Jianfengling National Forest Park, Hainan, China 中国 海南省 尖峰岭国家森林公园 Jiangfengling “National Forest Park” 中国 海南省 尖峰岭国家森林公园 The core area (800 to 950m) of Jianfengling is one of the best areas of tropical forest in south China. It is a reliable site for Ratchet-tailed Treepie. It was originally designated a reserve in 1957. Away from the core area the reserve area now sprawls over a range of hills with an artificial lake in the middle. There are some tourist resorts of differing prices, and cultivation (pear orchards) on the flatter ground. Much of the original habitat is damaged.
White-winged Magpies-Urocissa whiteheadi
near Ming Feng Valley
Jianfengling (JFL) compared to Bawangling (BWL) 尖峰岭与霸王岭比较 We spent six days at Bawangling in November 2005. BWL is home to the world’s rarest primate, the Hainan Gibbon, all 11 of them. The Reserve staff are naturally very protective of these, and not very visitor-oriented. They usually insist visitors are escorted all the time. There is no accommodation in BWL Nature Reserve itself, you must stay in Bawang town about 20km distant, or at a resort hotel another 7 kms out of Bawang town the other way, i.e. 27 km from the reserve. So you need the use of a daily car or taxi (expensive) to get to the birding habitat, or to ride there and back on a motorcycle (tiring at best, dangerous at worst). (To be fair to Bawangling, we saw some birds there we missed at Jiangfengling, such as Red Junglefowl, Blue-winged Minla and Large Woodshrike.) At Jianfengling, if you stay at the Tian Chi Resort (we paid RMB100 per night), you can see some of the specialty birds from right outside the rooms and most of the other woodland stuff along the boardwalk. You are free to potter along by yourself at will, and you should have a quiet couple of hours in the morning before the first bunch of day trippers turn up to tramp around the boardwalk. Even in the middle of the day, in October the number of other visitors was not many. The peak season – as for all these hill resorts - should be May to September. You would need to organise your transport into and out of Jianfengling “National Forest Park” itself, but you won’t need a car on a daily basis. The accommodation also has an open-air restaurant.
If you need any more details of any part of this report,
don’t hesitate to get in touch: johnjemi -@- gmail.com
 
However, the 1.9 km-long boardwalk around “Ming Feng” (Phoenix) Valley 鸣凤谷 near the “Tian Chi Resort” 尖峰岭天池避暑山庄 provides easy access to fine secondary woodland (elevation 900 to 1050m) with a few relict primary forest trees here and there. The last few hundred metres of the access road may turn up some good birds, too. The White-winged Magpies are forest-edge birds, and were seen along the access road twice, but NOT from the boardwalk in the woodland Streak-breasted Scimitar Babbler Ming Feng Boardwalk