Jonathmartinez

Some hightlight of one week in Hunan, with intensive birding on Dong Ting Lake and near Yueyang from 18th to 24th of february, nice shiny weather, up to 20°celsius :

Red breasted goose 1 on 18th and 24 thin the northern part of Dong Ting Lake in front of the reserve station
Whooper swan maximum count 33 on 24th nortern part of Dong Ting Lake
Oriental stork maximum 4 on 18th northern part of Dong Ting Lake
Eurasian bittern 1 on 18th northern part of Dong Ting lake
Hen Harrier 1 female on 18th northern part of Dong Ting Lake
Chinese grey shrike "sphenocercus" 1 on 18th northern part, 1 on 23th Matang Lake
Common Starling 4 on 18th and 7 on 24th northern part
Besra 1 male on 19th in Ba Jiao Lake north of Yueyang
Yellowish-bellied Bush warbler 1 on 20th Bin Hu (north of Yueyang)
Scaly-sided merganser 2 male 1w and 6 female on 23th in Matang Lake
Japanese Swamp warbler 1 on 22th near Junshan, very difficult to find since most of the reedbed have been cut and burn

Totally 111 species, major fact, are the good proportion of Naumann's Thrush on the Dusky Thrush group compare with past year, maybe 1/3, the very low quantity of greater white-fronted geese,maximum count 150 on 23th in Matang Lake compare with few thausend for 2 years ago.The quantity of wintering Lesser white-fronted geese still so amazing, maybe near 20 000 birds, very difficult to estimate. Very fiew Crane, maximum 10 common on 24th, no sign of Hooded crane,even i saw 2 there on 14th dec 2009.

rgds

Jonathan


few pics to illustrate this, even some of them are something to blur to be called pic!

lrichard

Interesting posting.

Numbers of Greater White-fronted Geese seem to be plummeting along the Yangtse. Paul Holt's reports from Poyang this winter show a peak count of 200 there, way down from the thousands that were formerly present.

Also, just to confirm, were the swans at Dongting Whooper or Bewick's (Tundra)? Whoopers seem to be very rare along the Yangtse.

Richard

Jonathmartinez

sorry, my mistake, they are all Tundra swan!
For the Greater white fronted goose, it's totally unexplainable since the Bean and Lesser white-fronted wintering population seems to be quite stable. This birds should be somewhere!
Some people working on a thesis on the Lesser white fronted goose, explain to me that this year the water level was really low and much earlier than normal,in consequence the grass is really dry and did have not grow as usual, maybe given less food to the birds! But the bean and lesser WF still there! So...?

Anyway, i still have not visit all the place available for geese in Dong Ting, and this area is so hugge that some birds could be somewhere without be seing by anybody for a full winter, i do believe it's possible! I spend a lot of time trying to visit so many spot as possible and it's really hard job!

Jonathan

Jonathmartinez

A fiew more pics from Hunan.
Comments on the gull are welcome, i identified it as Mongolian Gull, even i'm not so strong on gull's ID.

Rgds

Jonathan