Podoces hendersoni - Mongolian Ground Jay

Podoces hendersoni

Referring to James A Jobling's "Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names" I find that  Podoces is Greek for "Swift-footed, quick"...

Jobling also reveals hendersoni to be a reference to Lt-Col George Henderson, 1837-1929, a British Army Explorer.

"Whose Bird?" by Bo Beolens and Mike Watkins is a bit more informative about Henderson, and much more revealing about what it meant to be a "British Army Explorer" in the middle of the 19th century.  

Henderson collected the first specimen of this Ground Jay during the 1870 British Mission from India to Yarkand (now in Xinjiang, China). 

It was during the era of "The Great Game" - the struggle between Britain and Russia for supremacy in Central Asia-  and Henderson was disguised as a merchant and calling himself "Ismail Khan". 

One can assume, though, that he put his real name on the specimen label.

Podoces hendersoni

As well as Xinjiang, Mongolian Ground Jays are also widespread in northern Qinghai Province.  These photos were taken  in August 2011.

(Edited and added 7th Oct 2011)

Referring belatedly to "The Bird Collectors" by Barbara and Richard Mearns, I find that the 1870 Yarkand Mission is well-covered by them.

There are a couple of photos from Henderson's 1873 book "Lahore to Yarkand", including this one of him (left) and his companions Douglas Forsyth and Robert Shaw in disguise for their journey.

And a photo of one of their campsites in the Karakoram Range....

As it says in The Bird Collectors  - "Most of the journey was above 15,000 feet in an area so inhospitable that even at the height of summer there was little forage for the horses so they had to take extra feed... the three europeans had a retinue of nearly sixty men and 130 horses... ... a supply train of yaks failed to arrive and their food for the horses began to run out. Three ponies died from exhaustion and starvation. At night it was so cold some of the horses tried to get into the tents....

At Kitchik Yalik they made one of their important discoveries... "

Pseudopodoces humilis  

Originally called Hume's Ground Jay, (after Allan Octavian Hume the "Father of Indian Ornithology")it has recently been discovered through DNA analysis to be a kind of tit.  The scientific name is now Pseudopodoces humilis "Tibetan Ground-Tit" 

After descending to the deserts of what was then known as Chinese Turkestan they saw and collected the first specimens of Mongolian Ground Jay, Podoces hendersoni.   Which is where this posting started, I guess.

A busy period of foreign exploration of the Tibetan Plateau was just beginning, with ornithology just a pretext for mapping the landscape and trying to exert political influence.  Captain Nicholas Prjevalsky was to begin the first Russian Expedition to western China the same year.....

Autumn Waders in flight at Mai Po, Hong Kong

Out to the Mai Po Nature Reserve boardwalk today, 28th September.

The tide came in quite quickly, but the birds stayed around until they were reasonably close to the hides, then took off in strong sunlight.

They're heading south, of course, away from their breeding grounds, and some juvenile plumages were in evidence.

Great Knot

Marsh Sandpiper

Eurasian Curlew

Whimbrel

 Bar-tailed Godwit  -  "D1" flagged here in Hong Kong

Bar-tailed Godwit (three views)

Greater Sandplover

AND - a sure sign that winter is on it's way back - five Black-faced Spoonbills turned up as well. Here are two of them...   Hong Kong's peak count of 461 was in November 2009.

Black-faced Spoonbill

Eagle Owl beside Yuen Long Highway, Hong Kong

Around midday today I travelled back to Sheung Shui from Tuen Mun (along Yuen Long Highway) on a Public Light Bus. 

I was gazing at the unfamiliar surroundings in Lam Tei when I noticed what looked like a rolled-up piece of matting at the base of the perspex sound barrier beside the carriageway.  The "matting" had bright orange eyes and ear tufts....  it was an Eagle Owl !

I was reminded of Jemi spotting an Eagle Owl by the roadside once, on Lantau Island.

The minibus didn't stop until it got to Sheung Shui.  I was reasonably confident I hadn't imagined the owl, but if it really was an owl my presumption was that it must be injured and need help.  However, Eagle Owls have sharp talons, and I didn't want to try to pick it up by myself.

After discussions with a couple of people I decided that the only thing to do was to go back, make sure the bird was still there and report the location accurately to the police, who should then call out AFCD.

With mixed feelings I returned to Lam Tei in a taxi (an hour or so later) to find the bird still there. After I dialled the police, two officers from the Traffic Section arrived very quickly.

I was not carrying my camera, and these photos were taken by one of the Traffic officers - "Dicky" on his mobile phone. 

The owl showed no sign of physical injury, but sat quite still, watching our every move.  However, with the traffic thundering past, one of us must have stepped too close to it, because it suddenly took off and flew across the road, disappearing into the trees beyond.

It really seemed to have no trouble flying, and so, in a way, I was glad to see it go.

How did it get there ?  Why did it stay so long in such a dangerous place in bright daylight?  

It might have flown into one of the translucent sound barriers, - these take a steady toll of birds locally, especially migrating ones unfamiliar with the landscape. 

Or it might have been hit by a vehicle on the road....but this seems less likely, as the impact could have caused more serious injuries. 

We'll never know for sure.  

But one thing IS for sure, - Eagle Owl is now on my 2011 year list !

Beyond the Great Wall - Qilian Shan, 21st August 2011

It has been written that the Great Wall is "visible from  space". Well, parts of it may be, but in places near Wuwei, Gansu Province, the Wall has weathered over the past two thousand years to become no more than an earthen dyke.

Even with all that weather damage, though, it's still a very symbolic and stirring monument.

Nearer Zhangye, on the old "Silk Road", we thundered along a four-lane highway and observed bits of the wall and watchtowers in the nearby grassland.

The traditional end of the Wall - and, traditionally the end of Chinese civilization too - is at Jiayuguan. The end-of-wall site is a "must-see" for visitors from China and other parts of the world.

Jiayuguan - the "end of Chinese civilization"

On 21st August we set off southwest of Jiayuguan into the foothills of the Qilian Shan, on the way to a glacier in the mountains.

Foothills of the Qilian Mountains

Further up the road it looked as though the valley grasslands were winter pastures, and the animals were mostly much further up the surrounding hills.  Some birds appeared to have been utilizing the rock crevices in an empty corral to breed.

Hoopoe

 Tickell's Leaf Warbler

Twite - the young birds are competing for the attention of the adult (centre)

But the "Bird of the Day" for me was this Lammergeier circling the hills above us.  And I didn't even see it - Jemi took this shot with the 400mm/f 5.6 after going further uphill.  You can even see the "beard" on it....  Jealous ?  Moi ?

Lammergeier (Bearded Vulture)

Ah well, that will teach me a lesson that I shouldn't lavish too much attention on Twites....      

All too soon we had to move on, with a 400km drive to Dunhuang to be completed before it got too late in the day.

"My cherie Amur..." Ningxia, Aug 15th 2011

It's a fair bet that Stevie Wonder doesn't have Amur Falcon on his palearctic list.

We saw dozens of them in mid-August 2011, on power lines east of the Helan Shan Mountain Range in Ningxia Province.

They seemed to be in ones and twos and threes and even fours every few yards, hanging around like teenage delinquents. I guess they were in the early stages of their extraordinary migration from eastern Russia to sub-saharan Africa. But even with such a long way to go, they didn't seem to have any great sense of urgency. But raptors are "cool", and something named after the Amur River is "cooler" still.

(Falco amurensis)

The Amur River sounds like such an exotic place to me, - like Samarkand or Timbuctoo - that I was was captivated by them, especially because I've missed the few vagrant Amur Falcons that have passed through Hong Kong.  

xxxxxxx

I'll be trying to catch up and post some highlights from our recent China trip in the next couple of weeks.

"Life's a beach...."

“Life’s a beach..” - if you’re a tern, that is. Tern life is also things like “plucking sprats from the surf” but most of those activities don’t make for a catchy blog post title.

Black-naped Tern, Haifeng County, East Guangdong

But I digress (as the great Tom Lehrer used to say).

Last Friday afternoon (8^th July) Jemi and I met  Brian Ivon Jones and Jonathan Martinez at Luohu bus station in Shenzhen for the journey to Haifeng, about 130 km ENE of Hong Kong.

Bright and early on Saturday morning at the east end of Dahu Beach a couple of Swinhoe’s Plover were sighted at the shoreline, and a large grouping of terns was on a sandbar perhaps 100m away.  It was obvious with views through Jonathan’s scope that several tern species were present.

Jemi persuaded a boatman to take us over, but I stayed ashore, fearing that four of us in a sampan with the boatman and his gear would be a bit crowded. I also wanted to try to get shots of Swinhoe’s Plovers without treading on other people’s toes.

Little Terns – which breed at Dahu - were present, and Great Crested Terns were quickly identified.  Roseate, Bridled and Black-naped (familiar HK breeders) were there with Eastern Common and Gull-billed.  Single juveniles of White-winged and Whiskered brought the total to nine species !

Meanwhile, I found a Hoopoe, well camouflaged among the flotsam on the beach.

The Swinhoe’s Plovers seemed to be fewer and shyer than my previous visit two weeks earlier, but with the 800mm lens this time I still got a few pics.

Jemi and I left Jon and Brian on the beach and returned earlier to Haifeng. Later we got the bus to Zhelang on the coast south-west of Dahu.  But the seafront shops selling swimsuits, beach balls, buckets and spades were a clue that any stretch of sand in the area would be largely occupied by holidaygoers. And so it proved. A tricycle ride to the windfarm peninsula of Baishabundao – despite the name - revealed a mostly rocky coastline. (Locals call it "Windmill Island".)  Beside the causeway between the power station and the island we saw a rocky outcrop with about twenty Black-naped Terns. A more distant sandbar held many more terns, but it was too far to see what they were.

On Sunday BIJ and JM did the fields and fishponds north of Dahu Beach, before returning to Shenzhen.  We (J & J) headed to Shajiaowei on the promontory south of Shanwei.  There the locals take tourists for speedboat rides (RMB 300 !) to the island of Guilingdao, which has a temple, a couple of rooms to stay, and two newish statues which seem to be successful at attracting island visitors.

Shajiaowei

Shajiaowei

Nearby there were rocky islets with breeding Bridled and Black-naped Terns. Eastern Reef Egrets and Black-crowned Night Herons were also present.  A lone Common Sandpiper on a rock might have been an early southbound passage migrant.

A bus from Jiesheng near Shajiomei took only 45 minutes to return to Haifeng.

******

On Monday morning we got a local bus to Lianhuashan, called “Lotus Mountain Resort” in English. The tourist complex and temple (opened 2010) sit at the foot of the mountain with steep, mostly scrub-covered hillsides above.

The main natural attraction is a waterfall. The stream below this held breeding Slaty-backed Forktails and Plumbeous Water Redstarts.  Other typical south China woodland species included Scarlet Minivet, Grey-cheeked Fulvetta, Rufous-capped Babbler, Streak-breasted Scimitar Babbler and Chestnut-winged Cuckoo (CWC).  A pair of CWCs were seen bullying a Sooty-headed Bulbul.

Asian House Martins showed well over the boating lake as it began to rain. We took that as our cue to return to Haifeng and eventually, back to Hong Kong.  Although Lianhuashan was not brilliant birding, it made an interesting counterpoint to the bird activity elsewhere in Haifeng County.

So it looks like the Swinhoe's Plovers are dispersing, but there is still plenty to see in the area.  Many Thanks to both Brian and Jonathan for the pleasure of their company over the weekend.