Birds of the Waterways - Shanghai, China

Birds of the Waterways - Shanghai, China - May 5th to 18th

Great Crested Grebe #1 - an uncommon bird of the larger fish ponds...here one of a pair...
Great Crested Grebe #3 - ...and here the presumed mate
Little Grebe #4 - a common bird in the fish ponds at the Nanhui Refuge
Eastern Cattle Egret #1 - now a separate species from the African and European Cattle Egrets, this bird shows off its simple but beautiful breeding plumage
Intermediate Egret #14 - when these birds were being named, someone did not have a very good imagination...an Egret smaller than a Great Egret, but larger than little Egret? Let's call it an "Intermediate" Egret!
Little egret #10 - we stopped at a rookery near Dafeng with at least seventy five to one hundred birds nesting there
Swinhoe's (Chinese) Egret #6 - one of only three birds seen throughout the trip
Chinese Pond Heron #5 - a common bird wherever there was water throughout the trip...here an adult...
Chinese Pond Heron #6 - ...and here a juvenile
Black-headed Gull #3 - these birds are presumed to be non-breeders who didn't make it to the breeding grounds
Saunders's Gull #3 - a common bird throughout the trip...they were seen in the fish ponds and along the beaches...here foraging in a fish pond...
Saunders's Gull #5 - ...here taking flight...
Saunders's Gull #9 - ...and here gliding by for a closer look at us
Black-capped Kingfisher #1 - one of only a few Kingfishers seen...here taking advantage of the trees along a pond
Black-crowned Night-Heron #14 - we saw only a few of these birds at the Nanhui Refuge
Osprey #30 - one of only two or three raptors seen during the entire trip...here hunting over one of the ponds at the Nanhui Refuge...
Osprey #34 - ....and here flying off with its catch
Black-faced Spoonbill #6 - our guide was able to talk his way into a building site so we could see these birds resting in a large pond...here resting...
Black-faced Spoonbill #7 - ...and here watching us watch them
Caspian Tern #20 - the only Caspian Terns were these four on the tidal mudflats
Common Tern #9 - most "Asian" bird guide books only show the black-billed "longipennis" race of Common Tern...I was surprised to find that red-billed birds (like the ones in North America) occur as well
Common Tern #27 - the "longipennis" race of Common Tern has an all black bill, which can be confusing to "Western" birdwatchers used to seeing red-billed birds
Gull-billed Tern #18 - a very plain Tern with a thick bill
Little Tern #2 - a few of these birds were hunting along the beaches
Whiskered Tern #5 - we found a fish pond with a low water level...at least a half dozen Whiskered Terns were hunting in the shallow water
White-winged Tern #1 - a beautiful bird with subtle plumage...here the upper wing surfaces with dark and light blending together...
White-winged Tern #6 - ...and here the underside with much starker plumage