12 hours in Beijing and Tianjin

When:  June 2017                      Weather:  Warm 24C

Nikon P900

I landed in Beijing at 7am and after a quick drive, was in Tianjin by 1030am, had a quick shower at the Tangla Hotel(which is very nice) and headed off to do a tour of a hospital and give a lecture at 130pm.   Driving back to Beijing Airport at 230pm, I figured there was enough time to look for a nature reserve or park somewhere to do some birding before dinner and catching my midnight flight back to Singapore.

And so it was that I found the Hanzhiqiao Wetland Nature reserve in Shunyi district about 30 min east of the Airport and we headed there.  We arrived at about 5pm only to find that the reserve was to close at 6! We hired a little jeep to bring us to the bird viewing tower at the far side of the park  but when we got there, that too was closed! Sigh…

So we had to make to with walking around the fringe of the wetlands and managed a short walk back to the car park…..Chinese nature parks tend to open late and close early..

The Hanshiqiao wetlands nature park…tranquil and scenic.

Near the bird watching tower, were these series of bridges which give the name to this place….

Just a few little grebes in the water

with a few ducklings too

scenic areas

reeds

We finally managed a 30min walk through the park down this road….

fencing on the left

and then I saw some movement in the reeds : probable Oriental Reed Warbler

He sat there…

and sang away merrily

Reeds

The Hanzhiqiao wetland nature reserve is a potentially nice birding site but lessons learnt from this visit….go early morning as they close early evening!  Not many birds in the evening and everything is closing.

Thankfully there was a very nice Quanjude Peking Duck restaurant not far away that served a nice dinner before my midnight flight.  So although I had only 16 hours in Tianjin/Beijing, I had a most productive and interesting day…