Subtlety and beauty

On a recent visit to the high Andes of Ecuador, I was absolutely delighted to find a truly extraordinary shorebird of the high elevation bogs and alpine tundra, The Rufous-bellied Seedsnipe (Attagis gayi). The seedsnipe are a small family (Thinocoridae) of only four species of rather stocky shorebirds, found only in South America, whose diet is largely vegetarian (seeds and plant material) unlike the majority of shorebirds.

These birds are exquisitely plumaged such that their camouflage is exceptional but when seen well the feather detail is also truly breathtaking. I will try to let the photos speak for themselves. The first photo shows two Rufous-bellied Seedsnipe in their habitat. Can you spot them? If not, take a look at the second photo for help...

If you spotted those birds, congratulations! Now here are two photos with a telephoto lens to show off their exceptional beauty up close and personal. 

I hope you enjoy looking at these photos as much as I enjoyed finding these magnificent birds!

China – la vie en rose

I had the bright idea to try a photo essay about rosefinches in China although it turns out I don’t have so many great shots, so I cheated by adding other splashes or pink and red. Nearly all of the world’s 27 or so rosefinches fall in the genus Carpodacus, but there are two monotypic genera: Uragus and Kozlowia. If the number 27 sounds high to you that’s because there has been a lot of splitting among the rosefinches recently. About 85% of the rosefinches occur in Asia and the distribution centers are the high altitudes of the Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau. From their lofty birth place the rosefinches have spread across the temperate Palearctic Realm, even conquering other high mountains like the Caucasus, and even reaching North America, presumably via Berringia, where there are now three extant species: House Finch, Purple Finch and Cassin’s Finch. Though these three Nearctic species have many congenitors in Eurasia, they never got the common name “rosefinch” and so North American are not always aware of their affinities. As the name implies, the majority of rosefinches are clad in beautiful pink hues (well, at least the males are, the females being cryptically patterned in browns) but some, especially in more moist areas have donned darker hues closer to burgundy and red.

We start with the Chinese White-browed Rosefinch, first a male then a female. This species was split off from the Tibetan White-browed Rosefinch recently. This species is fairly typically patterned among Carpodacus rosefinches with bright pink on the face, underparts and rump and the female with brown and white streaking and subtle pink hues.



The similar Chinese Beautiful Rosefinch. This species was split off from the Tibetan Beautiful Rosefinch recently (can you see a pattern?). Though I saw this stunning bird often I never managed to get a photo that would come close to doing them justice.


The Vinaceous Rosefinch is also in the genus Carpodacus but their stunningly deep colour makes them quite unique and hence easier to identify than many of the other rosefinches in their area.

The Red-fronted Rosefinch is somewhat different in colour than other Carpodacus species and lives high on the rocky slopes – this photo taken above 4500m. In the second shot you can see the bright red rump that shows in flight.

I’m afraid my other rosefinch shots don’t really make the cut but we’ll stick with the rosy theme with this beautiful Rosy Pipit in breeding plumage high up in the Sichuan mountains.

The White-browed Tit-warbler is one of two members of the peculiar Leptopoecile genus of the Aegithalidae family (Long-tailed Tits). These beautiful little birds are denizens of the scrubby high elevations of the Tibetan and Chinese mountains.

Ok, so the next species is much more red than pink but I couldn’t resist showing off the magnificent Mrs Gould’s Sunbird. The only unfortunate thing is this bird’s name — betrays one of those nasty old ornithological traditions of supposedly naming a beautiful bird in honour of a lady, except by using her married name the honour really falls on the man himself (very convenient). There are quite a few “Mrs so-&-so’s such-&-such” in Asia. As for the bird themselves, wow, what a magnificent creature!

Asia is blessed with some truly woodpeckers too. These Darjeeling Woodpeckers show of their red highlights...

and the Rufous-bellied Woodpecker is not to be outdone for colour.

Transition to orange, a Grey-headed Bullfinch hops around on the ground near my feet as I stood very still outside the Wuyipeng Research Centre. I snapped this image as he looked up at me.

Last but not least, a beautiful Rufous-breasted Accentor — one of several stunning accentors in the high elevations in the Chinese mountains.

More photos from China at: http://artusophotos.com/

China - thrushes, robins, redstarts

Two closely related families that are well represented in China are the Turdidae (thrushes and allies) and Muscicapidae (Old World Flycatchers and allies). Sibley and Monroe placed them all in the same family whereas others separate out the Saxicolidae as a family of their own containing groups such as “robins”, “redstarts”, and some species called “chats” (although not all birds called chats). North Americans may find that commentary surprising or confusing since the same names are used for very different families, e.g. American Robin is a thrush not a robin, American Redstart is a wood-warbler not a redstart, and Yellow-breasted Chat is also a wood-warbler and not a chat. Some recognition of this in nomenclature has been the recent changing of the common name of other New World thrushes, e.g. Clay-colored Robin to Clay-colored Thrush.

Some of my personal highlights from this group included killer looks at the beautiful Kessler’s Thrush (a.k.a White-backed Thrush)… first female then male. A truly magnificent high elevation thrush – these photos were taken up on the Tibetan plateau above 4000m asl.



Among the “robin” group there were many highlights of my trip to Yunnan and Sichuan including this White-tailed Rubythroat. This shot shows a male in flight. Similar to the Siberian Rubythroat both rubythroats are true gems – secretive, elusive and stunning! Unfortunately his ruby throat doesn’t show so well in this photo.


More common and widespread but equally beautiful is the Orange-flanked Bush Robin. This species goes by many names including Red-flanked Bluetail.

Next the Golden Bush Robin, again first female then male. A true gem I was delighted to get great looks at this species at several sites in Yunnan. These shots show the characteristic long-legged structure of the robins and their typical posture as they hop around on the ground or in shrubs. The photo of the male shows the tail half cocked. Most robins frequently cock their tails (again remember American Robin is not a “robin”).

Next we move to the group called redstarts, so named because many flash red or orange in the tail. Most hop around in fairly open habitats such as high elevation or high latitude rocks and grassy areas or by waterways. Rather than cock their tail like robins, most tend to flash the colour in their tail by flicking them open and then closed. Redstarts comprise several genera. The White-throated Redstart is in the largest genus Phoenicurus (no relation the flamingoes — probably the connection has more to do with pink or reddish colour). This is a truly magnificent redstart and I was delighted to see them so well. The second photo shows the scaled pattern of an immature bird.

High up in the rocky Tibetan plateau shrub community a male Blue-fronted Redstart feeds his young one.

Whilst nearby along a rocky stream hops the beautiful White-capped Water Redstart.

When a female White-bellied Redstart give a little tail flick you can see the she too has some reddish colour at the base of her tail.

You might not know about the male’s colourful tail at first

Until you see the feathers fan out as in this flight shot. In this shot you can also see the berries he was feeding on.

The Grandala is an aberrant thrush or robin (some disagreement as to which) of high altitudes. The stunningly deep blue of the male will take your breath away as they fly across the slopes. The female and juvenile on the other hand are superbly camouflaged with the rocks of their high elevation home.

The forktails are one of those uniquely Asian groups of robin-like birds. Patterned mostly in black, grey and white with long, usually forked tails, they are characteristic streamside birds throughout much of southern Asia. The Little Forktail doesn’t have the deeply forked tail of other forktails but their pattern and behaviour easily reveal their identity.

More photos from China at: http://artusophotos.com/

China - meeting a red panda

This will be a rather short post but it was a very special encounter for me… one of my all time favourite wildlife encounters. I was at Wawushan in southern Sichuan Province and the road had washed out making travel to and from the mountain difficult. It was raining hard but I had the place almost to myself. I spent a day and a night at the top plateau but more time lower down. In the evening I spotted a large lump in a fruiting tree from a distance. Imagine my elation when I realized that I was looking at the rare and elusive red panda!! I was astounded! People had told me they had spent decades in the Himalayas without ever crossing paths with this species. The panda was feeding on the fruit and seemed blissfully unaware of anything else. You can see how they stick out their tongue to feed. Clearly, although they are generally considered a specialized bamboo feeder, they also consume other items such as fruit.


These small “pandas” are truly stunning – note the strong demarcation between the red body and the black legs, and then of course that beautiful face pattern. I felt so privileged to be watching such a magnificent and secretive animal. Formerly thought to be a smaller cousin of the giant panda, most taxonomist now consider the red panda to be unrelated to the bigger black and white bear they share a name with, but instead they are usually placed in their own family and considered to be related to the mustelids (weasels and allies).


Because the panda was feeding so intently I was able to approach slowly and I eventually got quite close, taking a bunch of photos like this one. In fact, I was so close I couldn't get the whole animal in the frame. You can see the wet fur in this photo (in rained constantly when I was in Sichuan). As it got too dark to take photos I eventually turned around and left the red panda still feeding in the fruiting tree… hard to imagine that I would ever walk away from a red panda but I did!


There weren’t too many other mammals that I saw in China - there is a lot of hunting and illegal trapping and considerable disturbance to many natural areas due to the immense population pressure of 1+ billion people. Nonetheless, there is wildlife to be seen and these Bharal, also known as blue sheep, walking along a very steep cliff face with uncannily confident footwork at Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan were another highlight.

The Himalayan marmot was one of the neat animals I got to see high up in the alpine zone, making their home among the rocks.

More of my photos of mammals are viewable at: http://artusophotos.com/Mammals/index.htm

China - ground up

My last trip to China was a few years ago but I thought it might be worth covering a few highlights even belatedly. I grouped these entries very roughly by taxonomic groups and sometimes by habitat/ecoregion. I thought a nice starting point would be to work from the ground up…

One group that will be high on any birders wish list when they visit China are the pheasants. The elaborately plumaged pheasants are truly a sight to behold but of course many are secretive and difficult to see. Southern China and the Himalayan region are the epicenter of the pheasant radiation – the place where pheasants started down the evolutionary road to today’s remarkable diversity and colour. So, if you want to see pheasants, China is a great place to be. In fact, I saw 15 species in a short trip to Yunnan and Sichuan. I didn’t manage good photos of them all (most like Golden Pheasants, Lady Amherst Pheasant’s, Chinese Monal, Koklass Pheasant, Blood Pheasant, White-eared Pheasant and others offered either too brief views or were too far away to photograph) but here is a smattering of the family. We start with the sensational Temminck’s Tragopan. This male was feeding on a type of white fungus on the trail in the rain and was so intent on his meal that I was able to sneak up on him. I think the raindrops accentuated his rich colour.


And here is a female. In this group, it is most commonly the males who have become gaudy whilst the females have remained very cryptic and well camouflaged. Sometimes it can be very difficult to identify one female pheasant from another.


Next, the big and beautiful Chestnut-throated Partridge. This species is endemic to the forested slopes of the Tibetan Plateau and neighbouring areas and one of only two species in the unique Asian genus Tetraophasis, sometimes referred to as “Monal-Partridges”.

The Chinese Grouse is closely related to Hazel Grouse and endemic to the central Chinese mountains. This is a female (male has black throat).

Since I don’t have good photos of other pheasants, I’ll include of other photos of birds that spend a lot of their time on the ground. Let’s start with one of the highlights of my trip up to the Tibetan Plateau – the Black-necked Crane. Before this trip, this was the only northern hemisphere species of crane I had not seen so I was very keen to get out in the high altitude grasslands to look for them. Scanning the grasslands and wetlands between tents and yaks I soon spotted a family – can you see the three cranes in this photo?

Moving closer, here is an adult feeding


And a youngster (already quite big) with parent.

Also up here breeding were Ruddy Shelducks.

And I found a few shorebirds too such as this Wood Sandpiper.

Also on the ground were several lark species, the most common of which was the Oriental Skylark. This is a juvenile.

And a lark that will be familiar to a lot of northern hemisphere folks – the Horned Lark (Shore Lark) also breeds up in these grasslands.


And why not leave the ground and take off – flying gracefully above the grasslands, the beautiful Black Kite or Black-eared Kite (depending on whether you split the species into 2 or not). These two images give you a further sense of the habitat up on the Tibetan Plateau.

You can view more images from China at: http://artusophotos.com/