After lunch at the Three Treasures Bird Pond, we began to move to another bird pond, planning to shoot eight-colored plovers and buzzards, eight-colored plovers have rarely heard of them before, nor have they ever seen, but they have often heard about them from their childhood, and occasionally seen them, especially when they were young, every summer to the season of harvesting rice, there will often be eggs from the rice fields that have not yet hatched, and the size of quail eggs, adults will not only give children to play, sometimes collect more, but also eat as eggs.
The bird ponds of the buzzard and the eight-colored plover are located in the valley on the lower side of the road, winding down a small road from the side of the road, about 300 meters or so, the distance is not too long, but the individual sections are relatively steep, fortunately the road is not very slippery. Xiao Chen's service is very thoughtful, and he does his best to help us carry backpacks and reduce a lot of burdens for friends. At the bottom of the hillside, a flat land appeared, on which grew many fine bamboo forests. In the middle of the bamboo forest, a vacant lot was split, and on one side of the open space was still a bird shed made of black plastic nets, and the front of the bird shed was for pedestrians, in front of which was the set of the bird pond, or a few dead tree stumps, and at the same time there was a large stone covered with green moss, which looked particularly gorgeous.
When I first arrived at this bird pond, I felt too simple, and I directly suspected that there were birds coming back? Boss Xiao Chen seemed to see our thoughts, and quickly explained that the sub-adult birds of the eight-colored owls and the buzzards were available at any time, and the adult birds had to depend on the situation, and yesterday's people all photographed the adult birds of the eight-colored birds and the buzzards, and the birds will definitely come.
We went to the bird pond to find a place to sit, at this time there were already two groups of people from Jiangxi and Hunan in the bird pond ready to leave, one of them also brought two seven- or eight-year-old children to shoot. For children, I think it is a big test, to maintain a long period of quiet and waiting, it is difficult for these two children to accompany their father or grandfather to shoot birds.
Less than a few minutes after we sat down, the camera next to us began to "click", a sub-adult bird of eight-colored plover began to appear in the dead tree, and finally saw the honor of the eight-colored bird, but unfortunately it was only a sub-adult bird, the coat color was not as beautiful as the adult bird, the yellow-white abdomen was dotted with a little red wing, the feathers were generally blue-black, occasionally mixed with a little white, the head feathers were tan and the eyes were black, and the brightly colored adult birds were nearly seven or eight points similar. For some reason, the eight-colored owls here like to stand in a certain place for a long time in a daze, sometimes for five or six minutes without moving, and we all start to call it "dumb bird".
Eight-colored Plover (Yacheng)
Diphtheria spotted buzzard (Yacheng)
The sub-adult birds of the white-throated spotted buzzard also often come out of the bird pond to peck, and they are very bold, quite a bit of a newborn calf who is not afraid of tigers. The female of the buzzard is gray, her eyes are shining, and she does not see the pond at all, running around, very free, and becoming the home of the buzzard.
In this pond to shoot for about 2 hours, the time has been more than 4 p.m., come and go or eight colored birds and chickens of sub-adult birds, except for the occasional few chameleons out to join the fun, no other birds appear, and Baoshan Hundred Flowers Ridge, cold but also what birds have emerged, there is a world of difference, I took a while, I heard that the white stork's pond is not far from here, I took a camera and tripod to the white bird pond to see.
The white bird pond is about 150 meters away from the pond, located on the bank of the small stream in the valley, the stream becomes gentle and open here, the widest point is about eight or nine meters wide, the length is seventy or eighty meters, the water quality is very clear and transparent, especially rare is that there is a flat stone in the middle, and there are several large stones in the middle of the river, which is a rare beautiful place hidden in the valley. The bird pond for the white orioles is arranged on a small river beach, and the ground is full of pebbles. I had already taken the seat with a few bird friends from Jiangxi and Hunan, and I asked them if they had photographed the birds, and they said that they had come once around 7:00 a.m., but the male birds appeared for a short time, but the light was too dark to shoot well, and then they didn't come.
After taking a seat in the bird pond, the first thing that appeared was a gray-backed swallowtail, happily holding a large insect that had just been caught, ready to enjoy it slowly, perhaps because there were few other animals and predators to disturb except for the occasional bird shooter, this swallowtail grew round and rolling, a bit "oil belly" like. Half an hour passed, and still only this swallowtail wandered on both sides of the stream. "Did you photograph the squirrels?", the bird friend on the side asked me with concern, and pointed out to me the direction of the pine tree, a squirrel with golden cheeks and thighs has quietly appeared on the platform, holding the corn kernels scattered on the platform and began to eat intently, and the long tail was soaked in the clear stream.
Grey-backed swallowtail
squirrel
In the interval between shooting, we talked about the best problem of shooting birds there, I recommended them one by one in several locations I have recently visited, first recommended Baoshan Baihualing, and emphasized that it is a "holy place" for bird shooting, and those who have not been here to shoot birds can be said not to be "senior bird friends", and recommended the contact information of lao Hou's family to them. They introduced me to Dongzhai in Henan, Birds of Prey in Heilongjiang, and water birds in Dongting Lake.
Squirrels came out several times, has been eating corn on the stone platform, about 4:00 p.m., is concentrating on eating corn kernels of squirrels suddenly and quickly left, a beautiful male white bird appeared on the side of the platform stone, and then lightly jumped to the platform, began to peck at the corn kernels on the platform, the tail immersed in the stream, forming a symmetrical reflection. This is my third time shooting white orioles, the previous two times were taken in Zhaoqing Dinghu Mountain, compared with Dinghu Mountain, the white storks here are more vigilant, the coat color is brighter, and the body size is larger. After a few minutes, a male oriole and a female oriole came and landed on a rock in the middle of the river. The bird friends next to me began a "click" of the slamming, some have come several times, this time squatting for a day, is to shoot a good flying version. My camera lens is shorter and I can only take some dull photos.
The female white stork here is also relatively large, and the male white bird stands on the stone at the same time, the orange feet are bare and the soles of the feet appear very thick and powerful, just imagine if it is grabbed by its claws, it is estimated that it will cause a lot of damage, no wonder the squirrels see the appearance of the white stork, quickly retreat. The white oriole appeared for about 10 minutes or so, which made everyone very happy. After the white stork left, everyone put away the equipment and prepared to evacuate, only one bird friend from Jiangxi, about 40 years old, felt that this time he still did not shoot well, he came for the second time, and wanted to wait for the appearance of the last wave of white storks in the afternoon, continue to insist on preparing to wait, others have withdrawn from the shooting point.
White Oriole (Reflection)
White Stork (each gets its place)
I also withdrew from the white bird shooting site and returned to the chicken pond to continue shooting, it was almost 6 o'clock in the afternoon, the light began to weaken, and my friend was fully devoted to the bird shooting, and insisted on shooting in the chicken pond. At this time, the only people who insisted on shooting in the shed were him and a bird friend who had just transferred from the white bird pond. I asked my friend if he had photographed adult birds of eight-colored owls and buzzards, and he said that adult birds of buzzards had come, but eight-colored birds had not come. After I waited for a while, an adult white-throated spotted buzzard with a brownish yellow head and chest and a black and white striped abdomen, probed the brain carefully out of the bamboo forest, crept to the stone in the middle of the bird pond, and it was obvious that the adult bird was much calmer and had no bold and fearless momentum.
White Oriole (Harmony)
About 6:30 p.m., the light in the bird pond has been very dark, I used the maximum aperture of 5.6, the shutter 100th of a second, the automatic ISO value is also more than 10,000, only the bird friends from Hengyang, Hunan and his driver are still shooting in the white bird pond. Just as we were about to pack up our equipment and leave, suddenly came a white-throated bird, the third bird I photographed in this bird pond. After photographing the bird, we packed up our gear and started turning back.
Xiao Chen's service was in place, and his wife came and went up the hill with him to carry the guests back. Take Boss Xiao Chen's mini-car back to the concentrator. The concentrator is located on a platform at the junction of the two mountains, relatively open, and when we arrive, many returning blue-throated bee tigers are resting on a 10 kV high-voltage line on the side of the road, and their nests, according to Xiao Chen, are located under the sand and gravel pile on the side of the fork in the road.
Diphtheria
Blue-throated bee tiger
According to friends, at present, the best place to shoot blue-throated bee tigers in Guangdong is in the area of Tianchengtai Resort in Wushi Town, Leizhou, Zhanjiang, and some time ago, friends asked me to go with me, but due to the conflict on the itinerary, I did not go to Cheng. According to friends, there are a lot of hummingbirds there, they all make nests on the sand dunes, and once they are stable, some can insert branches on the nest for them to rest, and they can take good photos.
Querying the "Leizhou Shooting HummingBird" on the Internet, thousands of pieces of data immediately came out, and bird friends uploaded many exquisite "blockbusters" to photograph this high-value, so-called "love bird" hummingbird. There are also a lot of hummingbirds here, but due to limited time, and the bird pond where Xiao Chen boss photographed humming tigers is still under construction, it is still impossible to shoot at close range, and can only photograph humming tigers that stop on the power lines along the road. This kind of "sky version" and "wire version" of the bird, friends say that many senior bird friends do not shoot. I have observed this bird a few times before in Nanxiong bird watching, and I have encountered this bird in ChebaLing, but this is the first time I have photographed it with a camera.
The friend was very interested, took out the bird shooting tent, went to the upper part of the dune that Xiao Chen said, drilled inside to see if the hummingbird could stop on the branches of the upper part of the dune, unfortunately, after nearly half an hour of waiting, there was no trace of the humming tiger, so he had to withdraw the tent and return to the road to shoot the hummingbird on the wire.
The abandoned concentrator is a good field shoot site, and when I arrived in the early morning, I found that there were many pheasants walking back and forth on the platform of the abandoned outlet of the concentrator. From time to time, various birds flew over this pass, and here one road became three roads, one of which led to the bird pond where we photographed the Three Treasure Birds, the White Bird and the Buzzard this morning.
Spotted Bird (Climbing)
Spotted Bird (Horsetail)
The swaying of the grass on the side of the road caught our attention, and it turned out that the large-billed striped bird was pecking at grass seeds, and this bird had a particularly large beak, which was similar to the large mouth of the burgundy suzaku. It was getting darker and darker, and the spotted birds were gone. Hunan Bird Friend came out of the white bird pond with his driver in a jeep, and we asked him if he had photographed the white bird, shook his head and said that he had not appeared until he left, only to give up. He asked about our bee tiger shooting today and said that he was going to shoot here tomorrow. It was getting darker and we became the last wave of bird friends to descend the mountain.
Dinner is still in the Xiao Chen boss's home to run the Nanling people's farm dining, I recommended to friends here the special garlic clay pork, in fact, is the local soil pig's three-line meat, that is, part of the pork belly, cooked with water, cut into thumb-sized width of the meat slices, plated with some cucumber strips underneath, when eating dipped in garlic paste and soy sauce to eat together, is an original way to eat, as long as you do not consider weight loss, it is worth a big meal. I remember when I was a child, every holiday I returned to my hometown from the county to study. On the "big guest" of my hometown (that is, under the eaves of the former rural house in Yunnan, where the host received guests and children played), there was a table on the side, and when I was writing my homework on the desk, I could see the people in the field in front of me, and there was a path from the road by the River to our hometown. At that time, just in the early eighties, the material was not very rich, during the holiday, my greatest hope was to see my father return from the county with a piece of three-lined meat in his hand, wash it when he returned home, cook it in white water, add vegetables to the broth, cut the meat into small pieces after fishing out, and then eat it in soy sauce, which tasted very beautiful.
Now with age, many delicious foods do not dare to eat more, only dare to taste a little. The main purpose of bird watching colleagues is to shoot birds, the age is generally older, most of them do not care much about eating and accommodation, basically abide by an unspoken rule, take care of the business of the bird guide, eat and live in the place where the bird guide introduces. Bird guide also knows that "bird shooting" is a new industry that relies on word-of-mouth publicity and marketing, the price is fair, and the service is generally very good. The service of Xiao Chen's owner also made us unable to fault anything.