CHINA - Day 12 - Nanhu Lake / South Park Lake

Once again my brother was at work today so he dropped me off at South Lake on his way to work. As I arrived there were hundreds of locals all doing there dancing and work outs which was amazing to watch.

Exercising at South Park Lake

The park itself was quite busy already which had surprised me for 6.30am but the locals like to get the best of the weather before it gets too hot so there were hundreds of people dotted all around the park vying for the shady spots for later in the day. I also came across a couple of lads who were trying to catch the Tree Sparrows in the park with 'their' birds of prey in this case a male Shikra

As I ambled around the park I did manage to find a few god birds and a couple of lifers too.  On the edges of the park there were some fantastic scrubby areas which was where I found my two birds of the day. The first was a Hill Blue Flycatcher which was using one of the flowerbeds as its hunting ground. It performed really well but just would NOT come out from under the canopy which was a shame.

Hill Blue Flycatcher

Further on I found a small flock of birds roving through the bushes. It included about 20 Japanese White-eye, 2 Grey-capped Greenfinch and a stonking male Chestnut Bunting. This was a bird on my hitlist for China but I thought I had probably missed my chance after visiting a lot of suitable habitat.

Chestnut Bunting

Finally as I was about to leave the park and it had begun to quieten down I found a shrike sitting in the top of one of the Bonsai trees. It turned out to be a Long-tailed Shrike which I was pleased to see and have better views of this than the one I saw in Chengdu.

Long-tailed Shrike

A tally of the other birds seen today is below:

Tree Sparrow - 40+
Light-vented Bulbul - 15+
Red-whiskered Bulbul - 40+
Hwarmei - 2
Little Swift - 3
Oriental Magpie Robin - 6
Barn Swallow - 40+
Japanese White-eye - 25+
White Wagtail - 5+
Great Tit - 6
Common Tailorbird - 2
Chinese Blackbird - 2
Long-tailed Shrike - 1
Yellow-bellied Prinia - 2 (LIFER)
Chestnut Bunting - 1 (LIFER)
Grey-capped Greenfinch - 2
Hill Blue Flycatcher - 1 (LIFER)
Black-collared Starling - 1 (Escape)