The Deskbound Birder: Sykes's Warbler

Showing posts with label Sykes's Warbler. Show all posts

Saturday, 5 May 2018

North-west China (Xinjiang) - 5th May (Day 15)

We were up at 05:00 after sleepless night due to multiple dodgy bellies and headed from Korlor towards Luntain with multiple toilet stops. Andy B and Volkert were feeling okay and we deduced that it was only they who had not eaten food on the aeroplane, a rather dodgy dish of chicken and rice so we blamed our upset stomach’s on Urumqi Air who we had flown with yesterday. Turning south off the main road we soon encountered our first of many police check points. We were taken from the car at every stop and Tang-jun was questioned about our motives for being in the area. This being exacerbated by recent political problems. After many police checks each taking at least 30 minutes and with multiple passport checks and scans we eventually got to our hotel in Luntain at around midday. After checking in to the hotel we were informed that the Police wanted to visit the hotel to check our passports and take further details, by now we had had enough of this as each time the same details of visa and passport number was being obtained, and each time we wasted another 30 minutes or so. We eventually headed away from the town driving south on “Desert Road” and yet more police checkpoints. In total during the course of the day we had spent around six hours at Police checkpoints.

We eventually arrived at the bridge over the River Tarim (41°10'14.886" N 84°14'12.6" E) just south of Lunnanzen and birded the woodland to the south of the bridge. The woodland was infested with mosquitos and was quite an unpleasant place to bird but we quickly notched up our first Azure Tit, Sykes’s Warbler, Lesser Whitethroat (of the subspecies minula and sometimes split as Desert Lesser Whitethroat) and Citrine Wagtail. We finished here getting good views of our main target in this habitat, White-winged Woodpecker with a bird showing well as it fed atop a tree. The species is very similar to Great-spotted Woodpecker (ws it once lumnped?) with far more white in the wing but a remarkably similar call as do most of the Dendrocopus woodpeckers. We then headed further south to Km 85-95 in search of our main reason for visiting the region, Xinjiang (or Biddulph’s) Ground-jay, this range restricted species is confined to the Taklimakan Desert in NW China. We spent some time walking in the desert in this area looking for the Ground-jay. The site seems somewhat post-apocalyptic with all of the mature trees dead or dying with their roots seemingly eroded by water and now left on islands of sand and thus dying due to dehydration. It would appear that these trees have died in historic times as the wood is now bone dry and disintegrating rather than rotting, a process that probably takes many years in such a dry environment. We spent some time driving up and down this road and walking and scanning the track at KM90 with no success, the bird life in this habitat is remarkably poor and we saw little but for Black Stork, Desert Wheatear, Lesser (Desert) Whitethroat, Saxaul Sparrow, Common Swift, Eurasian Buzzard and Long-legged Buzzard. We wrapped up the birding at around 21:00 with a quick look for Tarrim Hill-warbler just south of the Tarim Bridge but after getting eaten by mosquitos once again we saw little. Heading north again we got stopped at various check-points and held for some time and by the time we got back to our hotel it was around midnight, we were exhausted having had a long day of travelling and police checkpoints and little to eat other then bread and water.

Azure Tit of subspecies tianschanicus - Luntain, Xinjiang

Azure Tit - Luntain, Xinjiang

Song of Azure Tit - Luntain, Xinjiang

White-winged Woodpecker - Luntain, Xinjiang

Lesser Whitethroat of the subspecies minula, sometimes split as Desert Lesser Whitethroat was common in the area and seemed to be mainly in the canopy of the taller trees. The song is very different from the rattle of Lesser Whitethroat we here in the UK (listen here) - Luntain, Xinjiang

Citrine Wagtail of subspecies werae- Luntain, Xinjiang

The distinctive personata subspecies of White Wagtail - Luntain, Xinjiang

Sykes's Warbler - Luntain, Xinjiang

Song of Sykes's Warbler - Luntain, Xinjiang

Local children with ballon gifts from Volkert - Luntain, Xinjiang

Saxaul Sparrow - Luntain, Xinjiang

Song of Saxaul Sparrow - Luntain, Xinjiang

Black Stork - Luntain, Xinjiang

Habitat in the Tarim Desert, Luntain, Xinjiang

Martin scanning for Xinjiang Ground-jay with no luck - Luntain, Xinjiang

Luntain, Xinjiang

We began to see the funny side of passport checks - Luntain, Xinjiang

Another passport check in Luntain

At night when returning weary to our hotel, we were followed from one checkpoint by Police who blocked us into the next checkpoint with their vehicle. Although they had already seen our documents they requested yet another scan of our passports, needless to say, we did not feel welcome in this area - Luntain, Xinjiang

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 14 – Dongzhai then fly Wuhan to Korlor.
Day 16 – Taklamakan Desert then Urumqi.
Day 17 and 18 – Nanshan in the Tien Shan Mountains then fly Beijing. International flight.

Friday, 1 December 2017

Andaman Islands and Western Ghats - 30th November and 1st December (Days 6 & 7)

30th November
Today we had a lie-in and were up at 05:45, packed our bags and headed to Port Blair Airport for our flight to Chenai landing at 10:45. We then had a 2.5 hour stop-over in Chennai before our 13:30 flight to Coimbatore. We landed in Coimbatore, tamil Nadu at 14:45 gathered our bags and boarded our bus that was to be our home for the rest of the trip. It was overcast and raining but the fall in humidity and drop in temperature after our time on the Andaman Islands was most welcome. The 96 kilometre drive north to Ooty began on the relatively flat lands around Coimbatore before climbing steeply through the hills eventually reaching 2,000m on winding roads passing through forest patches and tea and coffee plantations. The weather closed in and the dry conditions turned to fog and moderately heavy rain as we climbed. We arrived at the hotel Taj Savoy on the outskirts of Ooty, Tamil Nadu at around 19:00 checked in and then settled down to some Kingfisher beers and curry. We crashed at 23:00 having watched some fairly gloomy weather forecasts showing a large Cyclone that would pass up the west coast of India giving wet and windy conditions for the next few days at least.

Coffee stop near to the Mettupalayam viewpoint

1st December
I had a sleepless night in our hotel in Ooty due to the heavy rainfall and strong winds and the dawn had not brought a significant change in the weather conditions. We were up at 06:00 and headed out at 06:30 but didn’t get far before we came across a tree that had been brought down power lines only 100m from our hotel. Sparks were flying from the touching wires and we decided it best to head back to the hotel for breakfast to allow the tree to be cleared. Breakfast was a fantastic buffet and I enjoyed beans on toast and fruit. At around 08:00 we ventured out to the Cairn Hill Park a short distance to the south of the Taj Savoy Hotel on the southern edge of Ooty. The rain was lashing down and fog filled the air and it was a struggle to bird. After around 1.5 hours slogging around in the rain we had managed views of stunning Black-and-Orange Flycatcher, Nilgiri Blue Robin and Greater Flameback of the subspecies socialis, a possible split as Malabar Flameback but we saw little else and the views were gloomy. We then headed east of Ooty on the road to Ottabettu and stopped at a steep ravine for Nilgiri Thrush, it was steep, slippery and dark and we had no luck but did have fleeting views of Nilgiri Laughingthrush. We then headed to the carpark at Doddabetta View where, in the torrential rain, we soon had good views of Nilgiri Laughingthrush and Indian Blackbird coming to food around the various stalls. Now soaked, we headed back to the hotel to pack bags and load the bus for our journey to Mudumalai.

Taj Savoy Hotel, Ooty

Large-billed Leaf-warbler - Cairn Hill Park, Ooty

Grim birding at Cairn Hill Park

Nilgiri Laughingthrush - Doddabetta View, Ooty

Indian Blackbird (male) - Doddabetta View, Ooty

Indian Blackbird (female) - Doddabetta View, Ooty

Indian Blackbird (male) - Doddabetta View, Ooty

Market at Doddabetta View, Ooty

Lady in market at Doddabetta View, Ooty

The journey to Mudumalai took around four hours and we passed through tea and coffee plantations and colourful mountain villages. The weather began to clear and the rain eased and we were hopeful for the afternoons birding. We arrived in Mudumalai at around 15:30 just as the rain began to fall and the fog moved in. We spent the afternoon getting soaked as we wandered the grassland and scattered trees to the south of Masinagudi. It was fairly tough going but evidently a very birdy area highlights were three Malabar Lark, a Brown Fish-owl flushed from its roost and Jerdon’s Leafbird. Other species included Yellow-billed Babbler, Yellow-eyed Babbler, Paradise Flycatcher, Hoopoe, Blyth’s Reed Warbler, Common Hawk-cuckoo, Alpine Swift, Indian Swiftlet, Paddyfield Pipit, Sykes’s Warbler, White-browed Fantail and Spotted Owlet. Come dusk we loitered around for the Nightjar hour and at 18:30 Jijo blasted the Jungle Nightjar recording and within a short while a bird responded from the adjacent hillside so off we went slogging up the wet and muddy hillside until the bird was calling at around 50 metres distant. Jijo soon picked the bird up calling from the track and had it in the spotlight. It was apparent that there were several birds calling in the vicinity and we eventually had good views of a couple of birds. On the descent back to the car we picked up a smaller and browner nightjar in the torches, this was an Indian Nightjar and we eventually had views down to 30cm in the torch light. We were at our lodge, Jungle Hut, by 19:30 and enjoyed a fantastic curry dinner. As we were enjoying a final beer a crash from the hotel grounds and a bull Indian Elephant had strolled in and was busy destroying one of the trees in the lodge grounds. We enjoyed fantastic views of this impressive animal at close range from the balcony of our room.