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Monday 22 December 2008 to Sunday 4 January 2009 Monday 21 December 2009 to Sunday 3 January 2010 Please note this tour has been extended by a day and therefore the dates are different to those published in the 2008 brochure.
Cost: £3420 Note that there are only seven good quality rooms at the Yancheng National Nature Reserve guest house and as a consequence singles cannot be guaranteed here. Maximum group size: 10 with 2 leaders. |
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Outstanding among China’s myriad variety of birds are its fabulously evocative cranes and these gorgeous creatures are always among the many highlights of our exciting South China tour. We expect to see five species of crane including mythical Siberian, White-naped and Hooded Cranes at Poyang Hu National Nature Reserve and majestic Red-crowned Cranes on the edge of the Yellow Sea. The supporting cast of birds includes an impressive, world-class list of waterbirds. We should see thousands of Swan Geese, hundreds of Falcated Ducks and Baikal Teal, huge parties of Oriental Storks, and stand a good chance of encountering reasonable numbers of Scaly-sided Mergansers at their most reliable wintering site anywhere in the world. Other goodies should include spectacular Mandarin Ducks and possibly demure Saunders's Gulls while we also should find the rare Baer’s Pochard and perhaps even a Swinhoe’s Crake. We also expect to see Pied Falconet. Songbirds too will impress; among expected endemics and near endemics are Reed Parrotbill, Chinese Grey Shrike, Red-billed Starling and Chinese Penduline Tit. China has come a long way in the last decade or so. Besides hosting an increasing number of comfortable hotels it now boasts an impressive transport infrastructure and we'll make good use of this on this exciting tour. Day 1: The tour begins with an overnight flight from London to Shanghai, mainland China’s largest and most dynamic city. Day 2: We’ll arrive in Shanghai in the early morning and will immediately drive west to Hangzhou, one of China's most attractive cities. We should arrive in time for some birding around the city and intend to visit the Botanical Gardens where we hope to see birds such as Dusky, Naumann's, Grey-backed and Pale Thrushes and, with luck, perhaps even both Yellow-browed and Tristram's Buntings. Night in Hangzhou. Day 3: Leaving Hangzhou after breakfast, we'll continue our journey west, heading to Wuyan, a picturesque small town in the north-eastern corner of neighbouring Jiangxi Province. Time permitting we'll stop off at 'Mandarin Duck Lake' a resevoir famed for its congregations of these charming Asian Waterfowl. We will spend the night in Wuyuan. Day 4: We'll spend the entire day around Wuyuan searching for some of the area's specialities. The day's primary target, the rare Scaly-sided Merganser, will be our first quarry. Up to sixty birds have been counted wintering here in recent years and we're likely to find a few parties of this attractive sawbill. Other species along this stretch of river could include Long-billed Plover and Black-collared Starling while elsewhere around Wuyuan we'll spend time looking for Mandarin Duck, Pied Falconet and that magnificent songster, the Hwamei. Night in Wuyuan. Day 5: We'll spend most of the day around Wuyuan searching for species we might have missed yesterday or other species such as Chinese Bamboo Partridge, Spot- and Streak-breasted Scimitar Babblers, Grey-chinned Minivet and, with luck, Spotted Wren Babbler. In the late afternoon we'll start our journey towards Poyang Hu. Night outside the nature reserve. Days 6-8: It shouldn't take us long to reach the world-renowned Poyang Hu. We’ll spend three full days exploring areas in this fabulous reserve. Poyang Hu is subject to huge annual fluctuations in its water level with the lake covering up to 5500 square kilometres during the summer rainy season (during which time it is then the largest lake in China) but water levels subsequently drop, and they can fall by as much as 15 metres by the end of the winter dry season, resulting in the lake shrinking to an area of less than 10% of its largest size. These massive fluctuations create a mosaic of shallow, residual lakes, and it’s the combination of these and the region’s fairly mild winters that creates ideal conditions for tens, or even hundreds of thousands of waterbirds. Poyang Hu is widely regarded as one of the most important wetlands in the world and holds the planet’s largest concentrations of a number of severely endangered species. Siberian Crane is undoubtedly the reserve’s star attraction and over 95% of the world population (4000 birds) of these magnificent creatures winter here, as do even larger numbers of the equally majestic White-naped Crane. Hooded Crane is decidedly scarcer but we expect to encounter a number of them among the huge flocks of bugling cranes that we’re sure to encounter. One of the best ways to explore this huge wetland reserve is by boat and we’ll make extensive use of these during our stay. The ancient Chinese tradition of cormorant-fishing is still widely practiced at Poyang Hu and we might even be lucky enough to see groups of these busy, tethered birds. Thousands of Tundra Swans, ‘Tundra’ Bean, Greater White-fronted and Swan Geese, hundreds of Oriental Storks and huge swirling flocks of Spotted Redshank and Pied Avocets also spend the winter at Poyang Hu, while other less conspicuous species include Japanese Swamp Warbler and, with a great deal luck, Swinhoe’s Crake. Nights at Yongxiu, a small town just outside the reserve. Day 9: Leaving Yongxiu early we'll drive south, through Nanchang and spend the morning exploring Nanjishan Reserve to the south of the city. Japanese Swamp Warbler and even Swinhoe's Crake are more regular here than at Poyang Hu and we'll concentrate out attentions on these two species in particular. In the afternoon we'll return to Nanchang airport and fly back to Shanghai. We'll then start our journey north towards Yancheng Nature Reserve stopping for the night at Jiangyin on the southern bank of the Yangtze, China's largest and arguably most important river. Day 10: Continuing north over the mighty Yangtze, we'll head to Yancheng Nature Reserve where we expect to arrive mid-morning allowing us plenty of time to explore some of the sanctuary's better areas. We will spend the night at the reserve's modern guest house. Days 11-12: Yancheng, China's second largest Nature Reserve, will be the focus of our time. A vast complex of coastal grassland, shrimp ponds, saltpans and commercially harvested reed beds on the edge of the Yellow Sea, Yancheng harbours an impressive array of species. Nearly half of the world's 2000 or so Red-crowned Cranes winter here and we are sure to have good views of a number of these magnificent, strikingly-plumaged birds. The reserve also harbours a resident population of the exquisite Saunders's Gull and we hope to be able to study a few of them at close quarters as they hunt crabs by patrolling over the mud-fringed fishponds. Other targets here include Falcated and Baikal Teal, the near-endemic Chinese Grey Shrike, Chinese Penduline Tit, the endemic, gorgeous Reed and ubiquitous Vinous-throated Parrotbill, plus Rustic, Black-faced, Pallas's and, with luck, Oche-rumped Buntings. On our second full day, we'll probably head south to another near-coastal reserve, this one designated as a sanctuary for the endangered Milu (or Pere David's Deer). We expect to stop numerous times as we drive between the two reserves and, in the past, we have been fortunate to have found Saunder's Gull here as well. We'll head back to Jiangyin in the early evening. Day 13: Heading back to Shanghai we expect to arrive in time to visit a forest park on the edge of the city before spending the afternoon on a sightseeing excursion into the heart of this bustling, ambitious metropolis with its intoxicating, eclectic mix of old European-style buildings and awe-inspiring modern structures. We spend the night near the international airport in Shanghai, a pulsating city that typifies the huge disparities we'll have seen during our recent travels in modern-day China. Day 14: In the early morning we'll catch a flight to London where the tour ends.
E-mail or phone +44 (0)1767 262522 for availability. Last updated May 2008. |
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