Spring Break Update – Week 5

Week 5 started on a note of a detour to twitch the Japanese Yellow Bunting then caught up with the Shanghai traffic and finally concluding day 1 with the Little Curlew.

Day 2 was still raining with strong winds. I scouted the good ‘ol places from two years back. Most of the habitat was gone which is not unusual for Yangkou. The common waders were hanging around their old place even though the place didn’t look exactly the same. Common Sandpipers were everywhere, they really live up to their name, Grey Wagtails were stunning in their breeding plumage. The temple forest was beaming with Passerine activity.

Couple of togs were chasing an Ashy Minivet and it evaded them and landed right in front of me giving me the  “Minivet Moment”. I have to be very thankful to the togs again for flushing out a Male “Yellow-rumped Flycatcher”.

Flash the Rump

A pair of Siberian Rubythroats gave satisfying views as i never had them in my bins for two consecutive days. I finished day 2 with a superb male Amur Falcon, my second every sighting in China and left a bit early to pickup my “team” at Rudong town.

Day 2 started with Roger Theo Timmermann and Kevin Pickering. We did the fields, ponds, scrubs n picked up our regular species.

You can you Bi Bi, no can no pia pia.

Real Ruby

We then went into the mudflats to see only the commoners.

Later that evening, we went to construction site which previously was the habitat of Oriental Pratincoles. As expected, there was no sign of Oriental Pratincoles but Little Ringed and Kentish Plovers had made it as their breeding site.

Last day, we covered the southern & eastern side of the port village. Plenty of Indian Cuckoos were trying to sneak into Drongo’s nest. We also tried the new sea wall as the old dyke and the sea wall are no more good for the high tide roost. We saw people walking in near the dyke and some were even trying to shoot the wader flock with their smartphones.

Relaxing time at the high tide roost

Get those headshots with Xiaomi.

Kentish Plover eggs found very close to the sea wall, very well camouflaged. I hope the hoards of the people doesn’t step on them.

We found a nesting site of Little Ringed and Kentish Plovers. There were about 8 nests within 500sq.m. On a painful side, there was a good photographer friend of us was driving around in that place to photograph an Oystercatcher. When i pointed out the nests, he felt sorry and left the place, however the damage is already done. I don’t know how many nests were destroyed on that act.

See the tire treads missed the nest by few cm.

A very tame Eurasian Oystercatcher which put up with the photographer chasing him in his car.

Mother’s love

Time to cuddle with daddy

Overall, it wasn’t an overwhelming trip neither a dull one. As i visit Yangkou for the fourth time in 3 years, the place is not the same. The wader cloud which was doing several formations is not there anymore, with the chemical industries and fisheries growing everywhere along the coast the has the shrunk the habitat in Yangkou. Despite these downsides, we still managed to see a Spoon-billed Sandpiper.

Sorry image of a spooner

Monster Beak

Kevin in “Magic Forest”

Species List :