The Chicken Run...

Started the day with a ‘chicken run’ on Balang Shan which resulted in a male Temminck’s Tragopan perched up in a pine tree, followed by a couple Koklass Pheasants and an obliging pair of Blood Pheasants. We then had breakfast close to some mature conifers and found a pair of awesome Collared Grosbeaks, as well as Chinese White-browed Rosefinch, male Himalayan Bluetail, Giant Laughingthrush and a Chinese Fulvetta.

Himalayan Bluetail

Moving up to the tunnel area we had another Snow Pigeon, along with Grey-sided Bush-warbler, Sichuan Tit, Rufous-breasted Accentor, Alpine Leaf-warbler and eventually managed to get a look at a pair of Verreaux’s Monal Partridges.

Dropping downhill again a Barred Laughingthrush was a nice find but the area was getting quiet so decided to head to higher levels in search of Snow Partridge. Over the next 4 hours we had further views of yesterday’s goodies such as both mountain-finches, Grandala, Tibetan Snowcock, Alpine Accentor and others during our search. It was pretty frustrating as we heard 4 different partridges at different areas but none were responding to the ipod, and just when we had run out of new areas to check and were thinking about calling it quits -  we found one perched high on a ridge calling back at us. In fact there were at least 3 birds and through the scope we could get all the plumage details. Excellent!

So driving down we had a singing Yellow-streaked Warbler and a Rufous-bellied Woodpecker, and a quick check behind the hotel resulted in Daurian Redstart, several Common Rosefinches and a Godlewski’s Bunting.