It was a relative lay-in today and we were up for a 06:30 breakfast. This had potential to be a milestone in my birding, I was on 5,999 species for my world list and needed one more for the 6,000, I had hoped that this would be Cabot’s Tragopan at Emei Feng Mountain but it was not to be.
Today we were heading on a short boat trip to Shanyutan Island which was planned to leave at 09:00 on the rising tide. We started by birding the wetland reserve and agricultural area on the mainland opposite the island at Xinyuantou. This produced good numbers of common bird species including
Richard’s Pipit,
Eastern Yellow Wagtail,
Oriental Skylark,
Yellow-bellied Prinia,
Plain Prinia,
Yellow-browed Warbler,
Dusky Warbler,
Japanese White-eye,
Daurian Redstart,
Sand Martin,
Barn Swallow and a single
Black-browed Reed Warbler. Our local guides had got the tide time a little wrong and it was not until 10:00 that we boarded the small handmade boat to take us to the island. The journey was through tall reeds and we were soon at the island, a journey of no more than 500m or so, the island being separated from the mainland by reedbeds and a channel. In the reedbeds we recorded a single
Oriental Reed Warbler and 15
Oriental Penduline Tit. The island had been planted with pines and was being utilised as a duck-farm. Apparently, this is a military area and was the reason why we had needed permits to visit but there was little evidence of a military presence and no-one checked our permits.
Japanese White-eye - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Black-crowned Night-heron - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Black-shouldered Kite - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Chinese Pond-heron - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Black-faced Bunting - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Black-faced Bunting - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Daurian Redstart - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Daurian Redstart - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Oriental Greenfinch - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Plain Prinia - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Black-faced Spoonbill - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Eastern Buzzard - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Eastern Buzzard - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Dusky Warbler - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Richard's Pipit - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
The main reason for visiting the island was for its wader roost and on arrival there was evidently a large roost already gathered on the sandbar. We waded across a channel and positioned ourselves a few hundred metres from the roost and began scanning. The bulk of the roost was made up of
Dunlin with smaller numbers of
Kentish Plover,
White-faced Plover,
Sanderling,
Grey Plover and
Curlew. Amongst the waders were also a small number of
Red-necked Stint (five),
Great Knot (12),
Red Knot (20),
Turnstone (one),
Greater Sandplover (five),
Lesser Sandplover (five),
Whimbrel (one) and
Oystercatcher (three). And then Hannu spotted our main goal, a
Spoon-billed Sandpiper, a winter plumaged bird amongst the Dunlin. We enjoyed views of this exquisite little wader with its peculiar spoon-shaped bill but at a range a little more distant than we had hoped. Also on the island were 51
Black-faced Spoonbill, some of which showed very well, two
Saunder’s Gull,
Black-tailed Gull,
Mongolian Herring Gull,
Heuglin’s Gull and
Whiskered Tern.
Black-faced Spoonbill - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Black-faced Spoonbill - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Black-faced Spoonbill - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Black-faced Spoonbill - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Black-faced Spoonbill - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Black-faced Spoonbill - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Black-faced Spoonbill - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Black-faced Spoonbill - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Black-faced Spoonbill - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Black-faced Spoonbill - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Mixed waders (mainly Dunlin and Sanderling with White-faced Plover, Kentish Plover and Red-necked Stint) - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Mixed waders (mainly Dunlin and Sanderling with White-faced Plover, Kentish Plover and Red-necked Stint) - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Mixed waders (mainly Dunlin and Sanderling with Oystercatcher and Red-necked Stint) - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
White-faced Plover (2nd from left) and Kentish Plover - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Greater Sandplover (nominate subspecies), Dunlin and Sanderling -
Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
White-faced Plover -
Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Saunder's Gull - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Saunder's Gull - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Saunder's Gull - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Saunder's Gull - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Lesser Black-backed Gull of subspecies heuglini - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Lesser Black-backed Gull of subspecies heuglini - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Caspian Tern - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Caspian Tern - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Arctic Herring Gull of subspecies mongolicus - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Arctic Herring Gull of subspecies mongolicus - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Arctic Herring Gull of subspecies mongolicus - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Spoon-billed Sandpiper - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Red-necked Stint - Shanyutan Island, Changle, Fuzhou
Back to ‘shore’ we then birded the agricultural area once again, here we added,
Siberian Rubythroat,
Osprey,
Scaly-breasted Munia and
White-breasted Waterhen to our daylist. Perhaps most notable was a
Pacific Swallow, a vagrant to China
Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Asian Brown Flycatcher - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Cattle Egret - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Light-vented Bulbul - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Long-tailed Shrike - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Long-tailed Shrike - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Pacific Swallow - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Pacific Swallow - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Chinese Penduline-tit - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Scaly-breasted Munia - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Scaly-breasted Munia - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Black-faced Bunting - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Black-browed Reed-warbler- Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Yellow-browed Warbler - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Osprey - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Osprey - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
Yellow Wagtail of race taivana - Xinyuantou, Changle, Fuzhou
So, I had reached 6001 species during the course of the day number 6,000 was White-faced Plover and 6,001 was Spoon-billed Sandpiper.
After beers and final trip round-up in a local restaurant and some packing I crashed at around 22:00 at Jinfeng Guohui Hotel, Changle.
Links to Other Days of the Trip (Click to View)
