Bulletin 304 - China #4 - Crows, Jays and Finches

I had an 8 day birding to trip in eastern China with a wonderful guide Lin Zhang based in Shanghai. He is perfectly fluent in English. We visited 5 different locales. His website is here. FYI making contact within China by email is a problem as the government blocks some email accounts coming in including gmail.  So I had to contact him using MS Outlook. His email is zhanglinas@hotmail.com.

The corvidae family consists of crows, jays, magpies and nutcrackers. I photographed several on this trip. First is the 13" Eurasian Jay (Garrulus glandarius). It is brownish with black wings and tail.

Eurasian Jay

The 20" Collared Crow (Corvus torquatus) is a black crow has an extensive white collar. I had seen this bird at a distance in Hong Kong, but this time I found one on the ground. I was doing research as the species name has changed recently, from pectoralis to torquatus. I found this disturbing article that this species is in rapid decline. It lives just in eastern China, northern Vietnam and Hong Kong. The population has dropped from an estimated 30,000 birds to less than 2,000 in the past decade, likely due to pesticide use. We saw about a dozen birds in The Dongzhi Nature Reserve where this photo was taken.

Collared Crow

The 18"  Oriental Magpie (Pica pica) is identical to our Black-billed Magpie and they were considered as a single species until about 20 years ago. This bird has an extensive range from Europe to the Pacific Ocean in China and Russia. It appears that there may be further splits in the future of the east populations. It is also known as Common Magpie.

Oriental Magpie

They build a huge bulky nest.

Oriental Magpie - on nest

The 26" Red-billed Blue Magpie (Urocissa erythrorhyncha) is a magpie with a black head, blue wings and tail and red bill. The guide told me an interesting story. He went to university to become and air traffic controller. In his spare time he wandered in a woods near the university. He saw one of these birds and became hooked on birds and he never worked as an air traffic controller.

Red-billed Blue Magpie

I also photographed 4 finches on the trip and all were lifers for me. The 5.5" male Common Rosefinch (Carpodacus erythrinus) is a small brown bodied finch with a bright red head.

Common Rosefinch - male

The 7" male Chinese Grosbeak (Eophona migratoria) has a black head and tail, beige body and large yellow bill.

Chinese Grosbeak - male

The 5.5" male Grey-capped Greenfinch (Chloris sinica) has a gray head and greenish body with some yellow on wings and tail. This is a winter plumaged male and duller then breeding plumage. This was formerly in the genus carduela as it certainly looks like our goldfinches. It is also known as Oriental Greenfinch.

Grey-capped Greenfinch - male winter

The last is the 6" male Brambling (Fringilla montifringilla). This bird has a widespread range across Europa and Asia. It make enough appearances in North America, as a vagrant, that Sibley includes it in his book. The male has a black head and rusty breast with white underparts. We saw several large flocks of this species.

Brambling - male

I have put the different bird families in single folders for easy viewing

I have photos of 35 of the 130 species of crows, jays and magpies

I have photos of 49 of the 212 species of finches

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald
dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2018 David McDonald

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