Chengdu Birding – [email protected] - Chengdu, Sichuan, the gateway to Tibet
Greater painted snipe - a male - the female of this species is far brighter
This has obviously been a hectic summer in and around Chengdu. Me and the wife knew our work was going to be cut out – since we had to juggle our time between moving into a new countryside home, and catering for our summer tourist guests (including a few birdwatchers) – and just at the start of what was to be our busiest period, somebody threw a rather large earthquake our way!!!!!
But things are nicely back to almost normal right now – and we have started to relax again and fully enjoy new birding haunts that are just a short walk from our front door.
This local habitat is dominated by rice paddies – which, at least just now at the start of the passage season, is full of Rails, Snipes, Egrets, Wagtails and Pipits – the rice chickens (a nickname that the locals use in particular with regard to rails – but a great descriptive term for most rice paddy birds). Perhaps our favorite bird out of this group of mud-lovers is the – Greater Painted Rice Chicken – or should that be – Greater Painted-snipe.
This bird is an arch skulker – they lie flat in the mud taking advantage of any cover to hide. Even now, after the paddies have been harvested, they are still hard to find their brilliant camouflage giving them a supreme edge over us bird watchers. We often get within a meter or two – but can’t spot them until they’re up and away flying to the invisibility of another hiding spot.
But there is one rather low-tech piece of equipment that can be used to get a better peep at these elusive birds – the umbrella. Using the old logic that claims – a hat can break up the human profile and allows you get closer to birds before they recognize a potential threat – well using a umbrella breaks up that profile even more. And hey-presto this really does seem to work – at least on a rice paddy with Painted-snipes. An umbrella as a kind of portable mini-hide!!!!
A female Citrine Wagtail
At the moment our paddies are giving some interesting passage birds, among them being – Swinhoe’s Snipe, Grey-headed Lapwing, Ruddy-breasted Crake, Cinnamon Bittern, Richard’s Pipit, Rosy Pipit and Citrine wagtail.
Greater painted snipe - a male - the female of this species is far brighter
This has obviously been a hectic summer in and around Chengdu. Me and the wife knew our work was going to be cut out – since we had to juggle our time between moving into a new countryside home, and catering for our summer tourist guests (including a few birdwatchers) – and just at the start of what was to be our busiest period, somebody threw a rather large earthquake our way!!!!!
But things are nicely back to almost normal right now – and we have started to relax again and fully enjoy new birding haunts that are just a short walk from our front door.
This local habitat is dominated by rice paddies – which, at least just now at the start of the passage season, is full of Rails, Snipes, Egrets, Wagtails and Pipits – the rice chickens (a nickname that the locals use in particular with regard to rails – but a great descriptive term for most rice paddy birds). Perhaps our favorite bird out of this group of mud-lovers is the – Greater Painted Rice Chicken – or should that be – Greater Painted-snipe.
This bird is an arch skulker – they lie flat in the mud taking advantage of any cover to hide. Even now, after the paddies have been harvested, they are still hard to find their brilliant camouflage giving them a supreme edge over us bird watchers. We often get within a meter or two – but can’t spot them until they’re up and away flying to the invisibility of another hiding spot.
But there is one rather low-tech piece of equipment that can be used to get a better peep at these elusive birds – the umbrella. Using the old logic that claims – a hat can break up the human profile and allows you get closer to birds before they recognize a potential threat – well using a umbrella breaks up that profile even more. And hey-presto this really does seem to work – at least on a rice paddy with Painted-snipes. An umbrella as a kind of portable mini-hide!!!!
A female Citrine Wagtail
At the moment our paddies are giving some interesting passage birds, among them being – Swinhoe’s Snipe, Grey-headed Lapwing, Ruddy-breasted Crake, Cinnamon Bittern, Richard’s Pipit, Rosy Pipit and Citrine wagtail.