An early morning trip with Jesper to the Botanical Gardens and walk up to the ridge produced a few good birds, despite the mist and low cloud that enveloped the hills. One of the best birds for me was Chinese Hill Warbler, often heard but a lot more difficult to see. Jesper used his cunning Chinese Hill Warbler imitation call to lure this one out of dense cover for a few seconds as it came to investigate.
Other birds included Pere David’s Laughingthrush, at least 5 Pine Buntings,Eastern Rock Bunting, Tristram’s Bunting, Rustic Bunting (a pair feeding on the track), several Yellow-throated Buntings (stunning birds), many Little Buntings, some cracking Siberian Accentors, a single Water Pipit (flyover), Yellow-bellied, Great and Long-tailed Tits, Eurasian Siskin, Oriental Greenfinch, Chinese Blackbird, Red-flanked Bluetail, Daurian Redstart, Common Rosefinch,Common Buzzard, Eurasian Sparrowhawk, lots and lots of Pallas’s Warblersand several Naumann’s Thrushes.
Thrushes and buntings are certainly on the move now, with many small flocks of the former flying over which, unfortunately due to the poor visibility, remained unidentified (although Jesper picked out a Red-throated in one of the closer flocks). It’s getting steadily colder with the first frost predicted for next week. Will be interesting to see what is on the move after that…
I hear that you are going with Jesper to Yunnan soon. Lucky you – have a nice trip.