China July - August 2010, Yangshuo

The town of Yangshuo is located in between thousands of limestone pinnacles forming one of the most famous touristic attractions of Southern China. The limestone karst is truly a sight to behold and so we enjoyed ourselves for a couple of days here. We had based ourselves just outside Yangshuo and visited several touristic attractions within the area simply by bicycle, which can be rented at several places. Yangshuo itself is easily accessible from Guilin and finding accommodation in Yangshuo should pose no problem at all.

While visiting the touristic attractions like the Moon Hill and the Dragon Bridge I kept looking at some birds. Birds observed in the Yangshuo area included Oriental Hobby, Black-winged Kite, Blue Rock Thrush, Plain Prinia, Golden-headed Cisticola, Mountain Bulbul, Light-vented Bulbul, Japanese White-eye and Russet Sparrow.

Juvenile Black-winged Kite (Elanus caeruleus)

Blue Rock Thrush (Monticola solitarius)

Mountain Bulbul (Ixos mcclellandii)

Male Russet Sparrow (Passer rutilans)

One day was spent hiking through the karst formations from Yangdi to Xingping. Both of these villages are located at the Li river and are easily accessible by bus from Yangshuo. The entire hike is rouhgly 24 km, but we lost our way and after 12 km we took a boat back to Xingping. Up to the point where we got lost, the way was actually pretty straight forward, so I guess we got mixed up somewhere and took a wrong turn. We enjoyed this hike a lot and the boat ride was equally entertaining and scenic. Birds observed in this area included Chinese Goshawk, Collared Crow, Long-tailed Shrike, Japanese White-eye, Amur Wagtail and White-rumped Munia.

Male Amur Wagtail (Motacilla (alba) leucopsis)

The karst formation around Yangshuo are amazing and will be enjoyed by anyone, birder and non-birder. I guess with better preparations and more time spent looking, more and better species would have been found, but in the end it was more of a cultural trip and not a birding trip. This post and other posts concerning my 2010 China trip can be downloaded as PDF here.