China, Hubei province: June 2008

For my work I had to go in China, Hubei province to Wuhan.

My first trip from the 1 to the 13 June was in the same time than a big ornithological event in Sanyang the 7 and 8 June. This village is at 3 hours by car from Wuhan. The meeting was organized by the Birding Society of Wuhan for the second time. As far as I understood, it was sponsorized by a business man born in this place. We were more than 40 birders all Chinese except me! A small group of people even came from Beijing. A photo challenge took place at this occasion with at least 3 or 4 professionals among us: probably most of the wildlife professional protographers of China! I spent really a wonderfull weekend among this group although 2 or 3 people only speak English: I want to thanks here particularly Steven who take care of me during all this time!
The village is surrounded by rice fields and different kind of cultures with a lot of fruit trees. In some place there are still some remaining forest areas with a big colony of Herons in one of them. The weather were always cloudy with very bad light for taking pictures unfortunately. I finally won a third price but we were several in this case I think. I saw more than 60 species in less than 2 days with 40 lifers and a lot of very good memories: Paradise Flycatcher, Tiger Shrike, Plain prinia but the main one is certainly the good moment with all this people!

SUMMARY