In all my years of birding in various leech-infested areas of China, I had never had a single one attach itself to me.  That was until yesterday when I had three of the grubs from hell eat their way through my socks to feast on my blood.  And then, despite my best efforts to protect what blood remained, I had two more today back at the feeding trough.  (BTW If you get bitten by a leech don't google "leech infection"... there are 1.5 million listings).

   At least I saw some quality birds to make up for my blood loss.  It's a shame though that the photos I took today don't do justice to what was actually a very enjoyable day's birding.  The problem with Jianfengling is also its advantage - the forest in particularly old and dense, with many generations of trees (some as old as 2,000 years) vying to get their canopies into the sunlight.  Not that there was much of that today anyhow.  Low light and big lenses don't go together - particularly not when, like me, you prefer not to carry a tripod around all day. 

  So not many okay shots, but at least I managed to get photos of both Lesser and Greater Yellownape, which were in the same small flock of birds that comprised several Sultan Tits, 2 Greater Racket-tailed Drongos and probably the same Ratchet-tailed Treepie as yesterday.  Also on the plus side, the Spot-necked Babbler actually sat out for all of two seconds (there are many at Jianfengling, but they usually remain in the middle of very thick bushes).

  The Hainan-endemic Rusty-cheeked Laughingthrush showed itself at last (but only for a few seconds, in a particularly dark section of the forest), while the flock of 20 or so broadbills were in view for about 10 minutes but were infuriatingly difficult to photograph.  Miss of the day was the Dusky Fulvetta, which I had in my viewfinder at three yards distance, but I had neglected to turn the flash on (handheld at 1/2 second just itsn't good enough - even for my website ;-)

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