Sichuan Custom tour

18th May - 9th June 2005

Leader: Frank Rheindt

Tibetan Snowcock (Rob Hutchinson/Birdtour Asia)

Sichuan is doubtless one of the most fascinating bird regions in the Eastern Palearctic, and a hotspot for pheasants, laughingthrushes, warblers, parrotbills and many other groups that are high on the agenda of travelling birdwatchers. This custom tour was an unforgettable birding experience, with sightings of some of the rarest and most enigmatic birds of Asia. Our “trip harvest” was exceptional, with 11 galliforms (pheasants and allies), eight parrotbills, 32 warblers and great looks at virtually all 13 laughingthrush species that can reasonably be expected in the area, in addition to many other specialties.

The first morning saw us rise early for a brief sortie into Du Fu’s Cottage Gardens in downtown Chengdu, where we received a taste of the Red Basin’s lowland avifauna. During the trip, many more early-morning starts ensued, though none of them would be accompanied by such mild and pleasant weather conditions as this one. Bird activity was high after dawn, and necks soon grew stiff as we scanned busy canopy parties of warblers and Black-throated Tits in some of the more impressive groves. Among them, we found such delights as the rare Swinhoe’s Minivet, late migrant Asian Brown Flycatchers, 3-4 Arctic Warblers on their way north, and heaps of Greenish Warblers. Among the busy aggregations, we also detected our first Chestnut-flanked and Japanese White-eyes, though in separate flocks.
The lush gardens constitute a wonderful oasis in a sea of concrete, providing easy views of Vinous-throated Parrotbill, White-browed Laughingthrush, Chinese Bulbul, Streak-breasted Scimitar-Babbler, the colourful Rufous-faced Warbler and Eurasian Blackbirds, here of a much shier and bigger race that differs distinctly in vocalization and may soon be known as Chinese Blackbird. Loudly vocal Hwameis are openly displayed in their cages by proud owners, and the occasional wild bird makes you wonder about its provenance. Luckily, we later spotted this species at Emei in its uncontested wild form.
The lake adjacent to the park was not just a popular hang-out for young couples in love, but also for nine Little Egrets, three Black-crowned Night-Herons, White-breasted Waterhen, Common Sandpiper, Common Ringed Plover and our first Chinese Pond Heron of the trip. We spotted a handful of spectacular Yellow-billed Grosbeaks, migrant Brown Shrikes, several Long-tailed Shrikes, a pair of Plain Prinias and an Oriental Reed Warbler as we gradually covered more and more ground around the nicely-vegetated lakeside.
We had to make do with a few hours at Du Fu, as we boarded our bus, following the lure of Mt Emei, one of Buddhism’s four Holy Mountains, and – owing to its religious significance – one of the last bastions of primary forest habitat in heavily-logged Sichuan. We would spend the following five nights at Mt Emei, each at a different elevation so as to take in as much of its rich birdlife as possible.
The first day we walked around the frosty Golden Summit with its perpetual cloud cover and frequent bad weather. Aggressively glowing Golden Bush Robins, confiding Aberrant Bush-Warblers, Vinaceous Rosefinches of untold beauty, a Lesser Cuckoo, Chestnut Thrushes, Bianchi’s Warblers (the first in a long series of altitudinally segregating Seicercus warblers), Elliot’s Laughingthrushes, White-collared Yuhinas, Streak-throated Fulvettas, Buff-barred Warblers, Olive-backed Pipits, Rufous-breasted Accentor, Gray-headed Bullfinch and White-bellied Redstarts were a worthy compensation for wet clothes and shivering limbs around here, though all of them would be recorded again during our trip. What would not be recorded again were a group of Buff-throated Warblers and a pair of Blanford’s Rosefinch feeding unobtrusively in the bushes…
In what turned out to be one of the most memorable observations of the trip, we attracted a Northern Spotted Bush Warbler to tape, a migrant on its way to Siberia, where it breeds in allopatry from the local Southern Spotted Bush-Warbler. Its voice and its underpart coloration are distinctly different from the local species. And how fortunate we were to appreciate these differences, because as it turned out, we heard and observed both species within just a few hundred meters of each other, not more than fifteen minutes apart.
We experienced a quick turn-over in the bird community on our descent towards the Monastery at the Elephant Bathing Pool: Still pretty high up, we discerned our first Green-backed and Coal Tits – the latter here of the completely dissimilar and crested subspecies aemodius, which (as DNA studies have it) may actually be closer genetically to the western Himalayan Spot-winged Tit.
The trip’s first Eurasian Jays, Red-billed Blue Magpies and Large-billed Crows attested to the great corvid diversity on Emei. Recent studies of the vocalizations of the crow confirm that at least three species-level taxa exist on mainland Asia, with the two different forms we encountered on our trip (colonorum and tibetosinensis) belonging to the new East Asian species Corvus japonensis.
Recent studies on Asian Warblers have resulted in several newly described species, sadly though the publications lacked recommended English names, thus poor tour leaders like myself have to resort to their own unimaginative literary outpourings Warblers: “Forrest’s Warblers” Phylloscopus forresti; recently split from Lemon-rumped as per DNA and vocalizations, flitted through fir needles everywhere. “Claudia’s Warblers” were not uncommon either (here again DNA shows Phylloscopus claudiae needs to be split from Blyth’s P. reguloides) while “Martens’s Warblers” Seicercus omeiensis (which I here named after one of their describers) suddenly replaced Bianchi’s Warblers below the summit.
Moreover, Ashy-throated Warbler, Russet Bush Warbler and Gray-cheeked Fulvetta were welcome additions and we pinned down our trip’s first Emei Liocichlas, Brownish-flanked Bush-Warblers, Large-billed Leaf-Warblers, Red-billed Leiothrix, Long-tailed Minivets, Blue Whistling-Thrushes, Plumbeous Water-Redstart, Rufous-gorgeted and Verditer Flycatchers, Pacific Swifts, Asian House Martins and Mrs Gould’s Sunbirds.
The excellent fir forest and cliffs around the boreal enclave of Xixiang Monastery kept us busy with a couple of Brown Bullfinches, Darjeeling Woodpecker, a male Chestnut-bellied Rock-Thrush, 3-4 brilliant male Vivid Niltavas and our first Himalayan Cuckoo, a recent split from the more familiar migratory Oriental Cuckoo of Northern Asia. Other delights around here included hordes of echo-locating Himalayan Swiftlets returning to their cave, beautifully melodious White-spectacled Warblers (the third down in the elevational Seicercus chain) and attractive Yellow-browed Tits – always well-liked and one of my trip favourites.
Gray-headed Canary Flycatchers, which modern studies remove from their flycatcher kin and place in its own family close to the tits, were seen here for the first time, as were Slaty-blue Flycatchers, which never afforded more than a glimpse, though we would record them again and again during our trip. A shy White-tailed Robin was enticed into view with tape playback.
Below Xixiang and towards Wannian Monastery, the atmosphere became markedly subtropical: A spectacular landscape of gorges and cliffs resonated with the sweet notes of iridescent Chinese Blue-Flycatchers, as we had lucky views of the rare and recently described Emei Leaf-Warbler. An “Ogilviegranti’s Warbler”, another recently split in Phylloscopus warblers, showed well and sang its characteristic song. It used to be subsumed under the White-tailed Leaf-Warbler P. davisoni, until DNA studies showed that populations from Sichuan south to Vietnam and east to Fujian should be split off as P. ogilviegranti. We also recorded the newly described Plain-tailed Warbler Seicercus soror at this elevation. We saw quite a few individuals of this lowest of all Seicercus species on Emei, which is of much less vocal appeal than its uphill neighbour (White-spectacled Warbler S. affinis).
We had an exquisite run at all the mid- and low-elevation laughingthrushes below Xixiang: Most precious were three excellent sightings of the rarely encountered and elusive Moustached Laughingthrush (involving at least 4 individuals). But two Rusty, one Red-winged and one Spotted Laughingthrush would also contribute to a great skulker show (though the latter two surfaced again at other sites).
Lush forest down here teemed with exotic birdlife such as Great Barbets, Gray Treepies, Hair-crested Drongos, Rufous-capped Babbler, Black Bulbul, the rare Dusky Fulvetta, the highly sought-after Golden and Gray-headed Parrotbill, Black-chinned Yuhina, Sulphur-breasted and Chestnut-crowned Warblers and our first Yellow-bellied Tits.
Finally, a morning was invested into park-like secondary growth around the Monastery of the Lurking Tiger at the foot of Mt Emei, where our expectations were far exceeded by the sighting of a beautiful male migrant Tiger Shrike. A Chinese Bamboo-Partridge showed well as it nosily reacted to tape. Those who headed back to hotel early missed it, but two more individuals were seen en route from the vehicle later that day. Another highlight around here was a co-operative Brown-breasted Flycatcher in a quaint streamside setting, where a lone Slaty-backed Forktail ended our bad forktail spell that had been characterized by a complete absence of this beautiful genus owing to new trail construction along the lower stretches of the mountain. Local gardens sported Collared Finchbills, Fork-tailed Sunbird and Ashy-throated Parrotbills. Emei Town provided views of our trip’s first minor Great Tits, Barn Swallows, House Swifts and Oriental Magpie Robins.

Fulvous Parrotbill (James Eaton/Birdtour Asia)

A bumpy bus ride along little-known country roads then took us to Wawu Shan, a recently explored table mountain whose steep slopes have spared it the axe that most of its mountain neighbours have had to endure during China’s Cultural Revolution. Nowadays, the magic fir forest on its level top can be accessed by cable car and explored along well-maintained boardwalks. Things started off extremely well even before we boarded the cable car when we sighted a magnificent male Lady Amherst’s Pheasant that crossed the road in front of our vehicle.
The plateau forest teemed with birds. We soon obtained views of the species that elevated Wawu to ornithological fame: the peculiar Sichuan Treecreeper, first seen here in the wild only a few years ago, occurring side by side with its more widespread sister, the Eurasian Treecreeper. In fact, we managed to hear and see both treecreepers in the same groves. Otherwise, our very successful day walk yielded more good species than we could have hoped for, including brilliant views of such skulkers as Yellowish-bellied, Brown and Gray-sided Bush-Warbler,
Black-faced Laughingthrush, a spectacular parrotbill harvest comprising the locally endemic Gray-hooded Parrotbill, the enigmatic Fulvous Parrotbill, a shy Brown Parrotbill and our first Great Parrotbills, besides Dark-sided Flycatcher, Stripe-throated Yuhina, as well as our first Ferruginous Flycatcher, Rufous-vented Tits and Gray-crested Tits of the trip.

Next was Sawan Village the ever-expanding park centre of Wolong Panda Reserve. Sawan has dramatically changed its face over only two years that we have been watching, as Chinese officials seek to make it fit for 2008’s Olympic hordes of international tourists. Fortunately, the average visitor doesn’t venture far beyond the comfort of their hotel surroundings and – possibly – the Panda Breeding Centre, such that most of the secondary habitat within walking distance of town has remained in decent shape. A walk along ill-defined trails in regrown forest above the village turned into the stalking pursuit of a calling male Golden Pheasant, of which most of us eventually obtained brilliant – albeit short – views. Despite its uncharismatic look, the forest around here did reward us with a few fine songbirds, foremost among which were our first Indian Blue Robins, Slaty Buntings and Rufous-bellied Niltavas of the trip. Light birding around the town itself bestowed White-throated Needletail and our first Daurian Redstarts and Common Rosefinches onto our trip-lists.

From Sawan, we hiked up a steep but manageable slope into the next valley and seemly another world. Wuyipeng Research Station, our abode for the next two nights, was built in this valley by George Schaller, the famous panda researcher, and has since housed numerous naturalists that wish to explore the fairy-like forest and its diverse fauna. Birding was tough up here, with many specialties skulking, but hard work rewarded us with extended views of Wuyipeng’s galliform grail, a stunning male Temminck’s Tragopan (two more were glimpsed).
Other specialty birds that eventually afforded good views included a party of the extremely restricted Pere David’s Tit (which we managed to see again in Jiuzhaigou), a cryptic Scaly-breasted Wren-Babbler, a female White-browed Bush-Robin, a few inquisitive Barred Laughingthrushes, a small group of the awesome Green Shrike-Babbler, a Chestnut-vented Nuthatch, noisy Golden-breasted Fulvettas as well as White-backed and Gray-headed Woodpecker. The path that connects Wuyipeng with civilization is more degraded, but offered surprisingly good birding this time, with close and lasting encounters of several male singing Firethroats, Chinese Leaf Warblers, Spotted Nutcracker, and the observation of a mixed tit flock that included our best-ever views of Fire-capped and Sooty Tits as they foraged, not in the neck-straining heights of the canopy, but on baby conifers downslope.

After our descent from Wuyipeng, we prepared for a series of three days that we would spend around the lofty heights of Balang Shan while remaining based in Sawan Village. The pass around Balang Shan – at 4600m – is one of the few spots on earth where one gets the opportunity to search for high-mountain specialties from the comfort of a road. To the dismay of our helpful bus driver, we would get up in the wee hours of morning to make sure we reach the target area at dawn. This strategy paid well as we had unforgettable views of an overhead Wood Snipe in tornado display. Wood Snipes are active during the first 15min of daylight, becoming cryptic for the remainder of the day, and have become scarcer around Balang Shan in the past few years so we were all the more pleased when the individual alighted on the ground only 10 meters from one of us and could be observed for over a minute.
The air gets thin up around the pass, so not all of us came along on an uphill stroll to 4700m where we scoped a family party of six Snow Partridge. However, a snow storm the following morning pushed many alpine species down by a few hundred meters, and we were all treated to excellent roadside views of one naïve and very tame Snow Partridge as well as two distant Tibetan Snowcock. The pass area itself was home to a total count of 4 male and 4 female Grandalas, Red-fronted Rosefinches, Snow Pigeons, Plain and the invariably scarcer Brandt’s Mountain-Finch, both Yellow-billed and Red-billed Choughs and Alpine Accentor. A little further down, White-throated Dipper, Blue-fronted Redstart and Rosy Pipit came much to our delight.
A demanding two hours’ hike up some side-valley to timberline vegetation easily produced a family of at least 8 White Eared-Pheasants, but the hoped-for Chinese Monal would keep our suspense up and running untill – at the last moment – a stunning male was finally spotted on a not-too-distant hillside. This would remain the bird of the trip for some of us.
A few species, such as Himalayan Griffon, Gray-backed Shrike, White-capped Water-Redstart, Black Drongo, White-winged Grosbeak and even Giant Laughingthrush and Kessler’s Thrush were spotted at Balang Shan for the first time but would be seen again during the remainder of the trip (the latter singing from house roofs in Hongyuan!).

Chinese White-browed Rosefinch (James Eaton/Birdtour Asia)

A longer bus ride (featuring Kestrel, a male pandoo Blue Rock Thrush and our first Crag Martins, Black-eared Kites and Common Buzzards) then took us to the drier valleys around Maerkang, where good primeval coniferous forest persists along a newly-constructed road. Habitat quality became instantly apparent when we sighted two male Blood Pheasants and two male Koklass Pheasants right beside the road within minutes after getting out of the vehicle. Another major surprise were a couple of male singing Firethroats (one seen), which we had not really expect at this site. A clear stream had a pair of unobtrusive White-crowned Forktail feeding along its bank. Recent DNA studies show that the local subspecies sinensis is clearly distinct from its southern Indochinese neighbour, and may well merit species status in the future. After missing this forktail at Emei, we were particularly relieved to find them here.Soon, we also added a pair of the shy and scarce Crested Tit-Warblers, stunningly elaborate Pink-rumped Rosefinches, a surprise female Rufous-bellied Woodpecker (that no-one had really expected), Chinese Thrush, Oriental Turtle Dove and our first Slaty-backed Flycatchers, Hume’s Warblers, White-throated Redstarts, Orange-flanked Bush Robin, Tibetan Siskins, Three-banded and the recently split Chinese White-browed Rosefinch to our list.

A most welcome sighting involved a Willow Tit of the genetically distinct local taxon weigoldicus, which – in the past – was separated from the common European species as part of the Central Asian “Songar Tit”. New DNA research reveals that real Songar Tits (ssp. songarus from Uigur/Kazakhstan) and even Weigold’s northern neighbour affinis are actually very close to Europe’s Willow Tits, whereas only weigoldicus itself is spectacularly different. Who knows whether future birders will come to call it Weigold’s Tit, but “Sichuan Willow Tit” will do for our present purposes.

As we emerged from the rocky valleys of Maerkang onto the Tibetan Plateau of Hongyuan, the landscape opened up and the avifauna changed drastically. Various stops in bushy country at the plateau’s rim yielded our first Common Pheasant, Common Stonechat and Hodgson’s Redstart (all three of which we were to see again later on in Jiuzhaigou), Black-billed Magpie and – most rewardingly – shy Pere David’s Laughingthrushes and smart White-browed Tits. More Great Tits were spotted, though this time of the noticeably larger subspecies tibetanus.
The windswept plains themselves required a couple of longer strolls and attentive searching from the vehicle before they yielded their best species to our inquisitive binoculars, such as a handful of Tibetan Larks among the commoner Oriental Skylarks and Horned Larks.A family group of Hume’s Groundpeckers was discovered along the bank of the road as one distantly-scoped individual flew towards us and led us to its kin. This attractive and most endearing species has long posed a taxonomic puzzle to pre-DNA ornithologists, but will now be better known to future birders under the name Hume’s Ground-“Tit”. Little Tibetan villages along the way provided vegetation for such species as Azure-winged Magpies, Daurian Jackdaw and the red-bellied race rufiventris of our familiar Black Redstart.
The wide open plains featured extensive wetlands, where we were eventually treated to an impressive total of 13 highly-sought Black-necked Cranes, besides Graylag Goose, Ruddy Shelduck, Common Redshank, a Common Tern of the race tibetana, Cattle Egret, and Citrine Wagtails of the black-backed race calcarata, which – if preliminary results from DNA studies are to be believed – are highly distinctive and should be split from the lighter-backed races further west. Hongyuan Town itself is a peculiar mix of Tibetan and Han on a vast and flat grassy plateau, with exotic vegetation that harboured such oddities as Great Spotted Woodpecker and House Sparrow. The latter is as yet unrecorded from this area and constitutes a major range extension from its next known breeding grounds in Western Qinghai.

Our final port of call was Jiuzhaigou, a vast national park of exceptional natural beauty in Sichuan’s far north, whose improbable water formations have to be seen to be believed. Although we suffered poor weather for much of our stay, we still managed to connect with most of the species that were on our target list for this site, plus a few that had eluded us at previous sites. Some heavy rain and thick fog didn’t detract us from spending some time around a high pass before the gates of the national park, where Beautiful Rosefinches provided a welcome contrast to the arguably much more beautiful Pink-rumped Rosefinch we had earlier seen at Maerkang. Moreover, we managed to obtain unforgettable close-range views of a large family of Blood Pheasant and Crested Tit-Warbler, both specialties that we had seen earlier at Maerkang.
Inside the park itself, all eyes were on Rufous-headed Robin, the park’s big avian prize, which came in to tape – though views remained poorer than some of us would have hoped. Other trip-list additions around lower elevations at Jiuzhaigou were Collared Owlet and Pygmy Wren-Babbler (both seen reasonably well after hearing them a lot elsewhere), both Eurasian and Chinese Nuthatches, Yellow-streaked Warbler and – to complement a truly outstanding trip harvest of the genus Seicercus – Gray-crowned Warblers (S. tephrocephalus) at the village clearing. Further up, Golden Eagle and Maroon-backed Accentor made their debuts. A brilliant Sukachev’s Laughinghtrush was the highlight for Jiuzhaigou and brought our trip’s sampling of laughingthrushes to completion.

All in all, our trip totalled 252 species, plus an additional 12 species heard only.

Click here to view the Systamatic Bird List

Click here to download the report as a pdf

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