China in Winter Tour Report 2016

17th November - 2nd December


TOUR HIGHLIGHTS:
Either for rarity value, excellent views or simply a group favourite.

Swan Goose Lesser White-fronted Goose Mandarin Duck Falcated Duck Baikal Teal Scaly-sided Merganser White-necklaced Partridge Cabot’s Tragopan Elliot’s Pheasant Koklass Pheasant Silver Pheasant Oriental Stork Black-faced Spoonbill Siberian Crane Sandhill Crane White-naped Crane Red-crowned Crane Hooded Crane Spoon-billed Sandpiper Long-billed Plover

Saunder’s Gull Pied Falconet Silver-throated Bushtit Hartert’s Leaf Warbler Grey-sided Scimitar-Babbler Dusky Fulvetta Moustached Laughingthrush Short-tailed Parrotbill Reed Parrotbill Indochinese Yuhina Spotted Elachura White’s Thrush Grey-sided Thrush Pale Thrush Northern Red-flanked Bluetail Slaty-backed Forktail Buff-bellied Pipit Yellow-browed Bunting Pallas’s Reed Bunting Japanese Reed Bunting

 

SUMMARY:

Our SE China in Winter tour focussed on some of the rarest and most stunning species on the planet as we visited a variety of habitats from wide, open plains, marshes and huge lakes to forested mountains and coastal marshes and mudflats. This was a thoroughly enjoyable tour with a great group as we visited the famous wetlands of Yangcheng and Poyang Hu during the first half of the tour, which met all of our expectations as we saw 6 species of crane and numerous Oriental Storks. Add to that a few Spoon-billed Sandpipers and the first of our 12 species of buntings seen, plus 8 species of thrush made this a spectacular start. Moving further south to Wuyuan we were lucky to find a pair of Moustached Laughingthrushes in a secluded valley and our main target of Scaly-sided Merganser swimming along a secluded river set amidst beautiful rolling, forested hills. From here we visited Emei Feng, a stunning mountain where 7 Elliot’s Pheasants were the highlight, plus we had some views of Cabot’s Tragopan, and both Koklass & Silver Pheasants. We rounded off our tour at Fuzhou Forest Park and an extra day at Nanhui, close to Shanghai with Spotted Elachura, Asian Stubtail and great looks at a drake Baikal Teal. China has an excellent road network, good hotels and great food making travelling here very easy indeed and I for one cannot wait to return. 

 

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