China 4: Balangshān day 1

Friday 13th May 2016

Having spent our first full day on the slopes of Wolong, and what a first day it was, we plan to spend the next three days on a much bigger mountain, Balangshān. In Chinese shān means mountain and with beautiful simplicity this is conveyed in the Chinese symbol  山.  This will be the highest place I have ever been on earth, some 4500m high, nearly 15,000 feet high in old money:

At 4000m there is 50% less oxygen than at sea level and even though we have been sleeping at 2000m we expect the oxygen deficiency to provide some sort of challenge at some point. Roland briefs us on altitude sickness, we note the most common symptoms: headache, fatigue and surprisingly, complete indifference, a feeling of nothing mattering. Our target species are rare pheasants. These birds do matter to us and are best seen, and heard, in the first few hours of daylight. As we are based at Wolong, we have to undertake a 50 minute drive to arrive on site before first light. As only one morning in three has clear weather, we also have to allow three mornings in order to see the target species. This means a 4:00 am start for the next three mornings. Not necessarily what I want to hear having only had 5 hours sleep in the last 2 nights. The issue is compounded by jetlag. There is nothing as grim as waking at 2:30am when you have a 4am alarm. I was hoping for more than 4 hours sleep having had barely that since arriving in China two days previously.  Even worse, after 50 minutes of driving uphill before dawn, it is quite clear that visibility is virtually zero on the mountain. We are experiencing the worst possible weather for seeing wildlife: fog. The first few hours on the mountain were tough. It was cold, damp and very foggy. We scan from the old road that runs around the side of the mountain and see a bird walk out onto the scree slope below us. It is a female Chinese Monal! Nice, but it has none of the colour and glamour of the male, our main target, which is a spectacular glossy-blue and gold beast. We get a three second view of the female, then the fog closes in again:

The few birds we could see were silhouettes, including a Blood Pheasant which hopped up onto the retaining wall by the road only a few metres away, but even then we could not make out any plumage details or see the colour of it’s blood-red eye or legs:

Ian, who got rather dehydrated on the climb above Wolong yesterday, was making dedicated efforts to regularly drink lots of water this morning. He approached me as we waited for visibility to improve and said “Roland has just given me some very bad news“. I puzzle as to what this could possibly be. It turns out that, in the dark, he has filled his water bottle from the container that held spare water for the car radiator. This was Chinese tap water that had spent the last year in a large filthy bottle. “How much have you drunk?” I ask, knowing if it was only a a few sips the risk of illness would be less. “A litre” came back the grim reply. There was no positive spin I could add, we both knew that he was on borrowed time. This was a  desperately frustrating situation and not the easiest place to be be ill. I refrained from reminding Ian of the occasion when I had two sips from a water bottle in a hide in the Spanish Pyrennes and then spent four days suffering from acute gastroenteritis. The only solution was to try to rid his stomach of the water he had drunk. I heard him retching over the retaining wall but without success. I calculated that by late afternoon Ian would probably start deteriorating. We really had to make the most of the morning! Fortunately the low cloud begins to break up, giving us glimpses of the mountain:

Scanning from the road before the tunnel produced what I first thought were sheep in the fog, but then reveal themselves to be our first White Eared Pheasants:

We decide to descend to see if visibility is better lower down. This is a good move and soon we are discovering the birds of this high mountain wooded habitat. Roland, imitating a Collared Owlet song, whistles up a storm of birds that come to investigate. Stunning male Long-tailed Minivets:

Grey-crested Tits:

Sichuan Leaf Warblers, a toned-down Pallas’s Warbler type: Buff-barred Warblers:

A couple of Olive-backed Pipits crept about in roadside vegetation:

As the sun tried to break through soaring raptors began to appear. A single Cinereous Vulture…

… and many Himalayan Griffon Vultures. Here is one soaring below us, in the valley:

We gradually began picking up birds through the afternoon, including a nice singing zoothera, the recently recognised Sichuan Forest Thrush:

In the late afternoon we explored a trail that led into forest with a low canopy and little undergrowth. Golden Pheasants called from deep cover. We waited in the vehicle and after a little coaxing, spotted a bright golden movement in the vegetation. Fog was building up again, sometimes closing in completely, sometimes allowing us views into the bushes. There was a break in the fog and out walked a splendid male Golden Pheasant. It was so bright, so ridiculously colourful and magnificent that it simultaneously took our breath away and stretched our credibility that such a creature could possibly be real. A feast of gold and red, with a tail three times its body length, this was the bird of the day and one of the birds of the trip:

Here is some wobbly video of this fabulous male: 

We entered the low, dark canopy wondering what could match the colours of a magnificent Golden Pheasant? Almost immediately there is a burningly bright blue movement and a Himalayan Bluetail flies in to perch for a moment. Wow! 

Good birds continue to come thick and fast – a small group of Blood Pheasants scuttles away across the forest floor, a pair of Streaked Rosefinch perch in the canopy. We turn a corner and there is a male rosefinch feeding on the ground. I grab 4 quick pictures through the branches before he departs, never to be seen again. On inspection of the pictures, we have found ourselves yet another new rosefinch species, a male Blandford’s Rosefinch, a far from expected species:

Roland goes first up a steep part of the path, but immediately comes flying back down with the words “Temminck’s Tragopan!“. A male had been perched just by the path. Ian and I scramble up the track and peer down into a small tree-filled valley. The glowing orange back and bright blue face of a stunning male Temminck’s Tragopan are clearly visible as a pair quickly make their way down into the valley. This time our total viewing time is about 5 seconds of obstructed viewing. Better, but having screwed up a close encounter on day one, we still need decent looks at this iconic bird. On the positive side Ian is still intact in mind and body, following his ingestion of a litre of Chinese radiator water. Will he survive the night though?

Next: Illness and earthquakes.