Bulletin 305 - China #5 - Plovers, Rails and Oystercatcher

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.

I got photos of 3 new plover species..all lifers of course. The 14" Grey-headed Lapwing (Vanellus cinereus) is a tall plover with a gray head, brown back, yellow legs and white underparts.

Grey-headed Lapwing

The 6" Long-billed Plover (Charadrius placidus) in an east Asian bird. It is similar to others of this genus. 

Long-billed Plover

The 6" Kentish Plover (Charadrius alexandrinus) is similar to our Snowy Plover with only a partial breast band. In fact until a dozen or so years ago, they were considered to be the same species. There was a huge flock way out on the mud flats.

Kentish Plover

The last plover species is the 6" Little Ringed Plover (Charadrius dubius). I had seen this bird in Hong Kong, but obtained a better photo this trip.

Little Ringed Plover

We also saw a Northern Lapwing as long way off in the reeds and no photo was possible. This was also a life bird.

The rail family consists of rails and coots and gallinules. Rails are always shy and retiring, so it was nice ti see this 11" Brown Crake (Amaurornis akool). It looked similar to our Sora with the short yellow bill. It has a brown and gray body. We saw 2 of them an open area.

Brown Crake

The 15" Eurasian Coot (Fulica atra) is an easy ID with the gray body and white bill. It is the only coot in eastern China.

Eurasian Coot

The 13" Common Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus) is another easy ID as similar to our Common Gallinule.

Common Moorhen

 The last bird for this bulletin is the 17" Eurasian Oystercatcher (Haematopus ostralegus). Again this bird is an easy ID as a large black and white shorebird with the long bright red bill.

Eurasian Oystercatcher

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

I have photos of 15 of the 67 species of plovers

I have photos of 14 of the 138 species of rails and coots


I have photos of 3 of the 11 species of oystercatchers

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald
dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2018 David McDonald

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Bulletin 293 - Hong Kong #1 - birds around water

I had a quick 1 week vacation in Hong Kong last fall and had  1 day birding with guide David Dinkins of Hong Kong walks. We visited several locations in the New Territories.

Because this was my first trip to Asia, almost all the birds seen were lifers and new photos. So I thought I would start with the sandpipers and other water birds. For those bird listers, some of these names will be familiar.

The best sandpiper was the 10" Common Snipe (Gallinago gallinago), This is the Eurasian counterpart to our Wilson's Snipe and were considered a single species until split in the last 20 years. If you have looked for the Wilson's Snipe, you know they flush and fly rapidly away and are hard to see clearly. Well we were on a boardwalk in a marsh. This bird flew in and landed on the boardwalk about 20 feet away, allowing a few photos before taking off again.

Common Snipe

The 9" Green Sandpiper (Tringa ochropus) is plain in winter plumage with dark wings.

Green Sandpiper

The 9" Wood Sandpiper (Tringa glareola) has a white eye stripe and dark spotted wings.

Wood Sandpiper

The 6" Little Ringed Plover (Charadrius dubius) is a typical small plover with 1 ring on his chest.

Little Ringed Plover

The Black-winged Stilt (Himantopus himantopus) is of course an easy ID with the long pink legs.

Black-winged Stilt

There were several herons and egrets, some of which have an obvious North American counterpart. The 38" Gray Heron (Ardea cinerea) is a large gray and white heron.

Gray Heron

The 24" Little Egret (Egretta garzetta) also has yellow feet like our Snowy Egret.

Little Egret

The 35" Purple Heron (Ardea purpurea) is said to be a secretive bird feeding in reed beds and usually only seen when flying between feeding spots as this bird.

Purple Heron

The 19" Chinese Pond Heron (Ardeola bacchus) is brownish with streaked neck in winter. It has no obvious New World counterpart as this genus is confined to the Old World.

Chinese Pond Heron - non-breeding

The 36" Great Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) is a Eurasian species that also appears on east coast of North America and is in the Sibley guide. The non-breeding adult here is black with a white throat.

Great Cormorant - adult non-breeding

The juvenile has white underparts.

Great Cormorant - juvenile

There are over 100 species of kingfishers but only 6 are in the Americas. Many of the Old World kingfishers are beautiful. The 6" Common Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) is blue above and orange below with red feet.

Common Kingfisher

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald
dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2017 David McDonald

To have these trip reports sent to your email, please email me at the above address and ask to subscribe.