"Lake Poyang National Wetland Park"
(quotation marks intentional...)
Lake Poyang is the largest freshwater lake in China, and it is the wintering grounds for something like 98% of the world's population of Siberian Cranes. Because I was going to be in Japan seeing other cranes in winter it had seemed silly not to add in Lake Poyang in China as well for an additional species, especially because who knows how long they are going to be around for in the future (both the lake and the cranes).
There are various eBird sites for the lake area, and I was intending to divide my time with a couple of days in the city of Nanchang (which is closest to sites like Baihezhou where large numbers of cranes winter) and a couple of days at the village of Wucheng at the northwest end of the lake.
The first day in Nanchang hadn't gone great - the first half of the day was good, with lots of birds found in the Xianghu Wetland Park near the hotel, but the second half fell apart completely. That was a tale told in the last post in this thread.
That was sort of a "general birding" day, and then I got down to the business of seeing Siberian Cranes. Or trying to. The second day went even worse than the first day. Looking back I think I was far more annoyed on this day than I should have been, but the two days combined were just abject failures. If you've seen my recent photos you'll know I did end up seeing Siberian Cranes really well, but it wasn't on this day!
............................................
On that first day I had gone to the train station, followed by the bus station, to try and find out how to get to the lake from Nanchang, without a lot of success. At the bus station they had said I should take a bus to the Poyang Bus Station which may or may not have been helpful.
The next morning I still hadn't settled on a firm plan of action. The two main options for the eastern end of the lake were to either just pay out for a taxi from Nanchang to Baihezhou, which would be expensive, or take the long-winded roundabout way of trying to find the way by bus which would be frustrating but cheap. I figured I had the time, so today I'd try the bus and if it didn't work out then no matter - I'd pay for a taxi the next day. So I'd go back to the bus station and see when the first bus to Poyang Bus Station was (I'd neglected to ask that yesterday, which was annoying) and - more importantly - how many hours it would take to get there. If it was more than, say, three hours in each direction there would be no point. If it was too far then I'd get a bus to Wucheng instead, which I knew was relatively close. I was planning on going to Wucheng anyway, so I could treat a day-trip as a gauge of whether I'd want to spend a couple of days there or not.
I got to the bus station at 8am but must have just missed a bus because the next one to Poyang Bus Station wasn't until 9.30am. Still, the lady at the counter said the ride was only two hours so I could make that work. The unknowns were how to get to the lake from Poyang Bus Station, and how to get back. However I had found some old information on the internet that from the Poyang Bus Station there was a bus to the Lake Poyang National Wetland Park, so that was hopeful. I also had a sort of alternative plan where if the bus passed some part of the lake full of birds, I could just get off there and figure out later how to get back to Nanchang.
Unfortunately the ticket lady had no idea what time the buses coming back to Nanchang from Poyang were. This is something I always find extraordinary, that at the bus stations they only know the buses which go from their station, not even knowing the return times of those same buses. She also said there was no bus to Wucheng, which I knew wasn't true because it has a bus station!
Once inside the waiting room I saw there was a big digital display board on the wall with all the bus schedules on it. You can't see this from outside, so you can't see the routes or schedules until you've already bought a ticket and are inside waiting for your bus. Is this helpful? Anyway, from this I could see that the buses for the Poyang Bus Station were on a weird spacing of times: 7am, 9.30am, 10.30am, 1pm, 2.25pm, 4.20pm, 5.20pm, and 7pm. No guarantees for anyone trying to use this information in the future, and I wouldn't recommend even going to the place I went today anyway so it'd be on your own head.
............................................
My half-formed idea of getting off the bus somewhere along the way came to nothing because almost the whole way was on a raised motorway, and almost none of the trip was passing the lake shore. However I did see a small group of Siberian Cranes at a distance in a field, identifiable by being huge and white. These were the only Siberian Cranes I saw this day! I also saw a family group of White-naped Cranes and a flock of Black Storks. All the other birds the bus passed were unidentifiable on account of being ducks and geese too far away to tell.
The ride took two hours as scheduled, and I then spent some time trying to find out the return times for the buses to Nanchang, and whether there was a bus to the Wetland Park. That green bus right outside the station goes to the Wetland Park I was told. Well, it wasn't that green bus, but another bus coming along shortly.
The timetables posted at bus stops in China have all the stops printed on them which is handy (the final stop for this bus was the Wetland Park itself) but they don't have any actual times on them. If you ask people what time the next bus is coming, you get either vague or contradictory answers. I could have taken a taxi but a) I didn't know how far the place was (there are multiple pins with that name scattered around the map of Lake Poyang), and b) I'm set in my ways that if there is a bus then I'm taking that bus! Also, with hindsight, if I'd had to pay for a taxi to get out there I would have been even more annoyed in the end than I was!
Eventually the bus arrived at 1pm. The cost for the half-hour ride to the Wetland Park was just 2 Yuan.
So far everything was going fine. Even the long wait for the bus wasn't a bother because there was still a lot of the day left, even if it meant I'd be getting back to Nanchang late in the evening.
At the reception of the Wetland Park I was surprised that the entry fee was 155 Yuan. That's about two nights accommodation for me. But the eBird list for the Lake Poyang National Wetland Park has 212 species on it, with counts of hundreds of individuals for many of the species, so I knew I was going to be seeing loads of birds, especially Siberian Cranes.
Once through the entrance building I came to a shuttle-bus area marked as a "sightseeing bus". I'm looking around but there aren't any maps to show where the bus goes - there is a map on the back of the ticket but it is illegible due to the tiny size. Would it be better for me to walk, or are the bird areas too distant? I went back to the entrance to ask if they have a map.
They did have a map, quite a large map, so I took a photo of it. Then I ran into the usual problem where when I ask where we are right now on the map, I get a different answer from everyone at the counter. I ask where the "sightseeing bus" goes and get confusing answers. Basically I don't understand the layout of the map because I've never been here before, and none of the people who work there understand the map either. I decided to just take the bus and see where it goes.
Where it goes, it turned out, is down a path for less than a minute where it stops at a dock. I get on a boat with a bunch of local tourists and it sets off onto the lake. There is a video playing showing all the birds and habitat one might expect when coming to a Wetland Park at Lake Poyang, but which it transpired one should absolutely not expect at this particular Wetland Park.
The lake was flat-calm and empty. Imagine taking a boat across a reservoir. It was as interesting as that. The ride was half an hour. Up ahead on the shore I could see a large structure which looked very much like an aviary. I had a look at my photo of the map. There was a picture of some cranes next to what I had thought was a bridge but now looked like an aviary. I had a bad feeling.
Sure enough, when the boat docked it was next to a giant walk-through aviary in which I could see domestic ducks, geese and doves. The other people from the boat excitedly headed for the aviary to feed the ducks. I walked past it, following the path, and found a locked gate blocking access to the road beyond. I asked a security guard if I could walk along the road and he gestured to a walkway which went overhead to the other side. Ah, excellent. Onto the other side I went, where I found a short loop of a path by a mudhole which had a couple of Mallards in it, and an expanse of dry lake bed with a large flock of domestic Chinese Geese being fed by more visitors. The road was also fenced off on this side. There was literally nowhere to go.
I wandered around the path a couple of times, feeling at a bit of a loss. There was a Long-tailed Shrike and a couple of White Wagtails. Way in the distance I could see some water but there was no way to get past the fences blocking me in here. I was pretty angry now, having spent all day getting here and then paying 155 Yuan just to take a boat for half an hour to an aviary.
I'm not someone who normally asks for their money back - usually I'm just like "oh well, that sucked" and move along while grumbling to myself - but this time I did. I was so ticked off that when I got back to the entrance I headed straight for the counter. It didn't do any good of course.
"There are swans and cranes" was the reply when I said there were no wetlands and no birds there.
"They're in an aviary!" I exclaimed (if exclaimed is the right word to use when I'm typing on a phone - it sort of reduces the impact!).
"That's all there is there"
"Then why do you call yourself the National Wetland Park?"
"A wetland is defined as a place with water" was the infuriating response.
There was really only one good thing which came from the day (well, I mean I did see some cranes from the bus on the way there, but they were too brief to be enthralling even if they were lifers - luckily I saw both species again the next day). The one good thing was that there was a family from Shanghai on the bus back to Poyang who spoke English and they informed me that to get to Baihezhou - one of the main viewing sites for Siberian Cranes - I could get a train from Nanchang to Yugan and then a taxi from there would be an hour, so considerably shorter and cheaper than if I took one all the way from Nanchang which had been going to be my plan for the next day.
(quotation marks intentional...)
Lake Poyang is the largest freshwater lake in China, and it is the wintering grounds for something like 98% of the world's population of Siberian Cranes. Because I was going to be in Japan seeing other cranes in winter it had seemed silly not to add in Lake Poyang in China as well for an additional species, especially because who knows how long they are going to be around for in the future (both the lake and the cranes).
There are various eBird sites for the lake area, and I was intending to divide my time with a couple of days in the city of Nanchang (which is closest to sites like Baihezhou where large numbers of cranes winter) and a couple of days at the village of Wucheng at the northwest end of the lake.
The first day in Nanchang hadn't gone great - the first half of the day was good, with lots of birds found in the Xianghu Wetland Park near the hotel, but the second half fell apart completely. That was a tale told in the last post in this thread.
That was sort of a "general birding" day, and then I got down to the business of seeing Siberian Cranes. Or trying to. The second day went even worse than the first day. Looking back I think I was far more annoyed on this day than I should have been, but the two days combined were just abject failures. If you've seen my recent photos you'll know I did end up seeing Siberian Cranes really well, but it wasn't on this day!
............................................
On that first day I had gone to the train station, followed by the bus station, to try and find out how to get to the lake from Nanchang, without a lot of success. At the bus station they had said I should take a bus to the Poyang Bus Station which may or may not have been helpful.
The next morning I still hadn't settled on a firm plan of action. The two main options for the eastern end of the lake were to either just pay out for a taxi from Nanchang to Baihezhou, which would be expensive, or take the long-winded roundabout way of trying to find the way by bus which would be frustrating but cheap. I figured I had the time, so today I'd try the bus and if it didn't work out then no matter - I'd pay for a taxi the next day. So I'd go back to the bus station and see when the first bus to Poyang Bus Station was (I'd neglected to ask that yesterday, which was annoying) and - more importantly - how many hours it would take to get there. If it was more than, say, three hours in each direction there would be no point. If it was too far then I'd get a bus to Wucheng instead, which I knew was relatively close. I was planning on going to Wucheng anyway, so I could treat a day-trip as a gauge of whether I'd want to spend a couple of days there or not.
I got to the bus station at 8am but must have just missed a bus because the next one to Poyang Bus Station wasn't until 9.30am. Still, the lady at the counter said the ride was only two hours so I could make that work. The unknowns were how to get to the lake from Poyang Bus Station, and how to get back. However I had found some old information on the internet that from the Poyang Bus Station there was a bus to the Lake Poyang National Wetland Park, so that was hopeful. I also had a sort of alternative plan where if the bus passed some part of the lake full of birds, I could just get off there and figure out later how to get back to Nanchang.
Unfortunately the ticket lady had no idea what time the buses coming back to Nanchang from Poyang were. This is something I always find extraordinary, that at the bus stations they only know the buses which go from their station, not even knowing the return times of those same buses. She also said there was no bus to Wucheng, which I knew wasn't true because it has a bus station!
Once inside the waiting room I saw there was a big digital display board on the wall with all the bus schedules on it. You can't see this from outside, so you can't see the routes or schedules until you've already bought a ticket and are inside waiting for your bus. Is this helpful? Anyway, from this I could see that the buses for the Poyang Bus Station were on a weird spacing of times: 7am, 9.30am, 10.30am, 1pm, 2.25pm, 4.20pm, 5.20pm, and 7pm. No guarantees for anyone trying to use this information in the future, and I wouldn't recommend even going to the place I went today anyway so it'd be on your own head.
............................................
My half-formed idea of getting off the bus somewhere along the way came to nothing because almost the whole way was on a raised motorway, and almost none of the trip was passing the lake shore. However I did see a small group of Siberian Cranes at a distance in a field, identifiable by being huge and white. These were the only Siberian Cranes I saw this day! I also saw a family group of White-naped Cranes and a flock of Black Storks. All the other birds the bus passed were unidentifiable on account of being ducks and geese too far away to tell.
The ride took two hours as scheduled, and I then spent some time trying to find out the return times for the buses to Nanchang, and whether there was a bus to the Wetland Park. That green bus right outside the station goes to the Wetland Park I was told. Well, it wasn't that green bus, but another bus coming along shortly.
The timetables posted at bus stops in China have all the stops printed on them which is handy (the final stop for this bus was the Wetland Park itself) but they don't have any actual times on them. If you ask people what time the next bus is coming, you get either vague or contradictory answers. I could have taken a taxi but a) I didn't know how far the place was (there are multiple pins with that name scattered around the map of Lake Poyang), and b) I'm set in my ways that if there is a bus then I'm taking that bus! Also, with hindsight, if I'd had to pay for a taxi to get out there I would have been even more annoyed in the end than I was!
Eventually the bus arrived at 1pm. The cost for the half-hour ride to the Wetland Park was just 2 Yuan.
So far everything was going fine. Even the long wait for the bus wasn't a bother because there was still a lot of the day left, even if it meant I'd be getting back to Nanchang late in the evening.
At the reception of the Wetland Park I was surprised that the entry fee was 155 Yuan. That's about two nights accommodation for me. But the eBird list for the Lake Poyang National Wetland Park has 212 species on it, with counts of hundreds of individuals for many of the species, so I knew I was going to be seeing loads of birds, especially Siberian Cranes.
Once through the entrance building I came to a shuttle-bus area marked as a "sightseeing bus". I'm looking around but there aren't any maps to show where the bus goes - there is a map on the back of the ticket but it is illegible due to the tiny size. Would it be better for me to walk, or are the bird areas too distant? I went back to the entrance to ask if they have a map.
They did have a map, quite a large map, so I took a photo of it. Then I ran into the usual problem where when I ask where we are right now on the map, I get a different answer from everyone at the counter. I ask where the "sightseeing bus" goes and get confusing answers. Basically I don't understand the layout of the map because I've never been here before, and none of the people who work there understand the map either. I decided to just take the bus and see where it goes.
Where it goes, it turned out, is down a path for less than a minute where it stops at a dock. I get on a boat with a bunch of local tourists and it sets off onto the lake. There is a video playing showing all the birds and habitat one might expect when coming to a Wetland Park at Lake Poyang, but which it transpired one should absolutely not expect at this particular Wetland Park.
The lake was flat-calm and empty. Imagine taking a boat across a reservoir. It was as interesting as that. The ride was half an hour. Up ahead on the shore I could see a large structure which looked very much like an aviary. I had a look at my photo of the map. There was a picture of some cranes next to what I had thought was a bridge but now looked like an aviary. I had a bad feeling.
Sure enough, when the boat docked it was next to a giant walk-through aviary in which I could see domestic ducks, geese and doves. The other people from the boat excitedly headed for the aviary to feed the ducks. I walked past it, following the path, and found a locked gate blocking access to the road beyond. I asked a security guard if I could walk along the road and he gestured to a walkway which went overhead to the other side. Ah, excellent. Onto the other side I went, where I found a short loop of a path by a mudhole which had a couple of Mallards in it, and an expanse of dry lake bed with a large flock of domestic Chinese Geese being fed by more visitors. The road was also fenced off on this side. There was literally nowhere to go.
I wandered around the path a couple of times, feeling at a bit of a loss. There was a Long-tailed Shrike and a couple of White Wagtails. Way in the distance I could see some water but there was no way to get past the fences blocking me in here. I was pretty angry now, having spent all day getting here and then paying 155 Yuan just to take a boat for half an hour to an aviary.
I'm not someone who normally asks for their money back - usually I'm just like "oh well, that sucked" and move along while grumbling to myself - but this time I did. I was so ticked off that when I got back to the entrance I headed straight for the counter. It didn't do any good of course.
"There are swans and cranes" was the reply when I said there were no wetlands and no birds there.
"They're in an aviary!" I exclaimed (if exclaimed is the right word to use when I'm typing on a phone - it sort of reduces the impact!).
"That's all there is there"
"Then why do you call yourself the National Wetland Park?"
"A wetland is defined as a place with water" was the infuriating response.
There was really only one good thing which came from the day (well, I mean I did see some cranes from the bus on the way there, but they were too brief to be enthralling even if they were lifers - luckily I saw both species again the next day). The one good thing was that there was a family from Shanghai on the bus back to Poyang who spoke English and they informed me that to get to Baihezhou - one of the main viewing sites for Siberian Cranes - I could get a train from Nanchang to Yugan and then a taxi from there would be an hour, so considerably shorter and cheaper than if I took one all the way from Nanchang which had been going to be my plan for the next day.
