Western Sichuan - June 2026 : Part 2

Day 5 - Ruoergai (若爾蓋) to Baxi Forest (巴西林場)

We headed back to the same location as we left off the previous day, hoping to find the Przevalksi's Pinktail there. Oriental Skylarks were everywhere. First good bird for me was a White-browed Tit, an uncommon species that inhabits subalpine shrublands. It gave fairly good views before flying off with some food in its beak, presumably heading back to its nest.

Oriental Skylark

White-browed Tit

There were plenty of Twites around us, many Rufous-necked Snowfinches were also present, these were not shy at all and allowed quite close views. Ground Tits were also commonly seen around here.

Twite

Rufous-necked Snowfinch

Ground Tit

As we were walking up the slope, a pinkish red bird flew in and landed right in front of me, none other than the very bird we were looking for, a Przevalski's Pinktail! It gave incredible views for everyone, singing on exposed perches. This species may look like a cross between a finch and a bunting, but taxonomically it is neither, belonging to its own family Urocynchramidae. This ornithological oddity is endemic to China, where most records comes from Qinghai, with more recent records coming from Sichuan as a population was discovered here only a year ago.

Prime Przevalski's Pinktail habitat

Przevalski's Pinktail - star of the show!

Back along the road we saw more Horned Larks, as well as many Plateau Pika having little fights with each other, which was most entertaining to watch.

Horned Lark

Plateau Pika

We spotted a pair of Black-necked Cranes by the road, they were not at all bothered by us, likely having seen enough cow herders to be accustomed to having people around them.

Black-necked Crane

Jon took us to the 'Snowfinch Platform', a little touristy viewpoint just next to the main road, there we added many White-rumped Snowfinches, including a few recently fledged birds.

White-rumped Snowfinch

White-rumped Snowfinch - juvenile

Our next stop was an unnamed road that Jon found on his last visit, it is basically a valley along this mud track with various thickets and shrubs. It didn't take us very long to find our main target there, the White-browed Tit-Warbler! This colourful little bird looks like something completely made up, with various shades of purple, pink and blue, this is no doubt one of the most delightful bird I have ever seen. Both male and female showed fairly well.

White-browed Tit-Warbler - female

White-browed Tit-Warbler - male

A few good looking male Godlewski's Buntings gave us very good looks, formerly treated as a race of the Rock Bunting, Godlewski's Bunting is now treated as a full species. A Yellow-streaked Warbler was heard singing nearby, it later showed quite well for us, although it was quite jumpy, making photographing it a challenge, we managed to get some good photos with some perseverance. 

Godlewski's Bunting

Yellow-streaked Warbler

Both Siberian Stonechat (race przewalskii) and Black Redstart (race rufiventris) showed up, the Black Redstart was particularly distinctive looking, with orange underside extending up to the breast and much darker head.

Siberian Stonechat - race przewalskii

Black Redstart - race rufiventris

As we were walking along, I noticed a large dog like animal ran out from behind some cover, it was surely a Grey Wolf! Luckily it did turn around to look at us a few times as it ran up the slope! There were also a lot of Woolly Hares around.

Grey Wolf

Woolly Hare

After lunch, we headed towards Huahu, a famous wetland area in Ruoergai and quite the tourist attraction. As we entered the car park, hundreds of Brown-headed Gulls were already there looking for easy handouts from tourists.

Brown-headed Gull

You needed to hop onto the shuttle bus to head out towards the lake, where you get to walk along the boardwalk. We spotted a Citrine Wagtail in breeding plumage as we got off the shuttle. There were also a lot of Oriental Skylarks everywhere. We looked for the Tibetan Lark that was reported previously but had no luck.

Citrine Wagtail - race calcarata

Oriental Skylark

Views of Huahu

We saw a pair of Greylag Geese with chicks, as well as a few Gadwalls. A pair of Great Crested Grebes also had two chicks, both riding along on its parent's back. There were also some Ruddy Shelducks present.

Boardwalk at Huahu

Greylag Goose with chick

Gadwall - female

Great Crested Grebe

Ruddy Shelduck

Two Pheasant-tailed Jacanas were present, both in brilliant breeding plumage. There were quite a few Red-crested Pochards around, but they were much further away on the lake.

Pheasant-tailed Jacana

Red-crested Pochard

Seeing that we have seen most of the birds of interest, we headed back out to the car park, along the way I found a Twite nest and saw one of the parent quite well.

Twite

We drove along this road near Huahu, hoping to bump into mammals such as Tibetan Fox, but we had no luck with those, I only saw some Blue Sheeps at the far side of the gorge. The only bird of interest we saw were a few Black-rumped Magpies. Late afternoon we drove towards Qiuji Village where we would spend the next two days. We tried some owling along Jiuruo Road, our main target was the Sichuan Wood Owl, but with little success.

Blue Sheep

Black-rumped Magpie

Day 6 - Baxi Forest (巴西林場)

Birding around Baxi Forest and Lamaling Mountain Pass was done along the road call Jiuruo Road, the twisty mountain road goes through big elevation changes, meaning it cuts through a variety of habitats. I finally caught sight of my first Blood Pheasant along the road, although it wasn't the best of view, I was very glad to connect with this species having missed it at Lianghekou a few days prior.

Blood Pheasant - finally!

As we went higher up, Plain Mountain Finches and Streaked Rosefinch made several appearances. A Grey-backed Shrike perched next to the road in the morning drizzle.

Plain Mountain Finch

Streaked Rosefinch

Grey-backed Shrike

Upland Buzzard is a common sight around Ruoergai, but they always seems to favour these pillars by the busy highway, impossible to stop for photos. I was happy to find one perched high up on a tree here, allowing us to finally get a good look at this raptor.

Upland Buzzard

Chinese Leaf Warblers were quite numerous here, we also spotted Dark-sided Flycatcher. A male Himalayan Beautiful Rosefinch made a brief appearance.

Chinese Leaf Warbler

Dark-sided Flycatcher

Himalayan Beautiful Rosefinch - male

We saw our first Blue Eared-Pheasant along the road, having dipped on White Eared-Pheasant around Mengbishan, I am glad we at least had one species of Eared-Pheasant. Nearby we heard the call of Chestnut-throated Monal-Partridges, where we managed much better views than at Mengbishan. 

Blue Eared-Pheasant

Chestnut-throated Monal-Partridge

We headed back towards Qiuji Village, along the way adding Common Cuckoo, White-winged Grosbeak, Chestnut Thrush and Giant Laughingthrush. We even saw Long-tailed Rosefinch but they did not allow us to get any photos.

Common Cuckoo

White-winged Grosbeak - male

Chestnut Thrush

Giant Laughingthrush

A pair of nesting Sichuan Tits provided graet views, I have somehow missed all previous sightings of this species, so I was glad to finally catch up with them.

Sichuan Tit

After lunch we tried several different locations around Baxi Forest, a Golden Eagle was spotted soaring high above. A female White-throated Redstart allowed decent views.

Golden Eagle

White-throated Redstart - female

We tried this track that was supposedly good for Chinese Grouse, despite having no grouse we had amazingly close views of a pair of Blue Eared-Pheasants! They were not at all bothered by us, and strutted along past between us and the cattle as if we were not there.

Blue Eared-Pheasant

Snowy-cheeked Laughingthrush was a nice addition to our growing list, another lovely looking Chinese endemic. Nearby a Pere David's Laughingthrush also made an appearance, it is also sometimes known as the Plain Laughingthrush, with fairly good reason.

Snowy-cheeked Laughingthrush

Pere David's Laughingthrush

After dinner, we went out once again to try our luck on the Sichuan Wood Owl. Since they were not being vocal, our only real chance of finding one was to drive around and scan the trees with our thermal. I held the thermal out the sunroof, my hands were freezing from the cold air rushing past. We got to an area with just a few pine trees standing, and I noticed a rounded shape above one of the tree, sure enough it was a Sichuan Wood Owl perched on the top! A funny incident was that everyone forgot Kenneth was holding the torch and trying to take photos at the same time! Luckily he finally cried out for help, later on we were granted excellent views of the owl perched on varuiys structures along the road, an excellent result given the difficult circumstances. 

The Sichuan Wood Owl was once recognized as a full species, but currently treated as a race of the Ural Owl, although the overall darker appearance is quite different, and the fact that the distribution does not overlap with any other Ural Owl population. We shall see whether they will re-split it in the near future, either way it was an incredible bird to see.

Ural Owl (Sichuan Wood Owl) - race davidi

Day 7 - Baxi Forest (巴西林場) to Chuanzhusi (川主寺)

We wanted to try our luck for the Chinese Grouse again at where we saw the Blue Eared-Pheasants the day before, early morning seems the most logical time to try. We brought out the thermal to scan the forest edge, which worked like a charm, as I soon located a pair of Chinese Grouse using it! We managed a quick glimpse of the bird, although it was way too dark in the forest for any decent photos.

Chinese Grouse

Goldcrest came through while we were scanning for Crested Tit-Warblers, the latter never appeared here. A few Grey-hooded Fulvettas came by briefly. A lovely looking male White-throated Redstart also made an appearance.

Goldcrest

Grey-hooded Fulvetta

White-throated Redstart - male

We moved onto a known location for Spectacled Parrotbill nearby, we tried the previous afternoon where we only managed distant views. This time round, a pair came in right up close to us, providing excellent photo opportunities.

Spectacled Parrotbill

After that we tried several more known spots for the seemingly non-existence Sichuan Jay, where the lack of Jays continued. Along the way we added Vinaceous Rosefinch, Long-tailed Minivets and a lovely male Himalayan Bluetail. We also saw a very cute Swinhoe's Striped Squirrel. We managed a quick glimpse of the Przevalski's Nuthatch

Vinaceous Rosefinch - male

Long-tailed Minivet - male

Himalayan Bluetail - male

Swinhoe's Striped Squirrel

A few extremely confiding Tibetan Serin made an appearance, the males showed especially well, feeding just a few feet away from us. Although Serin is a rather confusing name for this bird, as it is really in the same genus as the Eurasian Siskin, and they behave and look more like Siskins for sure, so they really should have called it the Tibetan Siskin instead.

Tibetan Serin - male

We re-visted the Sichuan Tit nest as Hoiling missed it the day before, the parents were still busy feeding the chicks. Outside the restaurant we spotted a few Oriental Greenfinches.

Sichuan Tit

Oriental Greenfinch - male

The drive to Chuanzhusi was not particularly eventful, we did stop briefly for a low flying Himalayan Griffon, we were hoping for a few feeding on a carcass by the road, but we never had such luck.

Himalayan Griffon

Chuanzhusi was another tourist town, as it is the gateway towards the ever more popular Jiuzhaigou and Huanglong, we walked around town as rain started to come in and didn't really added that many interesting birds, the Red-billed Choughs roosting under the roofs probably were smarter than we were. It started pouring down with rain at dinner time, so we were not at all confident that the weather would be any good in the morning.

Red-billed Chough

Day 8 - Chuanzhusi (川主寺)

This was our last proper day of birding, Chuanzhusi allow one final chance for Sichuan Jay, although the chance here was extremely slim. This site also provide good habitat for Tibetan Snowcock and Crested Tit-Warbler. We were delighted to wake up to dry weather, the drive up the mountain was rather uneventful though we kept our eyes out for Blood Pheasants, we saw none. Plain Mountain Finch and Himalayan Beautiful Rosefinch was about the only birds we stopped to look at.

Plain Mountain Finch

Himalayan Beautiful Rosefinch - female

We stopped at the first main viewpoint, where the Tibetan Snowcock and Tibetan Partridge often hangs out. All of us scanned the rocks and slopes for Snowcocks but had no luck. We kept going forward but saw that some mist was coming in, so we turned back around. As we were walking back to the car, I noticed a large grey bird perched on the ledge, a male Tibetan Snowcock! We had prolonged views of this lovely bird, as it slowly made its way down slope.

Tibetan Snowcock - male

Kenneth kept trying for Grandalas but I suspect they have all moved towards higher elevations to breed during this time of the year, he did find a blue bird, in form of a White-bellied Redstart, while not an easy to bird to see by all means it was not the bird we wanted.

White-bellied Redstart - male

Since the Tibetan Partridges seems to have gone missing (or likely breeding nearby), we got back to the car and decided to drive down towards the forest to look for other small birds. Along the way I spotted yet more Tibetan Snowcocks! This time a pair with one single chick.

Tibetan Snowcock - female

Tibetan Snowcock - male

Tibetan Snowcock - chick

We saw a few birders along the road, so we stopped and asked what they were looking at, one of the lady answered in the calmest of voice, "Crested Tit-Warbler". James immediately swirled the car and parked it by the side of the road, we all jumped out, and were soon looking at a female Crested Tit-Warbler! Unfortunately Ka Chung's car was nowhere behind us, we kept calling them but it took them a while to pickup, by the time they got here the bird was gone.

Crested Tit-Warbler - female

We gave the nearby area a scan, but didn't turn up anything particularly exciting. We had Greenish Warblers, many Buff-barred Warblers, a Maroon-backed Accentor and a small flock of Elliot's Laughingthrushes.

Greenish Warbler

Buff-barred Warbler

Maroon-backed Accentor

Elliot's Laughingthrush

Everyone decided it was probably best to wait around again where we last seen the Crested Tit-Warbler, and indeed it was a good call as a male appeared! For the next hour or so, we kept seeing either a female or male feeding by the road, which had us suspecting there was a nest nearby and they are taking turns incubating the eggs. Either way, we were extremely happy with the views we had, and to seen both Leptopoecile so well in one trip was just exceptional.

Crested Tit-Warbler - male

Around the same area we also had a pair of White-throated Redstarts. A male Slaty-backed Flycatcher came through for us to get a good look. A pair of Grey-crested Tits were also nesting nearby, bringing back food constantly.

White-throated Redstart - male

White-throated Redstart - female

Slaty-backed Flycatcher - male

Grey-crested Tit

We decided to do a bit more driving around before we headed back to town for lunch, a nice looking Common Cuckoo perched very nicely for us to take some good photos, a Common Kestrel was added to our trip list. Best birds were probably a flock of Snow Pigeons, which gave fairly good flight views!

Common Cuckoo

Common Kestrel - male

Snow Pigeon

Before lunch, we decided to try the river next to town for White-throated Dipper one last time, as this was a new bird for Kenneth. We saw a bird flew in and landed right in front of us almost immediately! Turns out a pair was nesting nearby on the water gate. 

White-throated Dipper - race przewalskii

Many Eurasian Craig Martins were present, there was also a Grey-backed Shrike and many White Wagtails. With that, we headed for lunch, afterwards it was a very long drive back into Chengdu. Traffic along G213 was utterly terrible, with two accidents grinding us to a halt. It was already 8pm by the time we arrived at our hotel.

Eurasian Craig Martin

Grey-backed Shrike

White Wagtail - race alboides

Day 9 - Chengdu to Hong Kong

We did plan to go out birding on our final morning at Chengdu, however weather was not to be! As it was pouring with rain all morning, so we decided to relax and headed to a nearby cafe for coffees. After a nice lunch James and Ka Chung drove Jon, Kenneth, Hoiling and I to the airport. Where they will continue on towards Wawushan for a few more days.

A massive thanks to James, Daphne and Ka Chung for taking up driving duties, driving in China is not for the faint of hearts, and the long drives were gruelling. Also thanks to Jon we were able to see all these incredible species within such a short amount of time. And to Kenneth, So Ying and Hoiling for all providing such wonderful company along the way, and making this a memorable trip. We recorded over 230 species in total, despite the fact that June was far from the best time for birding in Sichuan, as many birds were already nesting and not vocal, making locating them a real challenge, so despite all the challenges I thought we did fairly well. I look forward to exploring other parts of Sichuan in the near future.

Full trip list: https://ebird.org/tripreport/537873