Inner Mongolia – The Owl Haven of China

Another trip report dusted out from last year. I don’t know how i let this trip report got buried despite a splendid trip with a new experience in the northernmost frontier of China. Inner Mongolia is huge and the climate varies for different region, Our destination was Hulunbuir, a city close to the Mongolian and Russian Border. The winters are harsh especially in these region with frequent blizzards and even the temperature drops to -35C during day time. We had been vetting about the place for quite sometime and decided to hit it during February to see the Snowy Owl. Eventhough Snowy Owl was our main target, we birded the areas around the town of Wuerqihan, which is roughly 150kms east of Hulunbuir. Inner Mongolia has abundance of minerals, as a result Coal mining is the major industry and there is an assortment of industries which are related to coal mining. Wuerqihan is no exception as its solely dependent on  logging. The town is surrounded by Coniferous forests with different varieties of tree ( Majority are Ash and Birch) which is very good for Woodland birds. On the other hand, Xiqi, the town 150kms east of Hulunbuir, is a steppe region. The main industry in this town grazing. In Winter, the grasslands are covered by a thick blanket of snow. The expat birding group of Shanghai (Kevin Harding, Dr.Kai Pflug and myself) spent a week’s time in one of the remote corners of China looking for the Owls.

Food/Transport/Accommodation/Guide

Hulunbuir : We used Hulunbuir as a transit hub. We used Juneyao Airlines to fly in and out of Hulunbuir from Shanghai with an hour stop over at Tongliao, Inner Mongolia.

Wuerqihan :

Access : Taxi was arranged by the guide from the airport to Wuerqihan town (250 RMB)
Accomodation : Also arranged by the guide, a brand new hotel but they have only two rooms with private bathrooms. I was using the single room with shared bathroom, it was very well maintained.(Cost : 150 RMB/night for rooms with private bathroom, 100RMB/night for Shared bathrooms)
Food : Plenty of options around the hotel, one of the best places i ever had such delicious food for such price in China.
Guide : Mr.Zhang Wu(+86 13614709187), thoroughly recommended. Winter is not the best time for the woodland birds especially owls but he did his best to find the birds with lots of off-road driving. ( Cost : 250 RMB/person/day, 500 RMB/Day for the 4-wheel drive + Gas)

Xiqi:

Access : Taxi was arranged by the guide from Hulunbuir to Xiqi (400 RMB)
Accomodation : Arranged by the guide as well in a very  shady hotel (Cost :150RMB/night with private bathroom)
Food : Lot of BBQ joints, very expensive for a small town.
Guide : Mr.Zhao Shuanlong(+86 13848708421), he has nailed the entire birding around him. He himself a photographer, so his shots are the first preference. Also he doesn’t focus on other birds and always focused on photographing Snowies. If not for a remote area, we could have avoided him. Only Pros being, he’s really good at spotting the Snowy Owl. (Cost : 300 RMB/person/day, 500 RMB/Day for the 4-wheel drive + Gas)

Birding : (Day wise)

Day 1 : Mainly commuting. A six hour flight and three hours on road to Wuerqihan. We had plenty of Eurasian Bullfinches (ssp pyrrhula and ssp cineracea which is sometimes treated as a separate species, Baikal Bullfinch) and Eurasian Jay(ssp brandtii) on the road.After checking into the hotel, We had an hour before the sun was going down. Checked the park close to the hotel. Carrion Crow was a nice lifer for the last light, we also lot of Large-billed Crows and nothing else. Kevin who had arrived a day earlier, utilized an additional day’s birding came back with the news on what’s what and how’s how and also with one of the target owls captured in his cam.

Day 2 : Quick breakfast at one of the breakfast taverns and we plunged into our mission of finding the owls. On the outskirts of the town, we had a flock of Hill Pigeons,totally gripped. Then started the birdless hours. Around noon, most of us already fell asleep in the heated comfort of the car compared to the stinking cold weather and the wind outside. Mr.Zhang Wu, woke us up, whiskering a name, all i got was it was a chicken and i had no idea where he was pointing. After some difficulty, i was starring right at a male Hazel Grouse, perfectly camouflaged on a birch branch. Excitement back on track, we searched couple of mature trees for the old man of the forest but we bumped into Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and Rough-legged Buzzard. We stopped by a farm to pick the easy bunch. Big flocks of  Common Redpolls, lots of Eurasian Bullfinches, couple of Pallas’s Rosefinches, very confiding Eurasian Nuthatch and Marsh Tits, few Long-tailed Rosefinches, and numerous Eurasian Tree Sparrows. We finished day 2 with no Owls and we had covered 200+ Kilometres.

Day 3 : The day started with a bang, we were just out of the town and this giant sized Golden Eagle was sitting on a tree top. Then we continued driving for couple of birdless hours. Around noon, we stopped at a place, yeah, we had no clue where we were most of the time as every dirt track looked the same. Zhang Wu, stopped at a place and played a recording. Soon couple of Siberian Jays responded and disappeared as fast as they came. The only new species we added on the day is a very distant Chinese Grey Shrike. End of the day, stopover at the farm again to photograph the same batch for consolation. Again no Owls on day 3.

Day 4 : We headed west of Wuerqihan towards Yakeshi. We stopped at an active logging site and Zhang Wu immediately located a Black Woodpecker. We pursued to photograph the woodpecker in the knee deep snow, the -30C temperature and not so co-operative woodpecker did not make it easy. We roamed around the area in search of the owls and this time i found something ahead of Zhang Wu, a Northern Hawk Owl, perched on a tree top in its typical sentry mode. We approached the owl cautiously and it din’t give a rat’s arse about us even when we were standing right next to the tree. We also added the nominate race caudatus of Long-tailed Tit. Dr.Kai wasn’t feeling well and we dropped him back at the hotel and ventured north of town to visit some of the cemeteries for the Great Grey Owl. While our jeep was crusing past the barren land, suddenly i see a pale thing with the dark eyes almost like a ghost sitting on an exposed branch of a tree right on the road. With blood gushing all over my veins, i screamed “Cháng wěilín xiāo“, the adrenaline rush has truly opened a path for my Mandarin skills. Zhang Wu, stopped the car to a halt and went around and stopped the car infront of the Ural Owl. Unfortunatly, the Owl was now obscured by the branches infront of us and when Zhang Wu started to explain that this is the most skittish owl in the region, it vanished into the thick forest. We continued our search for the Great Grey but with no luck and we drew curtains for day 4 with two Owls.

Day 5 : Our final day in Wuerqihan and our final chance of this trip to see the old man of the forest. I was so hoping that the luck has started to coming our way after two Owl sightings from the previous day. Not very far from the town, Zhang Wu whispered in the car that he saw a Great Grey on the way. We turned around and Kevin saw the Owl flying across the road. As a passenger seat occupant, i exhaled the despair out of me. We jumped out of the car, spent the next 30 minutes in the bone/ball chilling weather, trying to locate the Great Grey Owl. Eventually, we gave up after some time and moved on looking for other sites. The consolation come in the form of a female Black Grouse on the roadside tree. Then another location known for its woodpecker specialties, yielded only a Great Spotted Woodpecker.

Another Logging camp and an abandoned logging village, gave us a Northern Raven and two more Northern Hawk Owls. Our 5-day birding in Wuerqihan finally came to a close.  Some shots of Wuerqihan town and surroudings are below.

We checked out of our hotel and we settled in a small taxi to Hulunbuir for about 3 hours. At Hulunbuir, we exchanged taxi’s and set for another 4 hour drive to Xiqi. Around 9.30PM, we arrived at Xiqi and Mr.Shuanglong welcomed us. After the formalities at the reception, we headed to our room. Several photos of Snowy Owl decorated the reception and the hallway of what looked like to be a regular birder accommodation. The hotel was very old, the rooms have inhabited a very foul smell and there were unspeakable stains in the beds, a drunken guy smashing his mobile against the wall upon our arrival and we heard the people involved in their own drunken juggernaut game of Mahjong all night, definitely “NOT” recommended.

Day 6 : Our hunt for the Snowy owl has started officially. Shuanlong knows most of the English names of the birds found in Xiqi and when we told him our targets other than Snowy Owl, he said no problem and that had really had our hope high (Will get back to this point on Day 7). We were joined by a couple of Chinese Photographers, who came in their own vehicle. We drove couple of kilometres towards Hulunbuir and were looking for snowy owls somewhere in the southern fringes of the Lake Hulun. Plenty of Mongolian Larks, Horned Larks, Lapland Buntings and Upland Buzzards were seen along the road. Whenever we asked Shuanlong to stop to photograph any of these, he claimed there is a better place for these birds. We soon went off-road, Shuanlong spotted a 1st winter female Snowy Owl, it took a while for us to spot. Sitting next to a small clump of grass with a slight elevation from the ground, it would have been impossible to locate even with all those black spots. Shuanlong said the first winters and males are very skittish and he said he’s looking for a adult female which is very accommodating. Soon, we found that individual and spend some spectacular time photographing her. We were cautious though not to disturb her, so we approached her slowly and kept a good distance. At one point, Shuanlong walked straight to her and set his tripod, just 20m away. Spending quality time with one of the enchanting Owls in the pristine wild corner of China is a lifetime experience. We then moved on to check couple of abandoned building to continue our Owl quest. The first ruins had a Little Owl, in a fantastic disguise, the owl was just sitting 10m infront of us, except Shuanlong none of us could spot it. We spotted couple Upland Buzzards were mobbing something, we drove around the clump of grass and found an Eurasian Eagle Owl perched on the ground among the grass , another individual of disguise. It took three days to see one species of Owl in Wuerqihan while it took only couple of hours to find the several individuals of 3 Owl species in Xiqi, it’s that easy here.

Day 7 : Our last full day of birding in Xiqi. The weather has changed drastically over the night, the early morning started with -30C and the wind blowing strongly at 25km/h. About noon, the temperature steadily increased to -45C and winds blowing much stronger than the morning. An early stop at a ruin for Daurian Partridge but no luck with that but we spotted a sleeping Little Owl. Later, we realized that little fella was just taking refuge from the strong wind, he had a live vole in his claws all the time while he was pretending to sleep. We spent the whole morning looking for a male Snowy owl. It was a hard morning compared to the day before, we din’t even come across the juveniles and females from yesterday. After a long search, we found a single male. Absolutely stunning figure, at a distance it totally looked like a snow mound. He was very skittish and kept a 250m comfort zone, with the weather getting worse, we dint want to pursue him and left him in peace. We asked Shuanlong that we would like to go and look for the small passerines. He just gave a vague answer, that the places are very far and there is no time. Around noon, he also took a short nap during the time shortage. Around 3PM he was so desperate to find a snowy owl to photograph a sunset shot and ignored our request to look for the other species which left us all grumpy.

Day 8 : Pack up, we all left for Hulunbuir for our respective flights to Shanghai. Manzhouli is much closer to Xiqi and is better for flying to Beijing. There is also an airport under construction in Xiqi which will be predominantly for China Spring Airlines and would be completed in an year or two.

[Update:]

Included a snapshot of places in the map. Venturing in these areas with own transport is doable but not advised. Places are very far from each other, and have to do lot of offroad. Mr.Zhang Wu is a very skilled driver and he knew exactly were to go off the road and most of the truck trails look exactly the same, so its very easy to get lost and there won’t be any single soul in the vicinity.

Acknowledgements :

Thanks to my birding mate Kevin Harding for the extensive preparation of the trip, witty jokes during birdless hours. Thanks to Dr.Kai for the company and preparing in a short notice. Sincere thanks to Joakim Hammar(Jocko) who kindly provided us with lot of details about the location and guides. Special thanks to my good friend Roger Timmermann, whose photos of the Owls from these locations were the main inspiration of the trip. Thanks to my colleague and friend Hanson Zhang for kindly lending me his brand new 7d MKII which i used most of the time during the trip and completely fell in love with.

Species List :

	Species	Count	Location	Date
1	Black Grouse	2	Wuerqihan	5-Feb-15
2	Hazel Grouse	1	Wuerqihan	2-Feb-15
3	Golden Eagle	1	Wuerqihan	3-Feb-15
4	Rough-legged Buzzard	1	Wuerqihan	2-Feb-15
5	Upland Buzzard	5	Xiqi	6-Feb-15
6	Hill Pigeon	20	Wuerqihan	2-Feb-15
7	Eurasian Eagle-Owl	1	Xiqi	6-Feb-15
8	Snowy Owl	4	Xiqi	6-Feb-15
9	Northern Hawk-Owl	1	Wuerqihan	4-Feb-15
10	Little Owl	1	Xiqi	6-Feb-15
11	Ural Owl	1	Wuerqihan	4-Feb-15
12	Lesser Spotted Woodpecker	1	Wuerqihan	2-Feb-15
13	Great Spotted Woodpecker	4	Wuerqihan	5-Feb-15
14	Black Woodpecker	1	Wuerqihan	4-Feb-15
15	Grey-headed Woodpecker	2	Wuerqihan	2-Feb-15
16	Common Kestrel	2	Wuerqihan	2-Feb-15
17	Chinese Grey Shrike	1	Wuerqihan	3-Feb-15
18	Siberian Jay	3	Wuerqihan	3-Feb-15
19	Eurasian Jay	10	Wuerqihan	2-Feb-15
20	Carrion Crow	10	Wuerqihan	2-Feb-15
21	Mongolian Lark	300	Xiqi	6-Feb-15
22	Horned Lark	100	Xiqi	6-Feb-15
23	Marsh Tit	10	Wuerqihan	2-Feb-15
24	Long-tailed Tit	6	Wuerqihan	4-Feb-15
25	Eurasian/Siberian Nuthatch	4	Wuerqihan	2-Feb-15
26	Siberian Accentor	1	Wuerqihan	2-Feb-15
27	Lapland Longspur	50	Xiqi	7-Feb-15
28	Eurasian Bullfinch	25	Wuerqihan	2-Feb-15
29	Pallas’s Rosefinch	10	Wuerqihan	2-Feb-15
30	Long-tailed Rosefinch	6	Wuerqihan	2-Feb-15
31	Common Redpoll	30	Wuerqihan	2-Feb-15
32	Eurasian Tree Sparrow	20	Wuerqihan	2-Feb-15