Cape Nanhui is the coastal area at the southeastern tip of Shanghai. Despite manic development, the site in Pudong, 85 km (53 mi.) from People’s Square, remains the premier birding spot in Shanghai and one of the best-known birding areas in China. The microforests, a series of small woods, at Cape Nanhui are astonishingly effective traps for migrants such as Japanese Paradise Flycatcher and Siberian Blue Robin. The wetlands offer East Asian rarities Black-faced Spoonbill and Asian Dowitcher.
Featured image: The nubby promontory between the mouth of the Yangtze River and Hangzhou Bay is what local birders call Cape Nanhui. The site in Pudong, 85 km (53 mi.) from People’s Square, is the richest birding site in Shanghai and among the best birdwatching areas in China. (NASA/Craig Brelsford)
On Tuesday I arrived at Cape Nanhui too late to see Crow-billed Drongo. My partners Kai Pflug and Elaine Du and I made the fateful decision to cover Hengsha Island in the morning. The alluvial island at the mouth of the Yangtze was decidedly humdrum, with Far Eastern Curlew out on the mud along with 2 Sanderling and a Ruddy Turnstone. The huge new tree plantation on the island failed to deliver any forest birds beyond a single Asian Brown Flycatcher. There was a good count (17) of Richard’s Pipit.
We arrived at Cape Nanhui and found kaca, who mentioned an unusual drongo he had seen that morning. We kept our eyes peeled for dark drongos, finding none. Our Nanhui harvest was limited to expected October birds such as Grey-backed Thrush (6) and Eyebrowed Thrush (2). Asian Brown Flycatcher (26) seemed to be on every tree.
All of Shanghai’s Big 5 Leaf Warblers were present: Pallas’s Leaf Warbler (1), Yellow-browed Warbler (1), Arctic-type Warbler (2), Pale-legged/Sakhalin Leaf Warbler (7), and Eastern Crowned Warbler (2).
We had 3 Japanese Paradise Flycatcher, Elaine’s and my season’s first Daurian Redstart, Asian Stubtail, and Rufous-tailed Robin.
PHOTOS
On Tuesday, while kaca was discovering Crow-billed Drongo at Cape Nanhui, I was getting this photo on Hengsha, the alluvial island at the mouth of the Yangtze River. From the island we could see the Yangtze in front of us and the Pudong skyline at a distance of 38 km (24 mi.). (Craig Brelsford)Pallas’s Leaf Warbler preening after completing another leg of its long migratory flight. Magic Parking Lot (30.884992, 121.968317), Cape Nanhui, 11 Oct. (Craig Brelsford)Japanese Paradise Flycatcher, Magic GPS Point (30.880563, 121.964551), Cape Nanhui, Tuesday. This is a female showing a clear demarcation between dark breast and white belly, faint rufous flanks, a dark mantle, and sooty primary coverts. For more on identifying paradise flycatchers in Shanghai, see our recent post, ID Workshop: Paradise Flycatchers. (Craig Brelsford)
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