Latest Stories
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A first for Beijing: Mongolian Accentor (贺兰山岩鹨 Hèlánshān yán liù, Prunella koslowi) at Miaofengshan
The message came through on Friday afternoon. Qin Qin (沁沁) had found an accentor at the Yangtaishan Rosefields, up at Miaofengshan in Mentougou District, and the photos on WeChat set the pulse racing — this wasn’t one of our regular Siberian Accentors, a common late autumn migrant and winter visitor. The bill, the plumage tones,…
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Pallas’s Bunting to be split into Mongolian Reed Bunting and Siberian Reed Bunting
An important paper on the taxonomy of Pallas’s Reed Bunting has just been published in Avian Research: Buchheim, Franke, Dumont de Chassart et al. (2026), “Taxonomy of Pallas’s Reed Bunting (Emberiza pallasi): An integrative approach” (doi.org/10.1016/j.avrs.2026.100444). It’s open access and, for anyone with an interest in East Asia’s birds, well worth reading. The authors drew…
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2026 Nature Watch Festival on the Tibetan Plateau
I am now back in Beijing from the 2026 “Nature Watch” in Nangqen, Yushu Prefecture, and my batteries are fully recharged. ⚡ There’s nothing quite like watching people celebrate nature in a place this special. Over three days, 16 teams of young people from across China partnered with local herding families for a “bioblitz” –…