The Deskbound Birder: Reeve's Pheasant

Showing posts with label Reeve's Pheasant. Show all posts

Friday, 4 May 2018

South-east to North-west China - 4th May (Day 14)

We were up at 04:30 and after breakfast of egg sandwich we were onto the same trail at Dongzhai Nature Reserve as yesterday for the Fairy Pitta but with no luck. We saw relatively little recording a Reeve's Pheasant drop from high up its tree roost, Grey-capped Woodpecker and heard a Chinese Song Thrush. We then headed onto the track to the Reeve's Pheasant hide where a territory of Fairy Pitta was present last year but we had no luck. A Chinese Sparrowhawk soared overhead but we saw little else. At 08:00 we headed back to the bus, on the way to the hotel a female Reeve's Pheasant appeared on the road and stood motionless in the forest not far from the side of the road for a while. We headed back to our rooms, finished packing had a quick check of the rice paddies for Chinese Crested Ibis and then head back to Wuyuan at 08:30 for our 13:30 flight to Urumuqi in the far northwest of China in Xingjiang province.

Chinese Sparrowhawk - Dongzhai Nature Reserve

Female Reeve's Pheasant - Dongzhai Nature Reserve

View of mountains in central China from our flight from Wuyuan to Urumuqi

The Wuyuan to Urumuqi flight was around 4.5 hours and we then had a 20:40 flight from Urumuqi to Korlor arriving at around 21:30. We met our new driver for this section, the very amiable Mr. Lee and transferred to our hotel in Korlor, a 40 minute drive only to discover on arrival at the hotel that Tang-Jun had left his bag with around £10,000 worth of uninsured camera kit and binoculars in the car park of the airport. Fortunately, security at the airport was high and as our arrival was late in the evening and there were few people around a Police officer had spotted the bag and Tang-Jun recovered his equipment. There was no time for dinner but none of us felt like eating, mainly because it appeared that an upset stomach was taking hold of the group. I spent much of the night back and forth to the toilet!

Links to Other Days of the Trip (Click to View)
Day 1 and 2 – International flight and Dongtai.
Day 3 - Dongtai.
Day 4 – Dongtai and Magic Wood.
Day 5 - Nanhui then fly to Fuzhou.
Day 6 - Shanutan Island and Fuzhou Forest Park.
Day 7 - Fuzhou Forest Park then Emeifeng Mountain.
Day 8 - Emeifeng Mountain.
Day 9 - Emeifeng Mountain.
Day 10 - Emeifeng Mountain then Wuyuan.
Day 11 - Wuyuan.
Day 12 – Drive Wuyuan to Dongzhai.
Day 13 - Dongzhai.
Day 15 – Taklamakan Desert.
Day 16 – Taklamakan Desert then Urumqi.
Day 17 and 18 – Nanshan in the Tien Shan Mountains then fly Beijing. International flight.

Thursday, 3 May 2018

South-east China - 3rd May (Day 13)

We spent all day birding the Dongzhai area, mainly in the nature reserve. We commenced the day in the Reeve's Phesasant hide at 06:00. Our walk to the hide produced three fly-over Asian Crested Ibis which were seen rather too briefly. Settling into the hide which cost 50 yuan per person, we watched the comings and goings of Vinous-breasted Parrotbill and White-rumped Munia and had an intimate window into the world of Oriental Turtle-dove which were feeding on the grain put out for the pheasants. Everything seemed very quiet and there was little to be seen. Then, at around 07:00 a stunning male Reeve's Pheasant wandered through the clearing in front of the hide, displayed a little and then disappeared back into the forest. The display consisted of the bird standing on top of a rock and flapping its wings loudly in a similar manner to Common Pheasant in the UK. The sound generated is fairly loud and at close range almost sounds like the thudding of a Chinook helicopter. What an amazing bird with a beautiful golden plumage, scaled black with a rich rufous breast spotted white, a black and white head pattern and a stunning 2m long tail. Leaving the hide we birded down the track back to the vehicle getting brief views of a Mugimaki Flycatcher as it sung from the tree tops. We then headed to Linshang where Birdquest and others have seen Reeve's Pheasant and Fairy Pitta but the situation at the site seems to have changed with no access for our vehicle and only golf buggies ferrying people to a temple so we abandoned and headed back to the nature reserve where we birded a steep forested trail until lunchtime seeing relatively little but for Yellow-rumped Fycatcher, Yellow-browed Warbler, Yellow-bellied Tit, Japanese White-eye, Black-thoated Tit and Olive-backed Pipit. We headed back to the hotel for lunch and had our first siesta of the trip in the heat of the day.

Male Reeve's Pheasant - Dongzhai Nature Reserve

Vinous-breasted Parrotbill - Dongzhai Nature Reserve

Oriental Turtle-dove - Dongzhai Nature Reserve

Demoiselle species - Dongzhai Nature Reserve

Collared Crow in the rice paddies outside of Dongzhai Nature Reserve

Incense - Linshang

Siberian Weasel - Dongzhai Nature Reserve

Speckled Piculet - Dongzhai Nature Reserve

Fritillary species - Dongzhai Nature Reserve

Apollo species - Dongzhai Nature Reserve

Admiral species - Dongzhai Nature Reserve

Yellow-rumped Flycatcher - Dongzhai Nature Reserve

Great Tit of subspecies artatus - Dongzhai Nature Reserve

After our siesta we birded a little outside the hotel where Azure-winged Magpie and Brown-rumped Minivet showed well. We then spent a little while driving the rice paddies outside of the reserve looking for Asian Crested Ibis but with no luck and so we headed back into the forest and back to the pheasant hide. We watched the love life of Oriental Turtle-dove from the hide but had no luck with the pheasant, we decided to leave by 16:00 to look for the final remaining target of the site - Fairy Pitta. We headed onto a branch of the trail that we had birded in the morning chasing a reported Fairy Pitta but we had no luck and saw little but for Oriental Scop's-owl in a pot erected for nesting birds and heard Reeve's Pheasant displaying very close by. We decided it was probably a little early in the year for the Fairy Pitta as the species is a migrant arriving in early May and we felt we were probably just a little too early for the bird. After dinner we did a little half hearted owling and we saw distant Northern Boobook and heard at least five others. After dinner we crashed at around 22:00 ready for our final few hours birding in the morning in this part of China.