Soon after we returned from Shennongjia Bird Race, we received an invitation to participate in the second Jiaozishan Bird Festival. At the thought of having a chance for bird-watching in Spring City(nickname of Kunming), we dreamed of going there immediately. We accepted the invitation, bought air tickets, and waited for the departure day. After waiting with excitement for about one week in Sichuan valley where sunny days are rare, we boarded the flight to Kunming. We were coming for Jiaozishan Bird Festival as well as for the famous local food such as cross-bridge rice noodles, flower cake, barbecues, Sapi, and Paoluda.

▲ On the way

November 12, 2020, Chengdu-Zhuanlong South of Clouds，The place in my heart

This time teams were formed at random. We were going to form a team with birders we hadn't known each other. We named our name Tianfu United, formed by combing the first word of each place where we came from. One friend from another team arrived at Kunming one day earlier and found a popular local Yunnan Restaurant. We got familiar with each other while enjoying the delicious food. There are never short of topics when bird-watchers come together. This time our ice-breaking topic was White-throated Kingfisher, which we saw in a dry-hot valley, possible because of our constant mentioning.

▲ White-throated Kingfisher

After lunch, we drove to Zhuanlong Township of Luquan County, bathing in warm sunshine under the blue sky with white clouds. It was a long driving. By the time we arrived, it was already dinner time followed by the most important opening ceremony. As a local Yunnan native working in Sichuan, the faces and their accents in front of me were so familiar to me, making me feel fully at home now.

▲ Opening Ceremony

After dinner, we washed and were going to lie in bed for the night. We saw exciting news from the WeChat group that an owl was found in Longtan. We snatched our camera and dashed out, followed by the quick steps of other bird-watchers.

▲ Collared Scops Owl

Though everybody came with excitement, everyone was patient, strictly following the rules. They turned on the flashlight for several seconds and then turned it off for a while, trying their best not to bother the bird too much. After some observation, we unanimously left, returning the night and Longtan to this owl.

November 13 in 2020: dry-hot valley hot like an oven

Compared with last year, a scouting route to Puduhe dry-hot valley was added to this year's bird-watching route. Only 6 people were allowed for the scouting route on the first day. Though we were not familiar, we were eager to go on hearing a "new route", so we signed up. There are 900 meters of elevation gap between Zhuanlong Township and Puduhe Valley. To get there, we first need to climb over a mountain pass, taking a left turn at the conjunction between Zhuanwu Section and Jiaozishan Road. Then we need to drive on the winding road to the bottom of the valley. When you take a look from higher places, you can see the traces made by foehn wind on the mountains along the long, narrow valley. Along this road, what we saw were just some common regional birds such as Sooty-headed Bulbul, Little Bunting, White Wagtail, Black Drongo, Oriental Turtle Dove, and Long-tailed Shrike.

▲ Guess what we saw？

After we got to the bottom of the valley, we took a walk along a section with good habitat and searched closely. We saw Brown-breasted Bulbul, Green-backed Tit, and Daurian Redstart. Just at the time of our departure, we heard the calls of greenfinch, we looked back and saw a flock of cute Black-headed Greenfinch perching on the power lines.

▲ Black-headed Greenfinch dressing left

And then we saw Chestnut-bellied Rock Thrush, Olive-backed Pipit, and Godlewski's Bunting. The Chestnut-flanked White-eye we saw even perched on a twig about 2 meters from us. What a cute little thing.

▲ Chestnut-flanked White-eye

▲ Olive-backed Pipit

It's getting hotter and hotter. We had to take off our feather jacket and windbreaker. We headed on, making the best use of our time to scan the gradual slope by the riverside. While searching around, we heard some noise coming from the place below us. Observing closely, we found it was a flock of Prinia. Flickering the bushes, they disappeared in the gradual slope very soon. It was hard for us to tell where it was Rufescent Prinia or Grey-breasted with only a glimpse of them. We were lucky that our team leader got a snapshot of the bird. Judging from the photo, we found it was Grey-breasted Prinia. During the non-breeding season, it is hard to tell Grey-breasted Prinia from Rufescent Prinia, in comparison with the latter, the former shows more grey color with a smaller beak and less distinctive brow.

▲ Grey-breasted Prinia

▲ Rufescent Prinia

The temperature at the bottom of the river valley rises very quickly. When the underwear becomes something like a heating pad, the bird-watching in the river valley becomes less enjoyable. We saw some bird-watching friends ahead posted Wallcreeper photos, we decided to continue to move on. It did not take long when we saw more and more cliffs appeared on both sides of the valley. It is typical habitat for Wallcreeper. We did not spend much effort to find the bird.The Wallcreeper was very smart, flying constantly between two cliffs, we got a good look at the bird in the hot air and sweltering underwear.

▲ Red winged squash

Being roasted by the hot air, we had no place to hide and decided to have our lunch. It was a boxed lunch with a small bag of chili powder. The spicy chili stimulated my taste memory. For people who were scared of spicy taste, it might be difficult to enjoy this unique lunch. During our lunchtime, we saw an Eastern Buzzard and even got information about a Black-capped Kingfisher. Everything went well except my teammate who was allergic to buckwheat got problems with the buckwheat break in the lunch box. In the whole afternoon, when she became energetic only when there were birds, otherwise she was downcast.

After lunch, we started defying the hot air. Only about five minutes after we arrived at the site, the Black-capped Kingfisher appeared in front of us. But soon the bird saw us and hid in the shady woods. (I also wished I could hide in the woods). After a continued search in this area, we saw White-throated Kingfisher, Common Kingfisher, and Grey Heron.

▲ Grey Heron

After this search, we were facing a challenge. At this moment, if we took the same way back, moving toward Zhuanlong via the mountain pass and winding road, the road was facing the sun. If we did not get to a new place, we could not find birds. Eventually, we decided to move to a new place, we were exposed directly to the hot sunlight without anything to hide. The cold air from our car did make much difference. I had a feeling that we were being roasted, only short of a handful of flavoring stuff. We unanimously decided to take a rest. We could hardly find any shady place to park our car on this huge mountain slope. We found a place to park when we were about to leave Wumeng. Here we spotted a Eurasian Crag Martin. Because we had spent lots of time driving, and there was not much time left for bird-watching in the afternoon. We decided after a discussion to return to Zhuanlong to search for Black-tailed Crake. For most of our team, this bird would be a lifer. It is always fun to have a lifer. We waited for quite a while but did not see the bird, only heard the bird calls.

November 14 in 2020 Jiaozhishan Numerous Upland Pipit but invisible Sparrow

After some analysis before departure, we decided to abandon the idea of climbing up to Jiaziding, We wanted to leave the wonderful scenery there to those who have sound knees. After we saw some bird friends posted information about Alpine Thrush spotted near Yixiantian, we decided to have a try by cable car. We did not find the bird but saw Hodgson's Treecreeper, White-winged Grosbeak, Red-billed Chough, Rufous-vented Tit, and Eurasian Wren.

▲ Hodgson's Treecreeper

▲ Eurasian Wren

In the afternoon, we decided to focus on farmlands. In Enzu Village, we saw Hill Prinia, Long-tailed Minivet, and Common Kestrel.

▲ Hill Prinia

There were not so many birds. But we found fighting between a Sooty-headed Bulbul and Brown-breasted Bulbul was very interesting. The two birds made lots of noise but no action followed. They just look like a typical quarrel in Chengdu, words prevailing over actions. By their side, there perched a Durian Redstart, which seemed to say, "they are just quarreling, nothing serious"!

▲ Durian Redstart (upper), Sooty-headed Bulbul(middle) and Brown-breasted Bulbul(lower)

After that, we headed toward the direction of Hongyan to join the bird-watchers for numerous Upland Pipit. The Upland Pipit acted like a model in front of us, showing no sign of fear. Here we also saw Spot-breasted Parrotbill and Ashy Drongo.

▲Upland Pipits

▲ Spot-breasted Parrotbill

It was only two hours before the end of the bird race, everyone left after a quick look. We also returned to Zhuanlong Township to search for some common birds such as Eurasian Tree Sparrow. Eurasian Tree Sparrow again. At this moment, in the WeChat group, we saw someone posted something that said "we haven't seen Eurasian Tree Sparrow yet". We were not alone. Upon returning to Zhuanlong farmlands, we saw bird-watchers searching around for birds. How many of them were looking for Eurasian Tree Sparrow. We still failed to find Eurasian Tree Sparrow but some of our bird friends found Palla's Grasshopper Warbler，which won the best bird species found in this bird festival.

 November 15 in 2020: Interesting shopping in the local market, people in dresses of four seasons

The closing ceremony was scheduled to be held around noon. It happened to be the market day today in Zhuanlong, once every week. We decided to go shopping in the local market. The narrow street of Zhuanlong was soon occupied by stands with a great variety of commodities. Compared with the commodities coming from outside, stands with local produces looked much more attractive.

▲Matsutake Mushroom, Black Truffle, and some mushrooms unknown to us

▲ Craftsman and his bamboo basket

With the rise of temperature, the township street was increasingly filled with people coming from different places, bustling with cars, people, and vendors. The dresses of people became very interesting, you could find the dresses for all different seasons, sleeveless shirts, short-sleeve shirts, skirts, pullovers, warm jacket, and down coat. Nobody cast a strange eye, because the temperature gap between day and night is very big in Yunnan. In the morning, people need to sit by the side of the fireplace in their down coat, while at noon, they could wear short-sleeved shirts eating ice sticks.

▲ Zhuanlong Local Market

How could we leave without trying some local food? We first had a cross-bridge rice noodle before we walked to the market. Then we tasted Pea noodles and Liangxia noodles. After our walk in the market, we satisfied both our eyes and stomach. Only my team made got some trouble, possibly because of the numerous buckwheat noodle stands.

▲ Zhuanlong Local Market

After shopping, we got back for the closing ceremony. The 17 teams met again. Filled with cheers and laughter, we were sitting under the warm sunshine, eating the oranges and olives brought by our bird friends from Yunan, and sharing what we had got in the past two days. In this bird festival, the bird species recorded reached 173, adding 33 species first discovered in Jiaozishan National Nature Reserve. By now, the reserve has recorded 260 species of birds.

▲ Group Photo of the Second Jiaozishan Bird Festival Closing Ceremony in 2020

We felt reluctant to leave at the thought of our departure time. Here we would like to send our heartfelt thanks to the China Bird-watching Society, Jiaozishan National Nature Reserve, sponsors, relative organizers, and coordinators for providing such a great event for us. And we are looking forward to meeting with our bird friends again in near future.