Lijiang April 2024 Trip with Mark Citsay

Biet’s Laughingthrush, otherwise known as White-speckled, must be among the most endangered of Chinese species. Back in 2008 I'd been part of expedition, together with Bjorn Anderson and John and Jemi Holmes, that had rediscovered the species after it had gone unrecorded since a 1988 Ben King survey of the area. Subsequent visits over the years saw the site’s bamboo habitat being degraded by livestock and, eventually, it gave no more records. Then came news of a bird being found in in a cage just over the Yunnan border and a site was found close to the famous Yunnan tourist town of Lijiang. Unfortunately, here the birds have suffered from trapping and a lack of protection. Sightings here also eventually dwindled away, but recently, with the increase in interest from Chinese birders and photographers, locals suddenly realised the bird was a better resource in the wild than kept in a cage. Now, around 3 hours, from Lijiang, there's a feeding site for this rare and elusive species - the area also serves as a reserve for Yunnan Snub-nosed Monkey, and this species must also thrive in bamboo rich habitat, much of it inaccessible. 

For those withing to visit there is a small - but very well maintained guest house, with all the western ammenities, in a village just a couple of kilometers from the feeding site. But book beforehand since there are only three rooms. Although Lijiang is still a good 9 hours from Xichang - a South Sichuan site we regularly visit - the roads are now all motorway and the journey from Chengdu can be done with 1.5days drive. Although remote this site is far easier to access than the Muli site - seeing the Laughingthrush doesnt require any serious hiking. Lijiang, being a key Chinese tourist destination, also has a.busy airport with connections to many Chinese cities.  

Muli 2019 Trips

Trip one - Richard Allison, Phil Hansbro, Niall Perrins 13th to 18th April 2019

Trip two - Joseph Brooks, Jeff Brooks, Gary George, Dale Herter 4th to 8th May 2019 

Biet's Photos - Richard Allison

Inside the hide and finally after around 30, very long,minutes a pair of them turned up - pictures from the first visit.

From Chengdu to Xichang there is fast motorway - but from there the roads get smaller slower until you drive on tracks.

With sightings of Biet's dwindling to nearly zero, in 2019 came reports from Chinese photographers about a remote Tibetan village in the Muli area of South West Sichuan, where an enterprising local official had learned about the importance of the bird and set up a feeding station.
During 2019 we made two visits to the site, which being in such a remote part of Sichuan is around 2 long days drive from Chengdu – or 3 more comfortable days if you take Xichang and Muli as stop offs. At the site you live at homestays – very simple, local style accommodation – but there is a shower, and your hosts are extremely friendly. The hide is around an hour and a half’s walk from a drop off point that’s a couple of kilometres from the accommodation – or you can go the whole way to the hide on the back of a motorbike. I’ve tried both and, with steep, thin, bumpy, muddy tracks that wind down into a deep valley, can truly testify that the bike ride ranks as an extreme birding experience. Almost at the journey’s end you are required to climb again – no bike can get up here - and on foot it takes a good 10 to 15 minutes slog to finally get to the hide. Although not extreme, a modicum of fitness is required to get to your bird.

Track to the hide and the habitat

The birds are fed mealworms, and on both my visits it took around 20 minutes before they turned up. Both times it was a pair. Other birds were not common – infrequent visits from Golden-breasted Fulvetta, Slaty-blue Flycatcher and Himalayan Bluetail were the most notable. In surrounding habitat, we also saw little except for some Bar-throated Minla, but our guides told us Temminck’s Tragopan were present.

However, in the general area birding is good. Around 10 kilometres from the village that has the Laughingthrushes, lies a village where there is a Derbyan Parakeet roost – another species that has seemingly gone through a recent steep decline, which has directly been associated with the cage bird trade. Here you see the birds fly in and out of a tree roost – it all happens very quickly – a flock of around 50 birds shoot over your head and straight into the cover of a large conifer tree, where they are all largely invisible. Ben King had written about seeing the parakeets around Muli in 1988, but they seem to have long disappeared from that site, so its good the find that this near threatened species is hanging on and being protected in this area. Other good species include Buff-throated (Szechenyi's) Monal Partridge up in the high Alpine forest.