Tuesday 17th May 2016
Our first full day on the Tibetan plateau and it fully lived up to expectations. We left Hongyuan (3507m) and spent the day birding from the car as we headed north across the gently undulating plains of the plateau, to our accommodation in Zoige:
We began at first light with an unsuccessful search for Eagle Owl in a the local quarries. The smart red local Black Redstarts and Azure-winged Magpies present by the road were the only birds of note:
Having spent nearly a week in mountain forests, it was nice to be out in the open again. We passed a medium sized river which held Barn Swallows and a Sand Martin, plus Little and Cattle Egrets, Brown-headed Gulls and Ferrunginous Ducks:
We continued north, when suddenly a simply enormous eagle swept across the road, right in front of the car. I got a quick through-the-windscreen picture of this immature bird… 
… but by the time the we had stopped and jumped out of the vehicle the bird was well over 1 km away. We puzzled over the identification of this bird, assuming it must be an Eastern Imperial Eagle {1}. Then another, smaller, raptor joined it, a falcon, a Saker. In fact a pair of Sakers, which proceeded to take turns dive-bombing the much larger eagle. Although the action was very distant, at several points the eagle flipped upside down to present it’s talons towards the diving falcons. This was magical stuff, in fabulous scenery to boot:
An upside down Eagle fending off a diving Saker:
Boosted, we continued north, enjoying the scenery of the plateau:
Further road-side birds included Oriental Skylark…
… and Blyth’s Pipit:
But the most surprising sight was on the road itself. Suddenly we noticed a human body lying face down on the road. As we approached I was relieved to see the man get up (demonstrating it was not a corpse), stretch his arms above his head, take three paces forward and then lie face down again:
We realised we were watching a solitary Tibetan pilgrim. There are a number of forms of Buddhist pilgrimage, but we were witnessing the most arduous: prostration pilgrimage.
In gyangchag, full body prostration, one prostrates oneself to help purify human delusion, negativity and bad karma. It shows reverence for the Triple Gem, the three core concepts of Buddhism: the Buddha (the highest state of consciousness achievable); the Dharma (the teachings of the Buddha) and the Sangha (the enlightened community). Each prostration involves the hands and elbows, then the toes and knees and then finally the forehead being placed in contact with the floor. Or in this case in the roadworks. Then one stands, takes three paces forwards and repeats the process. The physical challenge of lying down flat and then standing up every three paces is enormous. The pilgrim, above, has protective clothing over his knees, hands and forehead. Some pilgrims cover thousands of kms in this fashion, their journey, understandably, taking years. This made me reflect that, as we had seen in our first hotel in Dujiangyan, whilst the Chinese were obsessed with the “lucky” number 8 (to the extent that the Beijing Olympics began on 8/8/08 at 8 seconds after 8:08pm) Tibetan culture revolves around the number 3. No wonder they can’t commensurate their differences.
Leaving the pilgrim to continue his repeating pattern of movement, we climbed into a small side valley and saw more raptors. Firstly, Upland Buzzard:
Secondly, a small group of Himalayan Griffon Vultures that had descended to feed on a huge pile of Yak corpses by the side of the road:
We then began searching this area of gently sloping hills for passerines:
Our target was a taxonomic oddity. It’s names over the years reflect the fact that these birds appear somewhere between a Bunting and Rosefinch and have long, pink tails. They have been called Pink-tailed Buntings, but have also been classed as Pink-tailed Rosefinch. Some also call them Long-tailed Rosefinch and/or Bunting. The modern preference is for Przewalski’s Finch. But then some say Przewalski’s Rosefinch. Only one thing is certain. They are one pink, long-tailed bird and we enjoyed seeing them: 
Other breeding birds of the upland slopes of the Tibetan Plateau included Tibetan Partridge…
… Robin Accentor and perhaps the least satisfactory view possible of a Tibetan Snowfinch. This Himalayan Marmot only posed briefly outside of it’s burrow:
We also enjoyed seeing Hume’s Ground Tit. This is a charismatic bird that has had as many names as Przewalski’s Finch. The definitive Oriental Bird Images lists the English synonyms used for this bird: “Hume’s Groundpecker, Hume’s Ground Pecker, Hume’s Ground-pecker, Hume’s Ground Jay, Hume’s Ground-jay, Hume’s Groundjay, Brown Ground Jay, Hume’s Ground Chough, Hume’s Ground-chough, Brown Ground-chough, Tibetan Ground Jay, Tibetan Groundjay, Tibetan Ground-jay, Little Ground Jay, Little Groundjay, Little Ground-jay, Ground-tit, Tibetan Ground Tit, Tibetan Groundpecker”. From these descriptions you could get the idea that this bird is somewhere between a Chough and a Jay. In fact it is small and Ground Tit works much better:
Forgetting that I was at over 3500m altitude, I ran 100m up a 45 degree slope to catch up with this feeding bird. By the time I got there my heart was beating so fast and powerfully that I could feel each deafening heartbeat pounding throughout my whole body, jolting my arms, shaking the camera. I have never before photographed a bird while being so breathless: 
We continued heading north, stopping every so often to scan for birds or at known sites. This monster is a Tibetan Lark, the largest lark on the planet:
And I finally achieved the sort of views of a Tibetan Wagtail that I had previously only dreamed about:
Late afternoon found us north of Zoige in fabulous scenery and wonderful light:
Attentive readers will have noticed how closely cropped the grass is here. Some of this is due to Yaks, though not all of them make it:
This high altitude short grass is perfect for snowfinches. Most common, though unapproachable, were White-rumped Snowfinch:
There were smaller numbers of Rufous-necked Snowfinch, our third snowfinch species of the day:
The occasional pair of Black-necked Crane graced the plateau backdrop:
Apart from Yaks, another herbivore feeds on the grass, Black-lipped Pika. My notebook records “Black-lipped Pika – perhaps a million!”. The entire surface of the grass, right across the plateau, was teeming with these small mammals, popping up from burrows all around us:
Such a vast supply of protein is not going to go unnoticed. There were Saker falcons here too:
The local Upland Buzzards were not adverse to a Pika meal:
We ended the day with dinner at a roadside restaurant. Outside a group of Chinese men approached us, keen to see our phones. We brought them out and they delighted in seeing roman characters in our texts. I was even more impressed to see the Chinese characters on their phones. In English we have a choice of 26 letters from which to text. In Chinese you need to know between 2,000 and 3,000 Chinese characters to read a newspaper, there are over 50,000 characters in total. How do you fit that number onto a keyboard on a smartphone? As we waited outside Roland noticed a Horned Lark fly in to land on the edge of the car park. Even better it walked right up to us:
It eventually strolled right past the end of my camera lens hood and nibbled on a piece of bread a couple of metres from my right shoulder, before calling and flying off across the road. A remarkable close encounter, with one of my favourite birds.
{1} November 2016: Thanks to the wonder of the internet, Pierre, a Netherlands-based birder has put us straight on the identification of this immature eagle. This is a juvenile Pallas’s Fish Eagle, that dark mask is apparently diagnostic. Thank you Mr Pierre, our China list has just got better!
Next: a fabulous day in the forest edges of the Tibetan plateau.