Zhengzhou Yellow River Wetland Park
When: August 2016 Weather: Hot 30C
Nikon P900 Leica M 35 summilux
30 min from the JW Marriott in the city of Zhengzhou is the Zhengzhou Yellow River Wetland Park in Henan Province. Reading some info it sounded as if there would be some good birding there of water birds etc so I headed there in the hot afternoon sun, arriving about 4pm.
The Zhengzhou Yellow River National Wetland Park literally translated
The park is huge with lots of well maniicured walking boardwalks and trails
Lotus leaves were verywhere but hey were not flowering
Walking along a path leading to the banks of the Yellow River, there were a number of black or fork tailed drongos flying about, perchiing occasionally
Here’s another, but the tail looks different
this one has a more ‘laddered’ fan-like tail…subspecies?
walking all the way to the banks of the Yellow River, it;’s famous historically and geographically but underwhelming in actuality
you know I’m getting desperate when I start shooting and posting sparrows…the bird life was surprisingly sparse given the write up I’d read before and the fact that the wetland looked as if it sould be teeming with birds….maybe it was the hot dry summer and time of day
a pair of blue winged magpies cavorted in the trees
this terrain is usually fruitful for birding but …
a light vented bulbul peeking through the leaves
and this little fellow chirped away darting away to catch a bug and posing…some flycatcher or a prinia?
another view
and the last bird to show at the end of a slightly disappointing afternoon was this….
a rather smart looking brown shrike
close up of brown shrike
I guess we win some, we lose some….this place promised much but delivered little; perhaps it was the time of year and time of day and it may be worth visiting again at a different time.