Chasing Lifers: The Baihualing Gold Mine Days 4, 5, & 6

January 17, 2018 - a couple of "huge" lifers

For Day 4, January 17, we will again visit two hides.  The morning itinerary was Hide # 9, which was located at an even higher altitude than Hide Malu. The target bird at this hide was the Hill Partridge.  After breakfast, we bade good bye to Ramon and Keith and proceeded to Hide # 9.  When we stepped out of the car at the area of Hide # 9, I immediately felt that it was much colder than Hide Malu.  When we entered the Hide, other photographers were already there and shooting.  We quickly set up our gear and took the remaining seats.  As with the last three days, there were a lot of birds and we took some shots.

The sudden appearance of these bird cause a stir but it turned out to be the more common Rufous-necked Partridge.  Still, I could not resist taking more shots.

Rufous-throated Partridge

The usual suspects...

Large Niltava, male

Chestnut-headed Tessia

A female Sunbird, not sure what species

But we were at this particular hide for one bird, the Hill Partridge. We were told that it was a skittish bird so when it appears we should all be quiet.  At around 10am, someone, probably the hide keeper, pointed at something and a hush momentarily descended over the hide as everyone stopped shooting to adjust their settings then a cacophony of shutter clicks ensued as everyone started firing. 

Hill Partridge quietly ambling towards the open area.  Male in the lead

Within just a few seconds, something spooked the male and it suddenly ran away followed by its mate

The male running away

With our target bird gone, everyone looked at their LCD screens to review their shots.  It's always interesting to watch the reactions of the photographers while doing this.  Smiles and expressions of jubilation or silent curses often tell the story.  At Baihualing, more often than not, its the former. 

We killed time by shooting the other birds, (all the while praying that the target birds come back so we could get better shots - bird photographers are a greedy lot 😀 ).

A group of Yuhinas bathing

About half an hour later, our target birds came back and all lenses were directed at them again.

Hill Partridge

We stayed in that hide until lunch then we transferred to another hide where the main target was the Greater Yellow-naped Woodpecker.  While waiting, we were entertained by the other avian citizens.

Crested Finchbill

Beautiful Sibia

Long-tailed Sibia

Great Barbet

Long-tailed Sibias

After almost five hours of no sighting, we were ready to call it quits and go back to our "48-room homestay". Then without so much as a warning, it was there in front of us.

Greater Yellow-naped Woodpecker

Day 4 ended with only two lifers but both were somewhat rare by Baihualing standards so that more than made up for the low number.

January 18, 2018 - the last day

For Day 5, we were going to another hide on a higher altitude with the Grey Treepie as the main target.  Being a birder who keeps a list, I was hoping to be able to get 70 lifers from this trip or at the very least, 60. By my informal count (at that time), I was already at 50+ after four days of birding.  Since this would be our last shooting day, I was not very hopeful of reaching 70 lifers.  

Our hide for the day involved a longer hike on a steeper slope so we were quite out of breath by the time we reached it.  One of our first subjects was a Streaked Spiderhunter taking a bath.

Streaked Spider Hunter

And the common birds of Baihualing were also there. Sharing some of the less common ones...

 

Grey-winged Blackbird, female

Himalayan Blue-tailed Robin, female

A little before 9am, our target bird appeared but at a distance.  It appeared a couple more times during the day but always quite far.  Never really near like the other birds.

Grey Treepie

The Treepie stayed only a short time but it was followed by two new birds, in quick succession, a Mountain Bulbul and a female Chesnut-bellied Rock Thrush

Mountain Bulbul

Chestnut-bellied Rock Thrush, female

After an hour, the male also made an appearance.

Chestnut-bellied Rock Thrush, male

At around 2:45pm, the hide keeper who spoke no english began gesturing towards the trees and after some figuring out and looking, we saw this woodpecker which looked similar to our own Philippine Pygmy Woodpecker.  It was a challenge to shoot as it kept to the trees on our right and was constantly moving.  

Grey-capped Pygmy Woodpecker

An hour later, another newcomer arrived, Brown-breasted Bulbul. 

Brown-breasted Bulbul

This last bird brought my tally to 63 species, although I was not yet sure at that time because I had yet to check all my photos. 

January 19, 2018 - Lifers at the vulcanizing shop

The following morning, we got up a little later than usual because there was no more birding.  After breakfast we loaded our luggage into two cars and started the first leg of our journey home - a two hour car ride from the mountain village of Baihualing to the Baoshan airport.  I cannot recall who decided our seating arrangement but in the first car were Raymond Dan, Alex Ting and Ben Go, all the mandarin speakers.  The late Prof Tirso Paris and I were in car number 2 and we spoke no mandarin at all (or any chinese dialect for that matter). An hour or so into our journey, our driver started acting strangely.  From the main highway, he would go inside small villages obviously looking for something.  But since he spoke no english and Prof Tirso and I spoke no mandarin, we could not really communicate.  When we stopped in a vulcanizing shop (in the third village!), it finally became clear what the problem was.  To make things worse, we were the fourth vehicle in line! Prof Tirso was getting worried that we will miss our flight. And we learned later that Alex Ting's passport was in his bag in our car (!) and they were frantically calling us but the call could not get thru. While waiting for our tire to be vulcanized, I saw some birds on nearby trees so I got my camera and did some roadside birding.  The first birds I saw was a flock of Red-whiskered Bulbuls.

Red-whiskered Bulbul

I was hoping to get a closer shot but these birds stayed on top of the trees.  After a few minutes, I decided to cross the road.  Prof Tirso followed me and began to act as my spotter.  Together, we saw two more birds. A male Purple Sunbird and a Cinerious Tit.  Three lifers by the vulcanizing shop!

Purple Sunbird, male

Cinerious Tit, Baihualing lifer #66

After getting a photo of the Tit, we saw our driver calling us so we boarded the car and resumed our journey.  Our trip going to Baihualing was done late at night so we were not able to see the countryside.  This time we saw how beautiful the rugged countryside was - rivers, mountains, deep gorges, tunnels, bridges.  It would have been nice to stop and take photos but we were already running so late.  At a certain point a text message from Alex got through asking where we were.  I recall sending a reply but I cannot remember anymore if he got it.  Fortunately there was hardly any traffic so we reached the airport just in the nick of time.  

Several hours later, we found ourselves at the vast Hong Kong airport and enjoyed our first non-Baihualing meal in a week.  I swear KFC never tasted so good!  We finally landed at NAIA at around 10:30pm, exhausted but happy with our trip