Shangri La, or Deqen, which is the city's old name, at 3.500 MASL is as close as many visitors to Yunnan get to Tibet. Many tour companies within this city organize visits to this part of China but as this is rather costly we stayed within Shangri La and its surroundings. We could still enjoy the Tibetan atmosphere for there are many Tibetans living in the city and they have their influence on it. The city is easily reached by bus from Lijiang (five hours).
We spent a couple of days in this lovely city and did several bike tours around the city, including the vast marches and plateaus that lie to the west of the city and the famous Sumtseling Monastery. The surroundings of the monastery proved to yield several Grey-backed Shrikes, Chestnut Thrush, Lesser Whistling Duck and abundant Red-billed Choughs. The marshes on the other hand held Ferruginous Ducks, Common and Green Sandpipers, Siberian Stonechats, Himalayan Wagtails and Oriental Skylarks.
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| Red-billed Chough (Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax) |
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| Chestnut Thrush (Turdus rubrocanus) |
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| Juvenile Oriental Skylark (Alauda gulgula) |
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| Grey-backed Shrike (Lanius tephronotus) |
This lovely city is again another very interesting and beautiful spot for those who do not bird, but it did not prove to be very fruitful for birds. However perhaps with more preparation and more focused searches some very interesting species might be found here. This post and other posts concerning my 2010 China trip can be downloaded as PDF
here.
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