China: Poyang Hu

Still had the strong winds and a little rain today and the birding proved to be a struggle really. But we still saw 4 species of crane: Common, Hooded, White-naped and a family of Siberian this morning – so not too shabby. 

Hooded Cranes

With the wind making birding difficult we had to persevere and our first stop saw a few of us walking across some stubble fields where we put up a Japanese Quail, along with numerous Little and Black-faced Buntings, I mean hundreds of them and it really was quite a spectacle. A flock of over 30 Chinese Penduline-Tits was also pretty impressive here as well. We also saw more Buff-bellied Pipits, Oriental Greenfinch and lots of Eurasian Skylarks, plus our first Richard’s Pipit on the track as well. Around an abandoned building we stopped the bus when a flock of Chinese Grosbeaks was seen and further scrutiny revealed White-browed and Masked Laughingthrushes, Brown Crake and yet more buntings. Our next stop to view a large congregation of White-cheeked Starlings also revealed some Red-billed Starlings, Bramblings, more grosbeaks, Red-flanked Bluetail and a Brown-flanked Bush-Warbler. We had lunch in the nearby city that consisted of burgers, fries and ice-cream before checking out some fields where a Collared Crow had been reported. Unfortunately no crows and the only new bird was a pair of Ruddy Shelducks, but some Black-collared Starlings were new for a few of the group who had missed them earlier in the trip.