We walked a long way at Qilihai, in fairly difficult conditions (wind and cold), but were rewarded with some special sights.

The highlight from my point of view was watching a Peregrine hammer in to a flock of a few thousand Black-headed Gulls. One of which was literally knocked out of the air - in to the water, from where it was unable to get airborne. We watched the Peregrine try several times to pluck it from the water, but gravity and the odds were against it. Reluctantly it gave up and went after a flock of about 400 Avovets instead - again, not successfully as far as I saw.

There were far more waders there on Wednesday than on Tuesday. As well as the large influx of Avocets, there were also more than a hundred Eastern Black-tailed Godwits, a couple of dozen Grey Plover, several Far Eastern Curlews, c100 Kentish Plovers, a few dozen Grey Plovers, a few Dunlins, several Oystercatchers, and also several Little Ringed Plovers.

3 Japanese Quails were other well-appreciated early returnees.

Notable absentees (compared with Monday) were the pair of Saunders Gulls and the Great Bustard (Qilihai), and Chinese Grey Shrike and Heuglin's Gull (Da Po He).

Here's the list of the birds I saw on Tuesday in more or less the order I saw them (birds photographed appear in bold, species new for the 2010 photograph year book are numbered)

Great Cormorant, 2 high flocks, about 150 birds
Black-headed Gull, "thousands"
Kamchatka Gull, "hundreds"
Vega/Mongolian Gull, c50
Hoopoe, about a dozen
Eastern Black-tailed Godwit, c100
235 Grey Plover, c 2 doz
Far Eastern Curlews, several
Kentish Plovers, c100
Dunlins, few
Japanese Quail, 3
Oystercatchers, sev
Little Ringed Plovers, sev
236 Peregrine, 1 (photo of it hovering over the stricken black-headed gull)
237 Avocet, c400 (photo of most of the flock in flight, with the Peregrine approaching)
Pallas's Reed Bunting, c50
Elegant Bunting, sev
Eurasian Skylark, c20
Great Spotted Woodpecker, 2
Eastern Great tit, sev
Hen Harrier, 1
Sanderling, 1
Buzzard sp., 1
238 Lapwing, 14
Spot-billed Duck, c30
Common Teal, c20
239 Common Shelduck, c25
240 Pheasant, c20
241 Red-breasted Merganser, 3
Chinese Bulbul, few