was immediately apparent when we stepped out of the train: a dramatically lower temperature. Luckily we were able to find a taxi fairly quickly, and we were soon in the warmth of our hotel, where we spent the night before a really great day of birding.
We piled into our minibus in the morning, and headed out through the seemingly endless industrial outskirts of Tianjin, aiming for the renowned site of Beidagang, a reservoir to the south-east of the city with large areas of reed and a convenient causeway across the middle that facilitates watching on both sides.
An icy temperature greeted us when we stepped out of the vehicle, but once the sun started exerting its influence, the bright weather and large numbers of birds combined to lift our spirits. The Chinese members of the group (all but two) were excited by a group of Mute Swans, and a huge flock of Avocets attracted our attention in the far distance, along with large numbers of Goosanders and other ducks far away across the lake.
A huge flock of Avocets flies over the Beidagang lake, with Mute Swans in the foreground
Industry rarely seems to be out of sight while birdwatching in China
My attention was quickly drawn to a by now familiar call on the other side of the causeway, in the reeds. I immediately recognized this as perhaps the bird I most wanted to see here in eastern China, the enigmatic and endangered Reed Parrotbill. I had missed it on my two visits to Nanhui, a well-known site near Shanghai, and I was determined to see it this time. Searching for reed-loving birds can often be frustrating, but it was not long before a long-tailed bird with whirring wings flew across and landed in full view near the top of some reeds, and there was my first “lifer” of the weekend. We later went on to see at least twenty of these unusual-looking birds, with their stumpy yellowish bill, grey head with a bold, curving black eyestripe and long, graduated tail. This species is endangered due to the ongoing destruction of reedbeds, and I was delighted to acquaint myself with this very special bird.
Reed Parrotbill was a bird I had long hoped to see
The causeway provided excellent views over the lake on one side and reeds on the other
We then reached the far end of the lake, and headed on up a parallel road. A look away over the reeds revealed some very large but very distant white birds, and a telescope examination confirmed my second “lifer” of the trip, another endangered species and one that I had long dreamt of seeing, the stately Oriental White Stork. We finally managed to see up to 100 of these magnificent birds, a very significant proportion of the entire World population of perhaps 3000 birds. Larger than the European White Stork, and with a black rather than a red bill, and a piercing white eye, this bird is still on the decline. It breeds in north-eastern China and adjoining parts of Russia. It is apparently still illegally hunted, as well as suffering from the destruction of its nesting trees, collisions with power cables (one bird we saw had one of its legs dangling uselessly beneath it as it flew past), and poisoning. Apparently over thirty of these storks were found poisoned here in 2012, victims of the extraordinary method of poaching of ducks and geese that occurs frequently in China; surely eating birds that have been poisoned can hardly be a healthy option for humans, yet still it goes on.
The large white birds in the distance turned out to be Oriental Storks
The Oriental Stork is larger than its much commoner European cousin
The black flight feathers of the Oriental Stork show a whitish area on the upper side
A group of Eurasian Spoonbills, with a flock of Bean Geese beyond
While watching these storks, along with large numbers of Bean Geese, my third “lifer” of the day appeared, perched on top of a signpost: a Chinese Grey Shrike. Larger and with more extensive white on the wing than the similar Great Grey Shrike, this bird was distant but clearly identifiable, and I savoured my view of this attractive species.
A distant Chinese Grey Shrike posed on a signpost
A stately group of Great White Egrets and a Grey Heron provided a beautiful composition
After a photo stop with one of the staff members of this reservoir reserve, we headed off towards the coast of the Bohai Gulf, and we stopped at a scruffy area near the seawall. Unfortunately, the tide was way out, and other than a few Eurasian Curlews it seemed at first that we were not destined to see much here, but soon a small gull flew along, looking similar to the familiar Black-headed Gull, but smaller, and with a shorter, more stubby black bill, another vulnerable species, the Saunders’s Gull.
I was already familiar with this attractive little gull, which I used to see in small numbers in Japan, but here we were treated to views of perhaps twenty individuals, a privilege considering that the total population of this bird probably does not exceed 15,000 to 20,000 individuals.
More exciting still was a line of more distant gulls, the species that we had really come here to see, the Relict Gull. This species breeds around high-altitude salt lakes in Mongolia, Kazakhstan and adjacent parts of China and Russia, with an estimated population of around 10,000 birds. Until recently, it was not really known where the majority of these birds spend the winter. I saw it in Korea in the winter of 1990, at a most beautifully peaceful site at the mouth of the Naktong River, near Pusan; that place is now totally destroyed and converted into a huge container port. Now, however, it has been revealed that up to 7,000 of these delightful birds winter on the mudflats of the Haibin coast.
Relict Gulls can be recognised by the white eyelids that make their eyes look half closed, and the feathers that come a long way down their bills
From here, we headed along the heavily developed coast on a major road, and at one point I was very surprised to find myself looking at the former Soviet aircraft carrier Kiev, which was bought by a Chinese company after the collapse of the Soviet Union and is now the centrepiece of the Tianjin Aircraft Carrier World theme park.
The ex-Soviet aircraft carrier Kiev. Photo courtesy Binhai Aircraft Carrier Themepark
We finally checked another series of coastal pools, where we enjoyed a spectacular sunset and large numbers of Common Shelducks, before driving 120kms or so northwards to our hotel for the Saturday night, in Tangshan.
Even industrial landscapes can have a surprising beauty
Shelducks were numerous here
Evening near Tangshan
The nets here attracted large numbers of gulls
The evening light was spectacular
A tranquil scene in the sunset
Shelducks against the evening sun
The sun slipped down beyond the reeds
A vast new skyscraper thrusts its way upwards into the evening sky
Sunday morning saw us leaving our hotel, with its spectacular mural of Napoleon, at around 6.00AM, and a short drive took us towards the Bohai coast, where we found that it was colder than the previous morning, with a bitter wind, and it was with some reluctance that we emerged from our minibus on the windswept expanse of the Caofeidian marshes, a peninsula that juts out into the Bohai Gulf.
An impressive mural of Napoleon graced the lobby of our hotel
Large numbers of both White-naped and Red-crowned Cranes are supposed to winter here, but all we found was one distant Common Crane, that flew off long before we could approach it. A digger in the distance was an ill omen, and it later emerged that even though this is a Provincial Nature Reserve, it has recently been designated as the site of a future petrochemical plant. What are we humans doing? I find it utterly extraordinary that one of the last areas of relatively natural marshland on the whole of this coast, home to some of the rarest and most culturally significant birds, should be earmarked for destruction. A road is already under construction through the middle of this “reserve”, and the theory is that this disturbance has already frightened the cranes away. But where can they go when almost everywhere else is wrecked?
An icy sunrise over the Bohai Gulf
Only one Common Crane was to be seen, where White-naped Cranes should have been
Site of a future petrochemical plant. What are we doing?
These pools will soon be gone
Disappointed, we headed back towards Tianjin, and stopped for lunch in an almost deserted motorway rest area. Very few birds were visible from the road, and I was becoming despondent, thinking that we were destined to see nothing for the rest of the day. However, little did I know that we would be stopping at the Tuanbowa reservoir, and the bright sunshine and large numbers of birds here soon improved my mood.
The commonest species here was the Eurasian Coot, with Mute Swans and Great Crested Grebes adding to the homely feel. More interesting to me, however, were considerable numbers of Falcated Teal, a delightful bird that I used to see frequently on the lakes around Tokyo. Wigeon, Common Teal, Gadwall, Goosander, Goldeneye and large numbers of Smew were also here, and we spent some time scoping out across the lake in search of rarer species.
Tuanbowa Reservoir attracts numerous waterbirds
A telescope was necessary to identify the more distant birds
It was near the end of our time here, after we had moved to the northern end of the lake, that Nemo, our local guide, spotted a small group of Ferruginous Ducks close to the reeds on the far shore, and with them, two similar birds with whitish flanks. Unfortunately, they were asleep, and we could not see their heads, but we were almost certain that these were another drastically endangered species, the Baer’s Pochard. BirdLife International’s factsheet on this duck states: This species is classified as Critically Endangered as it is apparently undergoing an extremely rapid population decline, as measured by numbers on both the breeding and wintering grounds. It is now absent or occurs in extremely reduced numbers over the majority of its former breeding and wintering grounds and is common nowhere. It is thought that hunting and wetland destruction are the key reasons for its decline. Population size: 150-700.
By this time, excitement was high, but time was low, as we still had to reach Tianjin station in time to catch our trains home. However, just as we were about to leave, Nemo spotted another very special bird which swam through his telescope view as he was hoping that one of the almost-certain Baer’s Pochards would raise its head to clinch its identification: a splendid male Baikal Teal. This delightful little duck, with its green head and complicated yellow face pattern, was thought to be highly endangered until the late 1980s, when a number of vast flocks were discovered in South Korea, where over 95% of the global population overwinters. I had visited two of those lakes in the winter of 1990, and marveled at the vast concentration of these birds, which has been estimated at 400,000 individuals. Even to see one was a fitting end to this excellent weekend, and I look forward to birding again with this group at some future date.
Ferruginous Duck, probable Baer’s Pochard and definite Baikal Teal were a fine ending to a great weekend
Another little coincidence
One of things I enjoy is the little coincidences that seem to pepper my life, and there are plenty of them. The most recent one concerns a butterfly that I found in the Hangzhou Botanic Gardens back on 5th November. It was a new species for me, but I recognised it as a Tree Brown, a member of the genus Lethe. Just out of interest, in classical Greek mythology Lethe was a river in the Underworld whose water would induce forgetfulness in those who drank it.
I knew this butterfly belonged to the genus Lethe, but I could not narrow it down to species level
Narrowing it down to a species was not easy, as I do not (yet) possess a complete book of Chinese butterflies. The only one available is a four-volume masterpiece, Butterflies of China, by Wu Chunseng and Xu Yufeng, in Chinese, and costing around £600. I may well invest in this set at some future date, but for the moment I am forced to resort to books on the butterflies of Japan, Nepal and India, and this particular Lethe does not appear in any of them.
However, while searching the internet for images of any cheaper books on Chinese butterflies that might exist, I was astonished to find the image below, on the website of China Scientific Book Services, www.hcis.com. It depicts a plate from a totally different book, Atlas of Butterflies of Mount Qinling-Bashan (a mountain area in Shaanxi Province, in mid-western China), by Xu Jiazhu and Wei Huanzhi. By an extraordinary stroke of luck, among the approximately 1700 butterfly species that have been recorded to date in China, one of the two species that feature on the page selected to appear on the internet to represent that book depicts “my” Lethe….and there is absolutely no doubt that it was Lethe syrcis.
The lower of the two butterfly species on this page is Lethe syrcis, “my” butterfly!
