Trip Report: Hong Kong, Macao, Guangxi and Guizhou (P.R. China), October 1996

[Ed.s note: These locations are also covered in the authors' extensive all-Asia report.]

Location Key:

H = Hong Kong: various locations (not Mai Po)
M = Macao: Coloane Island
Y = Yangshuo: Eastern Guangxi province (Agricultural)
L = Longshen: Northeast Guangxi (Riparian & mountain)
A = Anshun: Central Guizhou, 80 km SW of Guiyang (Urban & agri)

Location Observations:

Hong Kong birding spots are well-known. Only upland sites were visited.

Macao is easily visited from Hong Kong, but one day of attempted birding did not yield any productive sites.

China locations are difficult to reach, except by chosing a general itinerary that includes as many small cities as possible. Rural visits are problematic, owing to the lack of tourist infrastructure, but smallish cities afford easy walks from the city to surrounding rural land, where we found an unexpected population and variety of birds. Rural Chinese are friendly and not at all suspicious of strangers in their rice paddies. The route (by bus) from Yangshuo through Anshun is described in the Lonely Planet guide to China.

Numbers and nomenclature according to Birds of Southeast Asia by King and Woodcock.

 No.  Name                      Location
 ---  ----                      --------
  29  Chinese Pond-Heron        H M
  32  Pacific Reef-Egret        H
  36  Little Egret              H
 101  Black Kite                H
 120  Northern Goshawk          H   Y     
 151  Eurasian Kestrel              Y
 158  Peregrine Falcon                  A
 159  Chinese Francolin             Y
 215  White-breat Waterhen      H 
 243  Spotted Dove              H M
 334  Rock Pigeon                       A
 362  Indian Cuckoo               M
 448  Common Kingfisher             Y L
 457  White-throat Kingfisher     M
 484  Great Barbet              H
 572  Barn Swallow                      A
 598  Scarlet Minivet           H     L
 608  Collared Finchbill            Y L
 616  Red-whisker Bulbul        H      
 618  Light-vented Bulbul       H M Y
 668  Black-bill Magpie         H M
 681  Large-bill Crow           H
 684  Black-throat Tit                L
 688  Yellow-belly Tit                L
 690  Great Tit                 H   Y L
 692  Yellow-cheek Tit          H
 699  Velvet-front Nuthatch     H
 770  Masked Laughingthrush     H
 792  Hwamei                    H
 817  Blue-wing Minla           H          Introduced
 839  Striated Yuhina                 L
 879  Magpie Robin              H M Y   A
 886  Daurian Redstart                L A
 887  Plumbeous Redstart              L
 900  Stonechat                 H
 909  Blue Rock Thrush              Y
 950  Inornate Warbler              Y L A
 975  Common Tailorbird         H   Y
 987  Zitting Cisticola           M
1017  Red-throat Flycatcher         Y
1061  White Wagtail             H   Y L A
1062  Grey Wagtail              H   Y
1063  Yellow Wagtail            H   Y L A
1067  Richard's Pipit           H
1069  Red-throat Pipit                  A
1080  Long-tail Shrike          H M     A 
1091  Black-neck Starling       H
1097  Crested Myna              H M
1112  Fork-tail Sunbird         H
1113  Black-throat Sunbird            L
1137  Japanese White-eye        H M Y
1140  Eurasian Tree Sparrow             A     Introduced
1154  Scaly-breast Munia        H    
116-  Carduelis sp. *                   A      
118-  Emberiza sp. *                Y
----  Sulfur-crested Cockatoo   H             Introduced

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