Welcome to irdtour Asia’s 2014 festive newsletter, a look Reports/Birdtour Asia Newsletter... · Welcome to irdtour Asia’s 2014 festive newsletter, a look ... provinces visited

Welcome to Birdtour Asia’s 2014 festive newsletter, a look back at another bird-packed year, and a look forward at the many exciting tours to come in the next few years. 2014 has been another tour-filled year with 27 tours covering all of the Oriental Region from Rajasthan and Gujarat in the west of India through to China, northwards to Inner Mongolia, south through Vietnam, the endemic-packed Philippines and the whole of the vast Indonesian archipelago in the south!

Birdtour Asia can proudly boast to offer the finest and most exciting array of bird-tours throughout Asia. As specialists in the region we offer tours which take in all of the key birding areas, from the snow-capped peaks of the Tibetan plateau, through to the lush rain-forests and marshes of mainland Asia, the varied habitats of the Indian subcontinent and

the remote islands of the Philippines and Indonesia.

Our tours are carefully planned to offer maximum birding opportunities with the best chance at all difficult speciality birds and we consistently exceed all expectations. The Birdtour Asia philosophy has always been to offer the very best birding experience in the region and to that end we still offer the smallest group sizes possible, continually adapt our itineraries to include the best birding areas and most importantly our guiding team are among the most experienced in the region, all passionate birders, who will go the extra mile to get you the birds you want. You would be surprised how many tour companies are running trips with guides who have little or no knowledge of the destinations, definitely a major consideration when booking a holiday.

New Birdtour Asia leaders We are excited to welcome two additions to the Birdtour Asia guiding team; Mike Nelson hails from the UK but grew up mostly in the Caribbean and Middle East before settling in the US with his wife Susan. Mike is a passionate birder with an infectious enthusiasm and willingness to share his extensive knowledge. His birding talent, hard work, and people skills are sure to make him a firm favourite on all the Birdtour Asia tours he will be guiding throughout our region. Mike is guiding full-time to cover many of our

Although we tend to concentrate on endemics, there is a multitude of other superb species that we always expect to find and they include some absolute stonkers, Black-and-Yellow Broadbill takes some beating for example.

destinations and will allow us to increase the number of tours to our most popular destinations like Cambodia, Eaglenest, Sichuan, Borneo and throughout Indonesia.

Dave Bakewell served his birding apprenticeship on ‘patch birding’ in the UK but soon moved on to more exciting things and has spent most of his time since the early 1980’s living and birding in east and south-east Asia. Dave has lived in Malaysia for the last 15 years where his passion for field identification and meticulous attention to details has made him one of the country’s foremost experts, and during this time he has found several new country records and played a major role in uncovering the mysterious Swinhoe’s Plover. Dave will be using his vast field skills to guide tours to Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah, Borneo.

Recent tours

Our first tours of 2014 were to West India, where both Frank and James led different tours of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra. The tours are centred around some of the rarest birds of the subcontinent, and in particular the Great Indian Bustard that really is teetering on the brink – tragically it is only a matter of time now before it no longer figures on the tour. Fortunately we scored with great views on both tours. Green Avadavat, Macqueen’s Bustard, Hypocolius, Sykes’s Nightjar, White-naped Tit, Stoliczka’s Bushchat, Mottled Wood Owl, 2000 Yellow-eyed Pigeons

and, of course the famous Demoiselle Cranes, swirling around us en-mass at the famous village of Keechan were the highlights, and finishing off with the critically endangered Forest Owlet. While Frank’s trip added Indian Spotted Creeper, James’s extended to the Punjab for Rufous-vented Prinia.

Rob and Mark led three Philippines tours early in the year starting with scheduled and custom tours following our regular itinerary. Highlights of both tours for most were the privileged views of nesting Philippine Eagles on Mindanao, Rail-babbler, a bird that was seen on 4 tours in 2014. This terrestrial species has everything – elusiveness, uniqueness and found only in lush rainforest, watching it crouch down; neck to the floor then blow out its blue balloons has to be seen to be believed!

A diversion that also gave us Cryptic Flycatcher and Whiskered Flowerpecker, the latter a Birdtour Asia tick! Other highlights included the stunning Palawan Peacock Pheasant still strutting his stuff, Spotted and Blue-capped Wood Kingfishers, both Celestial and Short-crested Monarchs, Red-headed Flameback, White-fronted Tit, and Falcated Ground Babbler for all. The custom tour then bravely trekked into the Sierra Madre where our efforts were rewarded by the enigmatic Whiskered Pitta, Luzon Bleedingheart, Cream-bellied Fruit Dove and others. The final tour was a more relaxed custom trip taking in sites on several of the islands and succeeding in its aims to find Palawan Peacock Pheasant (a 15 year grip back!), Rufous-crowned Bee-eater as the last of this spectacular family, three rhabdornis species and Cinnamon Ibon as past and future bird families! Forthcoming tours to these endemic-packed islands are set as 18th January – 7th February 2015, 8th – 28th February 2015 and 21st February - 12th March 2016.

James’s short custom tour to central Vietnam in April was a big success with 100% of our targets seen including Sooty Babbler, Red-collared Woodpecker, Annam Partridge, Blue-rumped Pitta, Black-crowned Barwing and Chestnut-eared Laughingthrush. Besides these megas Vietnam had many others on offer including Bar-bellied Pitta,

The Philippines is full of cool endemics, 234 of them according to the latest IOC World List in fact! But still the most desirable for most visitors is the magnificent Philippine Eagle so it was a treat this year for all three groups to see them so well at the nest.

Grey-crowned Crocias, Germain’s Peacock Pheasant, Indochinese Green Magpie, Collared Laughingthrush and many more. Our next scheduled tour to this endemic-rich destination is 8th - 27th March 2015.

Grand China tour was surely one of the most ambitious yet undertaken to this vast empire, covering a vast swathe to seek out the countries rarest residents, with no less than 14 provinces visited and 10 internal flights required. We started near the Russian border, and ended in Tibet! The birds were rare, little-known and spectacular with highlights like Jankowski’s Bunting, Siberian Cranes, Baer’s Pochard, Elliot’s and Reeve’s Pheasant, Rickett’s Partridge, Reed Parrotbill, Courtois’s Laughingthrush, Cabot’s Tragopan, Chinese Crested Tern, Hainan Leaf Warbler, Yunnan Nuthatch, Tibetan Eared Pheasant and finishing in easternmost Tibet to see the pine-cone crunching, mountain dwelling Lord Derby’s Parakeet.

Frank’s Taiwan and south-east China tour was our first time to combine these two exciting destinations and it proved to be a successful formula. In Taiwan ALL recognised endemics were enjoyed with good views throughout but particularly memorable were several rare Fairy Pitta on their breeding grounds, and stunning views of both Mikado and Swinhoe’s Pheasants. In South-east China they repeated many of the successes of the Grand China group with multiple sightings of Elliot’s Pheasant and Cabot’s Tragopan and great looks at Rickett’s Partridge, Courtois’s Laughingthrush and others. They also scored with Brown-chested Jungle Flycatcher, Moustached Laughingthrush and Short-tailed Parrotbill while out on the coast Spoon-billed Sandpiper in summer plumage took some beating!

Sichuan is one of our most diverse tours, not only are the

birds abundant but it has exciting culture and varied habitats and scenery, and with consistently great food! Our unsurpassed local knowledge again helped us cope admirably with the closure of some regular areas, and both our scheduled and custom tours were a great success. Regular highlights on both tours included endemic Grey-hooded Parrotbill, Lady Amherst’s Pheasant, Firethroat, Barred Laughingthrush, Sukatchev’s Laughingthrush, Wood Snipe and Chinese Monal. Nice surprises included Moupinia and amazingly Przevalski’s Pinktail for both tours! The custom tour also scored with Rufous-headed Robin and Streaked Barwing, the latter a Birdtour Asia tick no less! Meanwhile the scheduled tour found Ibisbill and had particularly gripping views of Red Panda, one of the region’s most desirable mammals! Besides planned custom tours to Sichuan we also have the follow scheduled tours planned; 25th May – 13th June 2015 and 23rd May – 11th June 2016. Just one of the 2000+ Yellow-eyed Doves we encountered on our West India tours this year. This nomadic species will hopefully be a regular fixture on this tour now. This bird is a massive draw for birders to the Philippines, usually secretive and very shy, this confiding Palawan Peacock Pheasant has been attracting admirers for many years now, once he has gone it will become an extremely hard bird to find again.

It was difficult to pick highlights from our Mongolia visit but 100s of breeding plumaged Relict Gulls took some beating! Other highlights included Altai Snowcock, Henderson’s Ground Jay, Kozlov’s and Altai Accentor, displaying Oriental Plovers, and Black-billed Capercallie. All are set to feature in our 2017 Mongolia tour.

Our traverse of the Tibetan plateau of Qinghai in June produced all of the hoped for goodies with evocative names like Przevalski’s Redstart feeding young, Roborovski’s Rosefinch glimmering in the sunshine, Kozlov’s Bunting, Szecheny’s Monal Partridge, Tibetan Sandgrouse at two sites down to just a few metres and many other cool birds. Of course we also had multiple sightings of the all-important Przewalski’s Pinktail (surely the best name to date since it’s neither a finch nor a bunting!) for the family-listers which gave superb close views as multiple males produced their spectacular parachute display flight. The long drives on the trip are more than compensated by the birds and mammals and as we made our way down to Tibet, in Lhasa we soaked in one of the most iconic buildings in the world, the Potala Palace, found Tibetan Eared Pheasants literally at arm’s length, and finished in the stunning pine-clad valleys to the east to observe cone-munching Lord Derby’s Parakeets. Perhaps the oddest avian highlight of year was on this tour –a migrant Yellow-legged Buttonquail in a bog at 4500m being mobbed incessantly by a Horned Lark! Covering both Qinghai and Tibet in under 3 weeks enables us to see ALL of the plateau specialities. We will be back to enjoy the amazing views and superb

high-altitude birding, along with a side-trip to Xinjiang on 13th June – 2nd July 2016.

Borneo is one of our most popular destinations with four thrilling tours in the past year confirming just why it’s one of the ultimate world birding destinations. Rob took back-to-back scheduled tours in the summer and produced an amazing haul on both trips. In spite of bad weather in the mountains on the first tour we still pulled in the ‘Whitehead’s Trio’, both endemic partridges, Fruit-hunter and others endemics on both trips with Everett’s Thrush and Mountain Serpent Eagle enjoying the finer weather on the second. The lowlands treated us well with 3 endemic pittas on both, an amazing set of hornbills with all possible species on the first tour, and we teased out the difficult Bornean Ground Cuckoo on one occasion for memorable views shimmering in the sun. The all-important Bristlehead made us work but ultimately gave wonderful looks at this endemic bird family. By special request we arranged a Sarawak extension before the first tour and our unsurpassed knowledge of the area accumulated over several scouting trips led to some brilliant encounters with species rarely if ever encountered in Sabah including Black Oriole, both Dulit and Bornean Frogmouths, Bornean Banded and Blue-banded Pitta, Ferruginous Partridge, Rail-babbler and a stonking male Hose’s Broadbill. With a tally like this, Sarawak is sure to prove popular and we will be offering a longer and refined version to further Sabah tours where possible – proving why we are at the frontier of Asian birding.

Dave return to Borneo in October and again racked up a fine set of endemics and managed to make the Bristlehead encounter particularly exciting by leaving it until the final morning! Of particular note was the excellent sighting of Large Frogmouth, surprisingly the first time we’ve recorded the species in Sabah, along with a whole host of other mega endemics with particularly memorable encounters with Whitehead’s Trogon, Friendly Bush Warbler and all endemic wren babblers. We again had a request for a Sarawak extension and once again if proved amazingly successful with both the endemic frogmouths performing magnificently and Black Oriole on form. Quality ‘padders’ like Bornean Banded Pitta and repeat views of Whitehead’s Spiderhunter added to the success before finishing with a few days in Peninsula Malaysia and spectacular Mountain Peacock Pheasant. We have forthcoming Borneo tours scheduled for 5th – 19th April 2015, 1st – 15th November 2015, 27th March – 10th April 2016 and 1st – 15th May 2016 but new tours are added frequently to try and meet demand so check our website frequently or register interest with us by email – we have just added a new tour with two spaces available for August 2015. The superb Sarawak extension is set to become a regular fixture as either a post or pre-tour addition including all the above trips. During July and August Mike and Dave took separate custom tours around Peninsula Malaysia and both proved just how incredibly rich the avifauna of the area is. Dave’s tour for example recorded 8 hornbills, 21 out of 23 possible woodpeckers, 3 pittas, and a clean sweep of broadbills and spiderhunters among nearly 300 species, impressive indeed in just 2 weeks. Dave also found a fine selection of speciality birds among the wealth of common and scarcer species and these included both Mountain and Malaysian Peacock Pheasants, an amazing nesting Barred Eagle Owl, the rare Brown-backed Flowerpecker, Chestnut-naped Forktail, good views of the extremely difficult Rusty-naped Pitta and the all-important Rail-babbler.

Confined to the limestone karst forests along the Vietnam and Laos border, Sooty Babbler can be found hopping on the karst as they glean for insects, and particularly spiders, as this one was doing on our March custom tour.

Several stunning Elliot's Pheasants were even new for the leaders, who had dipped several times previously, were seen feeding in the open on both of our tours that visited south-east China in 2014. The opening up of China is providing us with more-and-more options for future tours.

The infamous ‘Whitehead’s Trio’ of Mount Kinabalu on our Sabah tour is made up of a trogon, Spiderhunter, and this broadbill – increasingly the most difficult of the trio to find. We will be running at least 6 Borneo tours in 2015.

Of the many avian discoveries by Alfred Wallace, perhaps his greatest was the Wallace’s Standardwing, which performs a wonderful display, cackling loudly, parachuting down in anticipation for an impressed female.

Mike’s tour was rather more targeted although unsurprisingly these targets also included both peacock pheasants, Rail-babbler and the same Barred Eagle Owl which were all duly located. Other highlights were Malaysian Partridge and Malayan Whistling Thrush, Malayan Banded Pitta, and a grandstand finish with Large Frogmouth.

Sulawesi and Halmahera is one of our most endemic-packed Indonesian destination, and also one of our most popular, with three departures this year. All tours proved typically successful with the recently described (15 years after discovery!) Sulawesi Streaked Flycatcher for two of the groups, before Lore Lindu giving us a cracking start including some of the tour highlights like roosting Diabolical Nightjars, Purple-bearded Bee-eater, the all-important Hylocitrea for the family-listers, Geomalia on each visit and a Scaly Kingfisher for one group. Moving to north Sulawesi added the likes of Maleo, Oberholser’s Fruit Dove, and Matinan Flycatcher. Halmahera delivered the goods with all possible night-birds on most tours (Moluccan Scrubfowl included here), Purple Dollarbird, Ivory-breasted Pitta and a superb experience again at the Wallace’s Standardwing lek where the birds displayed right overhead. Drummer Rail was at least glimpsed on all three visits with the first tour in August having particularly good views of them running manically around the forest, drumming dramatically! Tangkoko always provides a grandstand finish, which included day-roosting Ochre-bellied Boobook and a fine set of endemic kingfishers. The accommodation is ever improving on this tour with a luxury resort instead of the wooden huts on Halmahera making this a very comfortable tour, not only that but the Standardwing’s can be reached

with minimal effort, no more long slogs through the forest required! After our three departures in 2014, there are two more in 2015 (13th September – 3rd October and 10th – 30th October) and we’re already taking bookings for 24th July – 13th August and 4th – 24th September 2016. Book early for one of our most popular destinations!

In October we headed to Maluku covering some of the least visited islands in the Indonesian archipelago (second only to those on our Banda Sea Cruise in fact!) and this tour covers some of the most endemic rich; Seram, Buru and Kai. We started with one of the rarest birds of the tour; the critically endangered Boano Monarch, before continuing on the main island of Seram where several days delivered many of the endemics and other targets with highlights including Purple-naped and Blue-eared Lory, the spectacular Long-crested Myna, Salmon-crested Cockatoo, Lazuli Kingfisher, Rufous-necked Sparrowhawk, and surprises like Pygmy Eagle. We also found Forsten’s Scrubfowl several times including on the offshore islands where Olive Honeyeater was also found. On the adjacent island of Buru we explored from the lowlands to the montane forests and found most of the likely endemics including Black-tipped Monarch, Moluccan Masked Owl and Buru Green Pigeon in the lowlands and crackers like Buru Thrush, Buru Bush Warbler, Buru Pitta and Buru Boobook in the hills. Our final destination was the tropical Kai islands, a perfectly relaxed finished to the trip. On Kai Kecil we easily found Little Kai White-eye, White-tailed Monarch, Kai Coucal, Kai Cicadabird, Papuan Pitta, Yellow-capped Pygmy Parrot and others, while a side trip to the island of Kai Besar produced the hoped-for Great Kai White-eye and Kai Leaf Warbler.

Moluccan Masked Owl was previously one of the least-known Tyto’s in not just Asia, but the world. In 2014 we saw it on all 3 tours to the region! This bird was one of a pair on Tanimbar, though our other two tours recorded it on Buru. In 2016 we’ll be hoping to record it on another 3 tours.

Collected in 1902 and 1913 and not seen, or probably even looked for since, the the abbotti race of Black-naped Monarch is so little-known it is doubtful anyone was even aware of its distinctiveness apart from us. Less range-restricted but considerably rarer is the snouckaerti race of Orange-spotted Bulbul, restricted to northernmost Sumatra which will be split in a forthcoming publication. Probably only seen a handful of times since it was collected it is now worryingly rare due to capture for the bird trade. We made an effort to see both on our Remote Sumatra tour.

In December James led a weeks custom tour to Buru, Kai and Boano scoring much the same as Rob, with particular highlights being an inquisitive Buru Thrush and Moluccan Masked Owl. Unfortunately the highlight should have been the sighting of 4 Blue-fronted Lorikeets, a critically endangered species known from just a couple of sightings though they flashed by rather too quick for all but James! Given how reliable the Mountain Peacock Pheasants still are in Malaysia, we even twitched these on our final morning on the return flight – 2 males performed wonderfully well once again, on our 6th visit of the year. Our next Maluku tours will be 2nd – 22nd October 2016 and 7th – 27th November 2016. After 8 standard Sumatra tours and several recce’s we were all set to offer a Remote Sumatra tour, logistically one of the most complex tours we have put together – quite a feat! We took 9 internal flights, 3 boat journeys and endured a ferry cancelation – quite a feat over the course of 18 days! Was it worth all the hardships and travelling? Well, seeing some of the most endangered birds of not just Sumatra, but the world it must surely be a big yes! Starting in Aceh, which was largely off-limits until 2006 in the north we found roadside Sumatran Laughingthrushes, ‘Aceh’ Bulbul – perhaps the most range-restricted of all Sumatran endemics, is a taxon that will soon be split from Orange-spotted with only a handful of sightings since it was

collected, Sumatran Frogmouth and several other more expected Sumatran endemics. Our island hopping then took us first to Simeulue – finding critically endangered Silvery Woodpigeons, along with Simeulue Scops Owl and several exciting taxa ripe for splitting and a side trip to Babi island where we found the incredibly distinctive, yet virtually unknown ‘Babi’ Monarch. Next to Sipora, part of the Mentawai islands picking up the endemic Mentawai Scops Owl and several endemic taxa which are also in need a taxonomic revision. Unfortunately the only sour point of the tour was the cancelation of the ferry to Enggano, but an extended stay inside the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park gave us a bird we all craved – Sumatran Ground Cuckoo, a pair of which nonchalantly strolled past without noticing our gasps of excitement! A supporting cast of Sumatran and Ferruginous Partridges, Buettikoffer’s Babbler and Graceful Pitta made the camping bearable! Following the resounding success of our previous two Banda Sea Cruise in 2011 and 2013, James took another intrepid group in October to some of the remotest, least visited islands in the Indonesian archipelago. Starting with Tanahjampea Monarch and Blue Flycatcher (only one birder other than the 33 on our tours have seen either species since 1927) on the tiny island, of, you guessed it, Tanahjampea. Following this most of the islands visited would probably need googling to work out exactly where they are on a map – Pantar, Alor, Wetar, Leti, Damar, Babar, taking in such little-known endemics as Damar Flycatcher – again, after being collected is only known from being rediscovered in 2001 during survey-work and subsequently seen during our cruises. Kisar Friarbird and Wetar Ground Dove along with a whole host of fascinating taxa in drastic need of a taxonomic revision that will make these islands even more enticing in the future. We finished the tour on Tanimbar, with a clean-sweep of endemics including 28 sightings of the rarely-seen Fawn-breasted Thrush and a superbly confiding pair of Moluccan Masked Owls.

We will be operating the cruise once again in 2016, and although that tour is already full please do express an interest if you wish to do this tour in the future so we can get organising! Unless you have literally months and months of time available, this is currently the only way of seeing all these endemics. Frank finished off the year with a visit to Myanmar, a tour surely equalled only by Cambodia for those wishing to combine cultural highlights with a big list of speciality birds. The tour began with all five dry-zone endemics: Burmese Collared Dove, Burmese Bushlark, White-throated Babbler, Jerdon’s Minivet and Hooded Treepie, amidst the spectacular temples of Bagan. The main focus of the tour is Mount Victoria in the Chin Hills of western Myanmar where White-browed Nuthatch, Burmese Bushtit and Mt Victoria Babax gave superb views on several occasions along with plenty of near-endemics and localized species. These included great looks at Mrs Hume’s Pheasant, Brown-capped, Striped and Assam Laughingthrushes, Grey Sibia, Spot-breasted Scimitar Babbler, Chin Hills Wren Babbler, Spot-breasted Parrotbill and Black-bibbed Tit. There were also a few bonus species such as Elachura, Himalayan Cutia, Brown Bullfinch and Hodgson’s Frogmouth on Mt Victoria, and White-rumped Falcon, Himalayan Flameback and five species of parakeet in the lowlands on route. Finally we flew east and found several other Asian rarities, such as the near-endemic Collared Myna, Jerdon’s Bushchat and Chinese Grassbird.

Future tours During 2015 and 2016 we continue to offer our comprehensive set of tours across the region ranging from West India to West Papua. In addition to these familiar

tours, 2015 will see a repeat of our ‘Remote Sulawesi’ tour, where our target birds are among the world’s rarest; Cerulean Paradise Flycatcher, Red-and-blue Lory, Banggai Crow, Togian Boobook and our previous bird-of-the-trip, Bare-eyed Myna, along with a host of yet-to-be-described species. Looking further ahead we are already planning tours to Kashmir in 2016 after our highly successful recce there, in search of rarities like Orange Bullfinch, Spectacled Finch, Kashmir Nuthatch, White-cheeked Nuthatch, Tytler’s and Brook’s Leaf Warblers, Kashmir Nutcracker, Rufous-naped Tit and White-throated Tit. Who knows, maybe we can even find an accessible site for Western Tragopan or the incredibly little-known Long-billed Bush Warbler on our follow-up recce next year. Our Mongolia explorations this year exceeded expectations with a breeding stronghold of Hodgson’s Bushchat discovered, a high altitude covered with hundreds of breeding plumaged Relict Gulls, Altai Snowcock, Henderson’s Ground Jay, Kozlov’s and Altai Accentor, displaying Oriental Plovers, singing Chinese Bush Warblers, and Black-billed Capercallie ‘on-the deck’. Our first tour taking in these ‘off-the-beaten-track’ sites is planned for June 2017. Facebook and Twitter Social media like Facebook and Twitter are a great way for people to follow our tours through regular updates from the field. Facebook is packed with albums of images taken during the tours, including some that can’t be squeezed into the trip reports, and users are welcome to post comments or ask questions. To keep in touch simply click ‘Like’ to receive all our latest Facebook news or follow us on Twitter @BirdtourAsia.