South-east China - 29th April (Day 9)

We spent the entire day birding up and down the road at Emeifeng and, similarly, spent most of the day birding in rain or fog or both the conditions were pretty grim and the birding, in general, was fairly unproductive. The bus went down the road to try for Elliot’s Pheasant at the lower elevations while I decided to stay up the hill on my own and try for Cabot’s Tragopan. Cabot’s Tragopan was one of the main reasons I wanted to return to Emeifeng having dipped the species last time I was here in November 2016. I was dropped off at 05:30 and slowly birded up and down a short stretch of road in pretty much constant fog and rain. I saw little but was focusing my attention on the road rather than in the bushes. I followed a pair of Spotted Forktail down the road for a short way, they showed very well as they fed on the roadside in the gloom. On my second pass down the road a female Cabot’s Tragopan leaped from the ground layer vegetation 15m in front of me and ran across the road giving close but brief views. It was not until my fourth pass down the road at around 07:00 that I eventually came across a male Cabot’s Tragopan which came from vegetation only 10m from me and ran down the road and leaped into the forest alongside the road. I thought that would be all I would see of this bird but I played a recording and almost immediately the bird responded. I found a suitable location looking downslope and played the recording again. The Tragopan poked its head from behind a rock showing ita vivid red facial skin and the beautiful orange head plumes that form a V on the rear of the head. As the bird slowly moved around, through the undergrowth, I caught glimpses of the birds beautiful plumage, the upperparts being rich coppery brown densely populated with large buff blotches and with soft buff underparts. I heard a vehicle and below I could see that it was our bus with the others aboard. As they approached I waved them down and indicated that they needed to be queit and careful as they approached. Over the next 30 minutes or so we all obtained views of this stunning pheasant species but only Andy B managed to obtain decent photographs – this was definitely one of the most stunning birds I have seen. Oh, and the others had managed to see four Elliots Pheasant before coming back up the hill.

Cabot's Tragopan, digiscoped by Andy Bunting. More of Andy's photo's can be seen on his Flickr site here - Emeifeng Mountain

Spotted Forktail - Emeifeng Mountain

After breakfast we birded the trail which runs off the end of the main road and beyond the accommodation. It was thick fog with intermittent rain and the birding was fairly slow going but we encountered a few small feeding flocks mainly lead by Indochinese Yuhina and we recorded White-browed Shrike-babbler of the subspecies ricketti and a possible split as Grey-breasted Shrike-babbler, and Small Niltava new for the trip as well as Lesser Necklaced Laughingthrush, Grey-cheeked Fulvetta (subspecies huetii), Streak-breasted Scimitar-babbler and Chestnut-crowned Warbler.

Butterfly species - Emeifeng Mountain

Moth species - Emeifeng Mountain

Chestnut-crowned Warbler - Emeifeng Mountain

After a welcome lunch of noodles and a chance to change out of wet clothes we headed downhill and birded a lower section of road, it was still raining and we saw relatively little. Red-rumped Swallow, House Swift and Pacific Swift fed overhead and we enjoyed the spectacular forest clad hillsides with wisps of water vapour rising from the valley bottoms. It looked dryer downhill and so we descended to the rice paddies and small holdings below. On the way down we flushed a male Elliot’s Pheasant which I saw briefly from the car so it was good to catch-up with this species for the trip. We birded this habitat in the hope of picking up a few buntings and other migrants. We recorded Little Bunting, White-rumped Munia, Oriental Turtle-dove, Chinese Hwamei, Masked Laughingthrush and White-crowned Forktail but little else and it was still raining. It was now 16:30 and we headed back up the mountain hoping to see more pheasants but in the couple of hours we spent we saw nothing but for a female Chesnut-bellied Rock-thrush near to the top. We retired for dinner and very welcome beers before crashing at 21:00.

Forest cladding the hillside of Emeifeng Mountain

Forest cladding the hillside of Emeifeng Mountain

Forest cladding the hillside of Emeifeng Mountain

The group in the rain on Emeifeng Mountain with, from left to right myself, Martin, Barry, Andy D, Ian, Volkert and Andy B

White-rumped Munia - Emeifeng Mountain

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 10 - Emeifeng Mountain then Wuyuan.
Day 11 - Wuyuan.
Day 12 – Drive Wuyuan to Dongzhai.
Day 13 - Dongzhai.
Day 14 – Dongzhai then fly Wuhan to Korlor.
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.

India (Rajasthan and Kashmir) Trip - 31st July - Day 7

We had to be at Dachigam National Park for 5:30 to meet the park guard today so the alarm went off at 03:30 and after a quick coffee we were off in the dark heading to the park gate. We parked someway from the gate, gathered our gear and planned to be in the park all day. It felt like an undercover military operation when we got to gate two and it was locked with no sign of life, we then walked round to the main gate and there were two guards. However, it appeared that they had no idea that we were due to be there and after much head shaking one of the guards reluctantly agreed to accompany us. However, we were not able to have Farook accompany us and it quickly became apparent that the guard spoke very little English and was not at all keen on us being in the park but he agreed to take us in until 10:00. The target was then to get to the area where the Orange Bullfinch occur at the end of the access road and it appeared that the guard understood this. As we walked the road the first bird of note was a Spotted Forktail which showed well as it fed on the road, we 'chased' this bird up the road in front of us for some time before it eventually decided to head into the forest. In a clearing a Hangul showed well but i can't get very excited about deer! And then things got a bit weird, the guide insisted on taking us off trail and we spent the next couple of hours randomly walking around in the scrub, it was clear that the guide was nervous about showing us around and that we clearly weren't meant to be in the park - he was doing his utmost to keep us off the main access road where we wanted to be. We saw little and when it became apparent that the guard was not going to take us to the Bullfinch area we decided to cut our losses and leave - but, we took an arduous route via back paths and eventually had to climb over a fence to leave the park rather than leave via the main park gate. We had had a somewhat wasted morning and saw little but for a Sulpher-bellied Warbler and Himalayan Langur plus some very fresh Bear poo. We left the park at 09:45 and after some discussion decided that our best option was to head back to the house boat for an afternoon siesta and then head out again in the afternoon.

We spent a couple of hours at the house boat birding from the balcony which overhung the lake and taking some shots of the common lake species (Little Bittern, Whiskered Tern, Little Grebe, Moorhen, Black Kite and Common Kingfisher) before heading out for lunch and then heading for the Shankarachariya Temple.

We parked at the summit of the hill below the temple and walked up with the masses to the temple but other than the view it was pretty uninspiring so we quickly escaped the masses and wandered down the road birding as we went. Very quickly, after a bit of pishing, Andy found a cracking male Kashmir Flycatcher and we spent some time getting views of this bird. The road was generally very birdy and we encountered a few bird flocks which were largely dominated by Oriental White-eye with species such as Rusty-tailed Flycatcher, Western Crowned Leaf Warbler, Two-barred Greenish Warbler and Ultramarine Flycatcher. We birded the road from 15:00-18:00 and then spent the last hour of daylight at Lake Dal photographing boats, Whiskered Tern (breeds in good numbers on the lake) and Kingfisher before heading back to the boat house to drink some Kingfisher.

Todays Weather: Generally sunny with cloudy spells.

Spotted Forktail (immature) - Dachigam

Entrance sign to Dachigam National Park - If only they had given us the chance to 'be alert and look for'.

Very fresh Black Bear poo- Dachigam

Swallowtail Moth at Dachigam

Stream in the deciduous forest at Dachigam

Our exit from Dachigam the least welcoming National Park in the world

Little Bittern - Nigeen Lake

Whiskered Tern (Juvenile) - Nigeen Lake

Little Grebe of race albescens, note the yellow iris - Nigeen Lake

Black Kite of race govinda - Nigeen Lake

Marco Polo Houseboat - Nigeen Lake

Kashmir Flycatcher came into pishing about 100m below the main temple car park - Shankarachariya Temple 

Oriental White-eye - Shankarachariya Temple

Hobby attacking Black Kite - Shankarachariya Temple

Hobby - Shankarachariya Temple

Himalayan Woodpecker - Shankarachariya Temple

Ashy Drongo - Shankarachariya Temple

Common Kingfisher, we found the nest of this bird approximately 200m from the lake in a bank in a woodland - Dal Lake 

Common Kingfisher - Dal Lake

Whiskered Tern (adult) - Dal Lake 

Whiskered Tern - Dal Lake

Whiskered Tern (juvenile moulting to first winter) - Dal Lake

Whiskered Tern - Dal Lake

House Crow of the race zugmayeri a much greyer more Hooded Crow like bird than the familiar nominate race

Dal Lake

Links to the other Days of the Trip:
Day 1 - Background and Travel day
Day 2 - Surajpur Wetland and Nahargah Biological Park
Day 3 - Sonkhaliya
Day 4 - Ajmer Thorn Forest and drive back to Delhi
Day 5 - Fly Delhi to Shrinigar (Kashmir) then Yousmarg
Day 6 - Yousmarg
Day 8 - Yousmarg then return to Delhi and flights home

If you have any comments or queries on this post then please do not hesitate to contact me at simon@ecosa.co.uk