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Beijing, Summer Palaces (Yuanmingyuan & Yiheyuan)

CHANGING CURRENTS
20 YEARS of REFLECTIONS
BIRDS IN CHINA - PHOTOS
CYCLING to XANADU
THE CHINESE DREAM
CHINESE NEW YEAR ADS
The MEDIUM, the MESSAGE and the SAUSAGE DOG
ANYONE FOR TENNIS?
VIEWS FROM ABOARD THE CHINA EXPRESS:
1 Zola and Retail Marketing
2 Playing the Waiting Game
3 Beware the Ides of March
4 The county not on a map
5 Chinese Chess in Beijing
6 Build it and They'll Come
7 Riding the Water Dragon
8 The Best of Both Worlds
9 Storming the Great Wall
10 Welcome to the Wangba
11 The Catcher in the Rice
12 The Marriage Business
13 The Crouching Dragon
14 Counting the Numbers
15 A Century of Migration
16 Shooting for the Stars
17 Rise of Yorkshire Puds
18 Harry Potter in Beijing
19 Standing Out in China
20 Self-pandactualisation
21 Strolling on the Moon
22 Tea with the Brothers
23 Animated Guangzhou
24 Trouble on the Farms
25 Christmas in Haerbin
26 Dave pops into Tesco
27 A Breath of Fresh Air
28 The Boys from Brazil
29 Rolls-Royce on a roll
30 The Great Exhibition
31 Spreading the Word
32 On Top of the World
33 Moonlight Madness
34 Beijing's Wild West
35 Avatar vs Confucius
36 Brand Ambassadors
37 Inspiring Adventure
38 China's Sweet Spot
39 Spinning the Wheel
40 Winter Wonderland
41 The End of the Sky
42 Ticket to Ride High
43 Turning the Corner
44 Trouble in Toytown
45 Watch with Mother
46 Red-crowned Alert
47 In a Barbie World
48 Domestic Arrivals
49 Tale of Two Taxis
50 Land of Extremes
51 Of 'Mice' and Men
52 Tour of the South
53 Brooding Clouds?
54 The Nabang Test
55 Guanxi Building
56 Apple Blossoms
57 New Romantics
58 The Rose Seller
59 Rural Shanghai
60 Forbidden Fruit
61 Exotic Flavours
62 Picking up Pace
63 New Year, 2008
64 Shedding Tiers
65 Olympic Prince
66 London Calling
67 A Soulful Song
68 Paradise Lost?
69 Brandopolises
70 Red, red wine
71 Finding Nemo
72 Rogue Dealer
73 Juicy Carrots
74 Bad Air Days
75 Golden Week
76 Master Class
77 Noodle Wars
78 Yes We Can!
79 Mr Blue Sky
80 Keep Riding
81 Wise Words
82 Hair Today
83 Easy Rider
84 Aftershock
85 Bread vans
86 Pick a card
87 The 60th
88 Ox Tales
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2001 to 2007
BIRDING in CHINA
PORTS of CALL
FROM BEYOND THE WALL
ABOUT

Friday, 19th March, 10.30am to 3.30pm

The weather continues to misbehave. The end of last week was relatively mild but then, just as people began to talk about the winter being over at last, three inches of snow arrived on Sunday. This had mostly gone by Wednesday, with the wind turning to the south for the first time in ages. The forecast is for yet another cold front to arrive tomorrow, with strong winds, so I thought I would check out the largest expanses of open water in central Beijing before the weather changes for the worse.

Yuanmingyuan, the "old" Summer Palace was relatively birdless, with just a Great Crested Grebe, 2 Little Egrets, and 2 Goosander on and around the main lake. But, just as I was leaving, I was delighted to find a passage migrant that is quite scarce in central Beijing: a Long-billed Plover.

I made the short trip over to the "new" Summer Palace (Yiheyuan), where the main "Kunming" Lake was teeming with bird life. I was amazed to see a large flock of Bewick's Swan feeding in the shallows, very close to where thousands of people were walking past. Numerous lenses, from pinhole camera phones to the largest telephotos were pointed at the swans, who seemed to be totally unconcerned by their star status.

"Swan Lake" held no fewer than 133 Bewick's, 10 Whooper and, by far the rarest of the three species present, a party of four adult Mute Swan - a very scarce bird in Beijing.

The supporting cast comprised 10 species of duck, including presumably the same male Red-crested Pochard that I had found last week.

8 species photographed, 7 of which (numbered) are "new" for 2010

199 Great Crested Grebe (nom. ssp cristatus), 2
200 Long-billed Plover (monotypic), 1
201 Large-billed Crow (ssp mandschuricus?), few
202 Bewick's Swan (ssp bewicki), 133
203 "Oriental" Magpie (sp/ssp sericea), many
204 Mute Swan (monotypic), 4
205 Taiga Bean Goose (ssp middendorffii), 7
Whooper Swan, 10


Other birds seen but not photographed:

Shelduck, 5
Ruddy Shelduck, 3
Falcated Duck, 2
Mallard, c50
Eastern Spot-billed Duck, few
Pintail, c15
Eurasian Teal, c20
Red-crested Pochard, male
Tufted Duck, few
Goosander, c30
Heron, 1
Little Egret, 2
Buzzard sp, 1
Coot, 1
Black-headed Gull, sev
Gull sp, 2
Grey-capped Pygmy Woodpecker, 1
Great Spotted Woodpecker, 2 Grey-headed Woodpecker, 1
Oriental Crow, sev
Daurian Jackdaw, 2
Eurasian Skylark, 1
White-cheeked Starling, few
Brambling, c50

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