With just a few key species to find we headed down
to Baxi Forest at 6am and quickly picked up the robustus race of Dusky
Warbler feeding quietly in some roadside bushes, plus an Eurasian Wryneck was calling from the
top of a small conifer. Further down a pair of Blue Eared-Pheasants were seen briefly walking inside the forest
before we had our picnic breakfast. Once
on the trails we were able to track down a pair of Crested Tit-Warblers amidst much rejoicing having missed it at
Mengbishan.
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| Crested Tit-Warbler |
Shortly after a pair of Maroon-backed
Accentors showed well and began calling from the top of a conifer and then
after we’d almost given up hope Jeff spotted a bird sat on a distant conifer
that turned out to be the elusive Sichuan
Jay. We’d actually settled for a rest in a clearing when the bird was seen
and over the next half an hour a group of 9 jays flew across the slope above and
we enjoyed pretty decent views of a few of them quietly feeding in some much
closer trees.
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| Sichuan Jay |
It’s interesting to note that this species is nowhere near as
responsive to tape playback as, say, 3 years ago and is getting harder every
year to find. A great deal of luck is needed with this one. And that was us
done. There were some common species seen such as Hume’s and Sichuan Leaf
Warblers, Large-billed Leaf-Warbler,
Chinese White-browed Rosefinch and
last but not least a pair of Snowy-cheeked
Laughingthrushes appeared close by.
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| Chinese White-browed Rosefinch |
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| Hume's Warbler |
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| Snowy-cheeked Laughingthrush |
We took an early lunch in the village and then set
off on a 3 hour drive to our next hotel at Chuanzhusi and an early finish to
the day.
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| Siberian Rubythroat |
Along the way we had a couple close encounters with singing Siberian Rubythroats and despite a
roadblock we still made it to our hotel by 5.15pm.
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