Yesterday morning, as the weekend smog had been cleared by a moderate (but cold!) northerly wind, I made a last-minute decision to visit Miyun. On arrival at 0630 on a Monday morning I expected to have the place to myself but around 10 minutes later Swedish birder Jan-Erik Nilsen arrived and, a couple of hours later, a minibus of Beijing birders joined us, the latter including two exotic visitors, Rui and Yaya from Xinjiang! (lovely to see you guys!).
It was great to see so many birders and, although the Beijing group missed the GREAT WHITE PELICAN, which flew strongly north at 0905 (maybe gone for good after over 3 weeks on site?), there were plenty of birds to see. A flock of over 800 BEAN GEESE, including at least 2 GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GEESE and a single SWAN GOOSE, made for a spectacular sight when they were occasionally flushed by a light aircraft… I just love the noise of a flock of geese in flight, one of nature’s most magical sounds.
Up to 3 PEREGRINES and 2 SAKERS roamed the area and we watched one juvenile PEREGRINE harassing an AVOCET, even hovering over the water as the latter made a desperate dive to escape its attention. Soon after we saw the same PEREGRINE carrying prey and, fortunately for us, it settled on the mud in front of us to devour it. A gory scene, fit for forthcoming Halloween!
As the day wore on, a handful of cranes dropped in, including 25 of the beautiful WHITE-NAPED (encouragingly, several parties containing juveniles) and a few COMMON. A ROUGH-LEGGED BUZZARD passed to the east providing excellent views and a handful of distant MONGOLIAN LARKS flew north…
With the water level so low at Miyun (apparently in preparation for receiving trillions of gallons from the great south-north water diversion project), the birding is currently spectacular with the traditional viewpoint at Houbajiazhuang offering superb views of usually difficult to see birds. With so many great birds being found at this site, it’s extremely hard to tear oneself away to visit other sites… so who knows what we are missing at Wild Duck Lake? After the recent emergence of the 31 August Spoon-billed Sandpiper record at that site, I don’t want to think about it…
This week, Birding Beijing is brought to you by the letter “M” and the number “2”.
“M” because there was a distinctly Mongolian feel to Saturday’s birding, and “2” because I saw two new birds!
Spike and I visited Wild Duck Lake (Ma Chang to Yeyahu) again on Saturday. We were buoyed by last week’s hints of Spring and, on the bus to Yanqing, our conversation revolved around the possibility of seeing early migrants – would there be a first Little Ringed Plover, or even an Oriental Plover? A Mongolian Lark or Great Bustard? Or something rarer like a Pallas’s Sandgrouse? As usual, speculation about just what might be was pretty outrageous..!
In the end, the reality was much better than I could have reasonably expected with two new birds for me – a single Mongolian Lark (yess!) and 2 White-naped Cranes that were seen cohorting with the local Common Crane flock – whilst the rarest bird must be the all-too-brief probable Lesser White-fronted Goose that was associating with around 3,000 Bean Geese (mostly of the subspecies serrirostris but with a few middendorffii mixed in).
The supporting cast included c400 Swan Geese, 2 Hooded Cranes, the first Shoveler and Wigeon of the year, a stunning drake Baikal Teal, 9 Kentish Plovers, a single Grey-headed Lapwing, my first 3 White Wagtails (ssp leucopsis) of the year, 20 Mongolian Gulls (18 of which were migrating west), 10 Black-headed Gulls, c300 Smew, 2 Upland Buzzards, 2 ‘ringtail’ Hen Harriers, 2 Siberian Accentors, 4 Chinese Grey Shrikes and 3 White-cheeked Starlings.
The day started at Ma Chang at around 0645 and we were greeted by a big flock of Common Cranes by the side of the track. Amongst them were 2 Hooded Cranes, spotted as they took flight. A good start! Then, just as I had set up my telescope to go through the flocks of wildfowl on the far side of the reservoir, everything took flight. This had to mean one thing – a major raptor. Sure enough, a White-tailed Eagle lumbered low over the reeds and settled on the ice. Looking at the sky revealed the sheer scale of the wildfowl present – the sky was full of birds. Bean Geese were everywhere… The sight and sound of the geese in flight shortly after dawn was something to behold. I tried to capture some of the atmosphere on video and you can view a short clip of the Bean Geese here. We just stood and marvelled at the sight for a couple of minutes and then I thought it would probably be a good idea to go through the flocks to see if there were any other geese mixed in.
I began to check the flying flocks with my telescope and, in the third flock I checked, I saw a significantly smaller ‘white-fronted’ goose in a flock of serrirostris Bean Geese. I watched it for about 10 seconds in flight before the flock landed on the ice. I could see the relatively small size (at the time, I estimated it was 20 per cent smaller than the serrirostris Bean Geese), dark belly markings, the white base to the bill and I could just make out an eye-ring. I called out “I think I have a Lesser White-front!”. After a scan of the flock on the ground I picked it up at about 200-300m distance, and was again struck by the noticeably smaller size, relatively small head and very peaked forehead. Unfortunately many other serrirostris Bean Geese landed in the same area and several birds walked in front of the LWFG and it was lost to view. I couldn’t get Spike onto the bird… very frustrating! After several minutes of waiting to see if it would reveal itself, we decided to walk to another vantage point to try to view the flock from a different angle. This proved fruitless when the flock flew up to join another flock of Bean Geese heading west and was lost to view.
I have seen LWFG in Copenhagen in Spring 2010 (a flock of 50+) and I am confident that the bird was that species, although I would have liked to have studied it for longer to rule out hybrids, taken more notes and, ideally, photographed it.. a little frustrating but hopefully it will hang around and be seen by others.
It was shortly after this sighting that we began the walk towards Yeyahu and it was on the shore of the reservoir that we encountered a large flock of larks feeding out in the open. A Kentish Plover called and we soon picked up two, three, then four of these dainty plovers. I set up the telescope to go through the flock with the main aim of counting the KPs (9 in total) when I suddenly got onto a very striking lark mixed in with the Eurasian Skylarks. Slightly larger than the Skylarks and with a black mark at the top of the breast bordered with a rusty wash on the sides of the upper breast, rusty colouration to the median and lesser coverts and a rusty stripe on the head, this could only be one thing – a Mongolian Lark! This is a bird I had hoped to see around Beijing in winter and I was beginning to think my luck was out. To see one in mid- to late March was a nice surprise! After only about a minute it took flight on its own and, with its very distinctive ‘floppy’ flight, it looped over to a more shrubby area and dropped to the ground. Despite a brief search of the area, it never showed again.
We walked round to the east side of the reservoir to try to view the flocks of wildfowl that were congregating on the northern shore. Lots of Whooper and Bewick’s Swans, Swan Geese and masses of duck. Most surprising of all was the sight of 4 cormorant fishermen who paddled out into the middle of the reservoir and released their cormorants to begin fishing. I thought this practice had all but died out so was surprised to see it being used less than 90 minutes from the capital… (and there wasn’t a tourist in sight!).
The onward walk was relatively quiet with just a couple of Upland Buzzards, a few Japanese Quail, 3 Meadow Buntings, 2 Siberian Accentors and lots more Pallas’s Reed Buntings. We were met by our driver at Yeyahu and began the journey home, tired but exhilarated. That first 3 to 4 hours at the reservoir on Saturday morning will stay with me for a long time – fantastic birding.
This site has bags of potential in Spring and I can’t wait to return.
Mixed flock of Bean Geese and Swan Geese, Ma Chang, 19 March 2011Cormorant fisherman with wildfowl flock in background, Ma Chang, 19 March 2011