Last night we got back from our short trip up to the mountains of Yading and Deqen. 1700km on not the best roads in the world and some icy conditions. It was phenomenal though, with crystal clear skies and some of the best night photography I have experienced. An article with be coming shortly. But for now, this is the peak we never saw on our previous trips to Yading.
This morning I was up at 5:45 and headed out in the dark for the mountain forests above Baisha, about 20 minutes from Lijiang. For 4 hours I sat in a blind watching my setup perches and water drip, nada. No birds landed near. Need to rethink the strategy,
Here is a Coal Tit from earlier in the year..
Well, quite a morning, out to the hills east of town to try and locate this super rare bird, thought previously to only breed in a tiny population across in Sichuan. This year a healthy population was discovered only 30km from Lijiang. With the aid of a local guide we found 4. Getting this one out in the open was a bonus, sadly I was so close and didn’t get the tail!
Today I finally finished my latest article “The Stars Look Down” about our trip in September to Mt Kailash in Tibet. It’s quite lengthy at around 4400 words. I hope you enjoy: Please click on the articles link above and go to KAILASH..
It’s 7 weeks since we got back from Tibet and our climb up to take these images on Mount Kailash. They remain very special to me, not just for the physical and technical challenge, but the emotional impact traveling on the Tibetan Plateau has on you. Very demanding and not always very comfortable, but regardless of faith or religion it leaves its mark on you. Juanli always says, you come back different.
It’s been incredibly windy here in Lijiang for most of the week, and while plenty of China is being dumped with impressive amounts of snow, we aren’t! The workflow continues to get the Stock Library stocked, today I tackled some of the shorebird images from Beidaihe way back in 2005. This is a Wood Sandpiper…
This is the view from the office window of my house. Between November and April the skies tend to be clear and spectacular views such as this can be found. The rest of the year is dominated by the monsoon and 5 months can go by without even a glimpse of the peaks. Having lived in Lijiang for nearly three years this is the only shot I have showing the massive lenticular clouds. Sites like this are very rare, but the memory is fantastic and I am just pleased we captured this shot.
Another beautiful day, clear blue skies, sunny and quite warm. The wind has dropped considerably, and as we had to go out and re-stock on local honey, it was a good day to cycle. Its a 20km round trip up the hill and it was great. The afternoon spent working on images, which led into a long evening, but managed to get some nice stuff uploaded to the stock library. Here is one of an Anna’s Hummingbird from California.
It’s been a very busy few days here in Lijiang, the website taking plenty of time and energy. Working images all day and trying to fit in the time to work out. We’ll be heading down to Yangshou again late in the month and I’m looking forward to getting the move out the way and settle in. The very few images I got while we were there just whet my appetite to get back.
It’s been a good day, beautiful winter weather here at 2400m in Yunnan, clear skies and a glowing peak out front. Most of it spent in front of the Mac though, working on articles and getting the images loaded. Happy though and ready for a nice evening…
