Many of my friends will know that one of my most-wanted birds in Beijing has been the Pallas’s Sandgrouse. This is a species that breeds as close as Inner Mongolia and, just occasionally, irrupts in large numbers beyond its normal range.
It’s a bird that has been on my mind since my childhood when I first heard about major irruptions in the late 19th century that resulted in them being “everywhere” in winter 1889 at my original local patch of Winterton-on-Sea in Norfolk, England. Sadly, irruptions on that scale appear to be a thing of the past and it is now a very rare species in the UK and Europe. However, in Beijing, its appearance is a little more regular and in 2009-2010, the winter before I moved to China, there was a decent irruption in the capital with flocks of 100+ reported from Wild Duck Lake and even good numbers at sites inside the 6th ring road. Unfortunately, since then, they have been very few and far between – I am aware of just one record of a small flock at Miyun last winter (Jan-Erik Nilsen) that was never seen again.
I have been secretly (and openly!) hoping that this winter might prove to be THE winter and yesterday, Sunday 3 November, that hope turned to reality.
Having returned from Inner Mongolia on Saturday, where I had been attending a workshop with local government officials, nature reserve managers and local groups about JANKOWSKI’S BUNTING (a post about that will come soon!), I had arranged to go birding on Sunday with Ben Wielstra, visiting Catalan, Eugeni Capella Roca, and 吴岚 from the Beijing Birdwatching Society. I left central Beijing at 0445, collecting the team on the way, and we arrived at a chilly Ma Chang at around 0645.
Two first year RELICT GULLS represented a superb beginning to the day. These two young gulls were almost certainly the same two individuals that had been seen the weekend before and they were remarkably tame.
Unfortunately the water levels at Ma Chang are now so high that the best vantage points from which to view the wildfowl are now inaccessible, so after checking the ‘desert area’ for anything interesting, we were soon on our way to Yeyahu Nature Reserve to focus most of our day at this superb Beijing site.
On arrival there was a nice mixed flock of GADWALL and FALCATED DUCK on the lake with a lone BEWICK’S SWAN and we secured our first sightings of PALLAS’S REED BUNTING, CHINESE GREY SHRIKE and CHINESE PENDULINE TIT.
A scan of the grassland produced a ringtail HEN HARRIER and one of the tractors cutting the grass flushed a SHORT-EARED OWL. Then a distant SAKER and an adult PEREGRINE passed by. Pretty good! We made our way to the new tower hide and spent some time there scanning for raptors and checking the flocks of duck that were occasionally flushed by the HEN HARRIER. A single COMMON (EASTERN) BUZZARD and a flock of BEAN GEESE kept the interest going and soon we began to hear the sound of CRANES… a sound that was almost omnipresent all day as more and more groups seemed to arrive high from the west… a wonderful sight and sound.
From the hide we caught sight of several very distant flocks of birds, the identification of which we couldn’t quite put our finger on.. they looked to have pointed wings, almost wader-like, and yet their size meant that the only species that came to mind was PACIFIC GOLDEN PLOVER.. but that identification didn’t fit – these birds didn’t fly like plovers – they were in an irregular, and reasonably tight, formation flying strongly north.. what were they??
They went down in the notebook as “possible plover sp” but we weren’t happy. Several minutes later, Eugeni suddenly shouted out “SANDGROUSE!” and we all quickly got onto two birds streaming very fast past our vantage point, heading north. Plump birds with a dark belly patch and a pointed tail… Wow! PALLAS’S SANDGROUSE – my most wanted Beijing bird!!! They disappeared out of sight almost as soon as they had arrived and we looked at each other with broad smiles.. we might even have done a couple of “high-fives”!
Little did we know that we would soon see some more… and as we made our way around the flooded fields towards the smaller observation tower, we saw another… then another.. and from the tower itself we saw another 3. The same or different? Not sure but they were definitely PALLAS’S SANDGROUSE. Suddenly the penny dropped on the flocks we had seen earlier – surely they must have been PALLAS’S SANDGROUSE too…! And we had even more reason to believe they were sandgrouse when we heard from a Chinese friend that over 200 had been seen around the same time over central Beijing..! At the rate they flew, it would only have taken them a few minutes to reach the mountains at Badaling from central Beijing and the birds we saw could easily have been the same flocks. Something is clearly going on with PALLAS’S SANDGROUSE this winter!
Another nice encounter involved this SIBERIAN WEASEL, a reasonably common mammal in Beijing but rarely seen well in daylight. This individual ran towards us, stopping occasionally to check us out, before disappearing into the reedbed.. a very cool animal…
We decided to make a return visit to Ma Chang before heading home. That was the place that held large flocks of sandgrouse during the 2009-2010 winter and we thought that maybe, just maybe, some had dropped in during the day. We didn’t see any on our afternoon visit but we did stumble across a nice flock of HORNED LARKS, another scarce and irruptive visitor to Beijing. A group of 3 was soon followed by a much larger group consisting of at least 53 birds.. wow.
These beautiful larks wheeled around uttering their ‘tinkly’ call in the late afternoon sun… a magnificent sight to end the day. After a quick cup of coffee we headed back to Beijing, tired but elated… what a day!
Big thanks to Ben, Eugeni and Wu Lan for their excellent company on this special day…
Full species list:
TUNDRA BEAN GOOSE Anser serrirostris 74 (Apparently 300 in the area, according to Yeyahu NR staff).
TUNDRA SWAN Cygnus columbianus 小天鹅 1 at Yeyahu NR
RUDDY SHELDUCK Tadorna ferruginea 赤麻鴨 8
GADWALL Anas strepera 赤膀鴨 108
FALCATED DUCK Anas falcata 罗纹鸭 14
MALLARD Anas platyrhynchos 綠頭鴨 122
CHINESE SPOT-BILLED DUCK Anas zonorhyncha 斑嘴鴨 29
NORTHERN SHOVELER Anas clypeata 琵嘴鸭 1
NORTHERN PINTAIL Anas acuta 针尾鸭 5
EURASIAN TEAL Anas crecca 绿翅鸭 14
COMMON GOLDENEYE Bucephala clangula 鹊鸭 1
SMEW Mergellus albellus 白秋沙鸭 83
LITTLE GREBE Tachybaptus ruficollis 小鸊鷉 4
GREAT CRESTED GREBE Podiceps cristatus 凤头鸊鷉 5
GREAT BITTERN Botaurus stellaris 大麻鳽 2
HEN HARRIER Circus cyaneus 白尾鹞 4 (3 ‘ringtails’ and one adult male)
EURASIAN SPARROWHAWK Accipiter nisus 雀鹰 1
NORTHERN GOSHAWK Accipiter gentilis 苍鹰 2
EASTERN BUZZARD Buteo japonicus 普通鵟 1
MERLIN Falco columbarius 灰背隼 1 adult male
SAKER FALCON Falco cherrug EN 猎隼 1 one distant bird, probably this species
PEREGRINE FALCON Falco peregrinus 游隼 1
COMMON COOT Fulica atra 骨顶鸡(白骨顶) 17
COMMON CRANE Grus grus 灰鹤 109 We could hear cranes almost all day. Many seemed to be arriving. Very difficult to count but the biggest count at any one time consisted of a single group of 109 birds
BLACK-HEADED GULL Chroicocephalus ridibundus 红嘴鸥 1
RELICT GULL Ichthyaetus relictus VU 遗鸥 2 First calendar-year birds. Almost certainly the same as seen the previous weekend by multiple observers.
PALLAS’S SANDGROUSE Syrrhaptes paradoxus 毛腿沙鸡 5 The first picked up in flight by Eugeni at Yeyahu NR @c1130. Followed by 3 @c1315 and 2 singles later in the afternoon. Four distant large flocks totalling over 150 birds seen c1100 and c1230 were probably this species.
EURASIAN COLLARED DOVE Streptopelia decaocto 灰斑鸠 18
SHORT-EARED OWL Asio flammeus 短耳鸮 1 Flushed by one of the bailers on the Kangxi Grassland
GREY-CAPPED PYGMY WOODPECKER Dendrocopos canicapillus 星头啄木鸟 1
CHINESE GREY SHRIKE Lanius s. sphenocercus 楔尾伯劳 4
AZURE-WINGED MAGPIE Cyanopica cyanus 灰喜鹊 6
COMMON MAGPIE Pica pica 喜鹊 35
RED-BILLED CHOUGH Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax 红嘴山鸦 2 seen well flying north low over the reserve. My first at Yeyahu.
DAURIAN JACKDAW Coloeus dauuricus 达乌里寒鸦 55
JAPANESE TIT Parus minor 大山雀 2
CHINESE PENDULINE TIT Remiz consobrinus 中华攀雀 3
MONGOLIAN LARK Melanocorypha mongolica (蒙古) 百灵 One seen in flight and appeared to land in a reedbed at Yeyahu NR
EURASIAN SKYLARK Alauda arvensis 云雀 8
HORNED LARK Eremophila alpestris 角百灵 56. A group of 3 with a hint of yellow in the face. Followed by a flock of 53, all at Ma Chang.
SILVER-THROATED TIT Aegithalos glaucogularis 北长尾山雀银喉长尾山雀 8
VINOUS-THROATED PARROTBILL Sinosuthora webbianus 棕头鸦雀 34
CHINESE HILL BABBLER Rhopophilus pekinensis 山鹛 2
COMMON STARLING Sturnus vulgaris 紫翅椋鸟 2 seen well in flight at Ma Chang
EURASIAN TREE SPARROW Passer montanus (树) 麻雀 100
SIBERIAN ACCENTOR Prunella montanella 棕眉山岩鹨 6
BUFF-BELLIED PIPIT Anthus rubescens japonicus 黄腹鹨 2
COMMON REDPOLL Carduelis flammea 白腰朱顶雀 2; one in flight calling over Yeyahu NR looked pale. Another seen by Eugeni flushed from scrub at Yeyahu NR. My first in Beijing!
LITTLE BUNTING Emberiza pusilla 小鹀 8
YELLOW-THROATED BUNTING Emberiza elegans 黄喉鹀 2
PALLAS’S BUNTING Emberiza pallasi 苇鹀 24
Total Number of Species – 51