Exploring Lantau (4 Viewers)

Yes, that doesn't make too shabby of a year....

MKinHK said:

... Anyway, for all the Long Valley fans out there . . . I was back there again last Saturday in hot pursuit of yet another Hong Kong lifer. This time the target was a pleasingly pale and streaky Pine Bunting - Hong Kong's first record - which appears to have navigated the twin pitfalls of suspicion of escape and hybridisation ...

Click to expand...

Mike, Pine Bunting is a breathtaking record. Congratulations! 30 Yellow-breasted Buntings also sounds very good, though I'm judging by Shanghai's standard; I think they're less frequently seen here (I've seen 1 here this fall).

Thanks Craig - Long Valley has certainly been wonderful this year!

My knackered leg - although now recovering - has put a dent in my Lantau birding as well, although I did have a Woodcock whilst out hobbling with the dogs on Christmas Eve and a flyaway Common Myna - Lantau tick no. 196 - on Christmas morning.

In reality this was a far from vintage year of patch birding on Lantau, with just a single HK/China Tick - Pale-legged Leaf Warbler - and little of the excitement or quality birds of the year before. However the overseas trips (Kl, Sabah, Lijiang, Sri Lanka and Mexico) and the off-Lantau twitching (Chiffchaff, Barred Cuckoo Dove, Blyth's Reed Warbler, White-browed Crake, Crow-billed Drongo, Pallas's Reed and Pine Buntings) have been very good, so I'm not complaining for a second!

Merry Christmas to everyone who follows and contributes to the thread and best wishes for 2015.

Cheers
Mike

Finally got back to my sadly neglected patch at Tai O yesterday morning, but rather than exploring the Shaolin Valley I fancied a bash tough some edge habitats and explored a path going up river just where the road emerges from the hills.

This started well as a first winter Grey-backed Thrush flew into low bushy tree right next to me, and an abandoned field of dragon fruit plants produced a female Daurian Redstart, Dusky Warbler and a pair of Red-billed Blue Magpies that flew right over my head from across the valley and landed in a pine tree with understated discretion of the crasser type of TV game show host - cackling, whistling, chattering and squealing for all they were worth. Brilliant!

I also enjoyed the fishponds and woodland edge on the other side of the road. An magnificent adult Grey Heron with its bill starting to take on the full rich orange yellow of the breeding season, picking through a shallow algae choked pond as half a dozen Silky Starlings explored shoreline beneath the mangroves on the far bank A pristine Eurasian Magpie swooped down to feed along the path before itself investigating the algae for goodies, and a pair of leucopsis White Wagtails dropped into feed on the mat and a Common Kingfisher dropped into a patch of open water before perching, fishless, on a rusty old gate frame.

As I headed along the edge of the ponds a male Daurian Redstart was lurking among the graves beneath the trees and high up on the rock-strewn hillside an Eastern Buzzard lots patience with the Large-billed Crows that were bugging it in its pine tree, and flapped grumpily away. This quiet corner provided a delightful hour as Japanese White-eyes, a Black-faced Bunting, and Yellow-Bellied Prinia foraged through the mangroves in front of me and the fruit-laden turn-in-the-wind trees behind, a White-breasted Waterhen pootled by below.

The top birds here were a mystery caller across the pond,(for which the best current guess is Wryneck) that I never got eyes on, a curious female Daurian Redstart that clearly found me irresistible, and the Crested Bulbul that dropped down onto a lantana just behind me to feed on the emerging berries.

I continued round to the steps up to the upper portions of the cemetery, hearing but not seeing lots of thrushes before an Emerald Dove shot up off the path, a Brown-flanked Bush Warbler and a an Asian Stubtail both ticked me off for intruding into their domain, and just my second and third Red-flanked Bluetails of the winter appeared deep in a thicket.

Cheers
Mike

I've been meaning to try something different on Lantau for a while, so this morning I birded the northern slopes of Sunset Peak - one of the two 800+ metre mountains that form the peak of the long spine of the island.

I started at Wong Lung Hang, a village at the entrance to a steep-sided valley that wiggles outwards from the edge of Tung Chung and around the northern and eastern edge of Sunset Peak.

All Hong Kong birders know the value of a nice concrete flood control channel, and this was no exception - immediately delivering two different ocularis White Wagtails, a Grey Wagtail, a Chinese Blackbird and both Yellow-browed and Dusky Warbler. This area always seems to hold Large-billed Crows, and today there were at least 15 soaring overhead and playing the noisy fool.

A Water Service Department Road winds through some mature scrubland with a few larger trees and eventually leads to a small park, with the rocky riverbed hidden behind the trees on the left. Owing to dog-walking duties I didn't get here until gone 0900 and, in addition to the hikers, joggers, cyclists and healthy shouters the birds had calmed down from the first rush of the dawn chorus and it was not until I'd walked in some 20 minutes that I came across a group of five exceptionally tame Olive-backed Pipits picking their way along the verge and heard an Emerald Dove give its deep throaty "whoooop . whoooop" call.

I also picked up my first Japanese Thrush of the day - a rather chunky and big-billed female that showed exactly not long enough for me to get a picture before being flushed by an old dude with a transistor radio blaring out Chinese operatic folk songs.

I tried a few of the side paths with limited success - flushing a thrush sp., hearing a probable Pale-legged/Sakhalin Leaf Warbler, seeing a Pallas's Leaf Warbler and a Yellow-browed Warbler with an excitingly grey head thatI nonetheless failed to string into something more exciting. I finally followed a path going uphill to a mini-catchment dam and beyond that found a small path heading directly uphill through a wonderful stand of some sort of shrub with beautiful pink bell-shaped flowers that were heaving with bees and Japanese White-eyes. This turned into quite a scramble as the path twisted up a ridge for a three hundred-odd metres, before I emerged on top to find a House Swift and my second Barn Swallow of the spring zipping past.

There was a path from this hill onto a contour path along the northern slope of Sunset Peak which took me through better forest, with tangles of creepers, boulder beds and a couple of small streams. At the first stream a female Red-flanked Bluetail popped up and flicked away into the undergrowth and a pair of Cinerous Tits scolded their way across the clearing. Just behind them a dark shape in a bush moved and then began the wonderful mixture of loud whistles and growls that is the highly evocative signature of an excited Black-throated Laughingthrush. Responding to my whistling three birds bounced up into the top of the thicket where I could see they looked like the distinctive dark-cheeked chocolate-brown form that is only supposed to occur on Hainan. As they peered out at me I was also able to see the black face and throat and short white band across the forecrown that really stands out in the gloom of the forest. Sadly they were too nervous to come any closer and I didn't manage any pix, but this was a wonderful Lantau tick in a superb setting. Adding to the moment a pair of Hwameis sneaked in behind me and began a shouting match with the laughing thrushes.

If that were not enough a couple of minutes later I pushed under a tangle and as I came up the other side a flash of red face and red tail flipping up off a twisting creeper perched, turned to face me and confirmed itself as a magnificent male Japanese Robin, complete with a dark grey breast band under the full red bib! I used to see these pretty regularly, especially near the waterfalls at Ng Tung Chai, but I believe this is the first Lantau record of this rare but regular winer visitor. Having given me a thorough looking over the robin melted away into the undergrowth and was replaced by a curious Brown-flanked Bush Warbler.

The path eventually hit the Wong Lung Hang Nature Trail, which had a couple of fruiting trees about a third of the way down. In about 20 minutes I counted at least three and possibly four Japanese Thrushes, an adult male and a first winter male Grey-backed Thrush, a Pale Thrush and a male Chinese Blackbird. It looked extremely promising, and I hope the fruit will last for a few more days as I plan to come back over the next few days.

The walk back from Wong Lung Hank Park added a couple of Asian Stubtails calling in the roadside bushes and a sixth Japanese Thrush that was foraging close to where I had seen the female on my way in on what turned out to be a terrific morning's birding.

Cheers
Mike

Having resisted the urge to twitch the reported White-capped Redstart found at Pak Mong (just a few km from Discovery Bay) since Thursday I determined to make best of Sunday morning to see if the bird, which had been reported as showing no cage damage and acting like a wild bird, was still present at the site I started this thread with two years ago.

The HKBWS Records Committee takes a very conservative approach to vagrant passerines, generally assuming that certain species, especially those that are known to be traded, are escapes. However, to give credit where it is due, the Committee has raised a few species that it formerly considered to be escapes to fully wild status in recent years. The most recent of these is White-tailed Robin which, like White-capped Redstart, is found in the bird trade, but also winters SE China. Since this bird was found in good habitat and at a time of year when it could certainly be a relocating wild bird I felt it was worth the effort to go and look for it.

It was a thoroughly grotty day, with a turgid mixture of fog, overcast skies, an evil taint of smog and the promise of rain which made the ten minute walk through the woods dark and frustrating, although I did pick up the back end of a fleeing Pale Thrush and heard an Asian Stubtail deep in the gloom.

The bird had been found close to the bridge over the channelised stream just before Pak Mong village, but when I arrived it was nowhere to be seen, and nor were any other birders. After checking downstream and finding a female Daurian Redstart and a second Pale Thrush I explored further up and immediately got onto a flycatcher sp. that, in the gloom looked very much like Red-throated, perched on a rock in the stream, that however showed that showed remarkably little white in the tail when it flew.

More positively, I did also find the White-capped Redstart which was busy hunting among the rocks in the unchanelised portion of stream, flashing an unusually thin white cap (certainly compared to birds I've seen elsewhere, on which the cap extends right across the crown) rather than showing as a rather broad central crown stripe with unruly tufts of black feathers breaking up the edge, especially on the fore-crown.

The rest of the bird was very much as expected, a large and rather heavy redstart, with a black head (plus shining white cap, as above), breast, back, wings and the lower half of the tail, while the belly, flanks, rump and upper half of the tail was a deep rich red. It was not overly concerned with my presence and over the course of the forty odd minutes I watched it it must have come to within 10 metres to check me out before continuing its hunt, allowing me take some reasonable photos and a short video clip.

As far as I could tell it showed no sign of cage damage, and the ensuing discussion from those who have seen the bird or the pix and video seems to be in agreement.

Other birds in the same area included a fine male Daurian Redstart, a Grey Wagtail, a Red-flanked Bluetail, a washing Pallas's Leaf Warbler and a Pale Thrush that flushed up from the stream bed close to me feet. A little further afield the heavily overgrown pineapple fields produced a flock of 40-odd White-rumped Munias, and four female Black-faced Buntings and another female Daurian Redstart, plus a fine stand of pitcher plants at the top of the valley.

With no public transport to get back from Pak Mong I walked along the side of the highway and did remarkably well, finding two male Japanese Thrushes, another male and another female Daurian Redstart, three more Black-faced Buntings and a trio of Pallas's Leaf Warblers in the scrappy roadside trees.

Cheers
Mike

A windy day on Sunset Peak to further explore the forest delivered in grand style this morning!

I caught the bus up to Pak Kung Au, the pass between Sunset and Lantau Peaks, saving myself some 300-odd metres of climbing and started heading for the top of Sunset Peak. I had been hoping to find a way round the northern slope to connect with the contour path I followed on Sunday, but that didn't work at all, except . . . as I explored one of the paths I scanned across the slopes across the valley and spotted large amounts of white droppings on several of the boulders on the slope.

This encouraged me to look more carefully - even though plenty of Black Kites soar over these slopes there were none present today - and peering into an overhang a couple of hundred metres away a narrow white shape turned out to be the white throat patch of an Eurasian Eagle Owl hunched on a ledge!

Even though Eagle Owl is a rare resident this was just my fourth in 20 years here and just the second I've found myself, so this was a great way to start the day.

Birdwise there wasn't much more after this - a Rufous-tailed Robin (somehow, my first of the winter!) along the trail that had held the Japanese Robin on Saturday and a possible Mountain Bulbul, that showed exactly not enough to allow a confirmation. The forest looked terrific, but clearly needs better conditions to be more productive.

I did however enjoy being up in the mountain grasslands at 800 metres in the clouds and the wind, and I look forward to coming back on a brighter day to search for the Upland Pipits, Chinese Grassbirds and Chinese Francolins that are lurking up here.

Cheers
Mike

Tht's a huge score Mike! Certainly you have the "Hawk Eyes", Eagle owls in rocky habitat are very tricky even for a trained pair of eyes.

Last but not least, "Gong Hei Fat Choi". ;-)

Congrats Mike ! Wonderful bird. And what Dev. said *party time*.

Many thanks gents - with all the owls you guys saw in the northern wastes I was starting to feel the need to "keep up with the Joneses"!

I was out again this morning, this time walking along the catchment on the southern slopes of Sunset Peak before dropping down to Pui O for my first visit of the year. It was hard work at first - with only half a dozen White-rumped Munias, a Grey Wagtail and a solitary first winter male Grey-backed Thrush choosing to cooperate until I began to drop down into Pui O, where a Rufous-tailed Robin (the floodgates have clearly opened!) and a female Daurian Redstart emerged in response to my pishing. At least half a dozen other thrushes refused to play ball.

As I entered the little wood along the stream that feeds Pui O a slithering in a depression full of leaves and a couple of feet of disappearing tail was a stomach-twitching reminder that snakes like to sunbathe on warm winter days. . .

The first decent bird was a fine male Pale Thrush in the leaf litter by one of the ruined houses, closely followed by a winter-plumaged lugens White Wagtail on the short grass, which flew away flashing its bright white, black-tipped wings, and a female Verditerflycatching from the tops of the bushes.

Right after the Verditer popped up nine Pacific Swifts scythed over and then lingered to feed, along with a couple of Barn Swallows, while other bird and pieces included two Chinese Blackbirds, a Eurasian Buzzard, a male Daurian Redstart, half-a-dozen Cattle Egrets, three taivana Yellow Wagtails, and a male Magpie Robin including an excellent impression of a Rubythroat's barking cal in its song.

The final bird was an extremely approachable Scaly-breasted Munia feeding on grass flowers on the ground. They are often pretty tame, but few birds allow approach to within five feet!

Cheers,
Mike

Some nice sightings Mike! Interesting shot of the snipe too. I was enjoying the Scaly-breasted Munias in Thailand recently - nice markings and a fun social bird to watch.

This video by HK birder Martin Williams gives a nice overview of Tai O and Yi O and includes some of the common bird species.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6l9U-DQmlo

Cheers
Mike

MKinHK said:

This video by HK birder Martin Williams gives a nice overview of Tai O and Yi O and includes some of the common bird species.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6l9U-DQmlo

Cheers
Mike

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Mike,

Thanks for bringing our attention to this. It was very interesting. What was the bunting at about 5.15?

Hi Allen

I'll give you a clue - the bunting is on the British list, but there are just two records, both in the last ten years.

A late start saw me arriving in Tai O at around 1015 on a bright sunny morning following the lifting of a dawn fog. I was hopeful for a migrant flycatcher or two, but the Shaolin Valley was extremely quiet, with not a hint of a bird until I climbed a path up the left side which allows me to see over the tree tops and the grassy slopes.

A couple of dull-looking buntings tsipped and flipped away, and later turned out to be two female Black-faced Buntings. However it was looking pretty quiet, with a Long-tailed Shrike, the usual small party of Sooty-headed Bulbuls and the resident pair of White-throated Kingfishers zipping past being the rather meagre offerings.

All that changed when a flycatcher showing a startling splash of red on the breast and throat popped up in a pine tree above me. Happily expecting a nice Mugimaki Flycatcher I raised my bins and was stunned to see it had a dove grey head and neck framing the red throat - a pattern that for a brief second recalled Alashan Redstart - before reality kicked in and I realised I was looking at a stunning adult male Red-breasted or Red-throated Flycatcher.

Having never seen either in this brilliant plumage before I looked hard for the diagnostic pale base to the lower mandible but the bird was always too far away. What I could see was a substantial extension of the red throat down to a broken line on the white breast with peachy-buff sides - all good features for Red-breasted. Also, it didn't show any hint of a grey band under the red on the breast, which would be typical of Red-throated.

Looking at the bird at eye level things became a bit less clear-cut. I could see the top of the hood was tinged brown but the ear coverts and cheeks were grey in all lights. There was also a hint of pale lores in one of the dodgy pix I took. One of these suggests that the base of the lower mandible may be paler, but I'm glad that I don't have to rely on this feature alone.

The bird showed on and off for about thirty minutes, the great majority of time hunting in and from the crowns of the pines, and only descending into the upper branches of some of the lower trees in the valley a couple of times - which according to an analysis of these species from Korea is apparently another good feature for Red-breasted on migration - Red-throated tend to hunt low to, and even on, the ground.

The only back-on views I had were rather distant allowing no strong opinion about the contrast or otherwise of the rump and uppertail coverts. What can be said is that the back never looked cold-toned.

My conclusion, after studying various field guides and online pix is that this is a second summer male Red-breasted Flycatcher (based on the brown tints on the crown and the rather dark bill - which are shown by a couple of pix of male birds from the UK in October.I've added a couple of pix, but please note the second really does not show the extent of red on the breast as the bird is slightly turned away.

The only other good bird was a Rufous-tailed Robin which showed briefly in the orchard a bit further along the path to the Heritage Hotel, where I saw nothing else at all.

If that was not enough that evening I followed up on some gen from Discovery Bay neighbour Kevin Laurie, who has been seeing Savanna Nightjars up by the reservoir in the evening and early mornings recently.

At 6:15 he picked me up a we drove up to the spot. Three minutes later a bird started calling and after a minute or so flew directly over our heads providing wonderful views of broad white bands on the inner primaries and broad white tail sides in the last vestiges of light before darkness fell. For the next forty minutes we had up to 4 birds flying and calling around us, including some that must have come to within 10 metres - close enough to see the bill opening as they called. Amongst these was a less well-marked bird that was most likely a female, as it seemed to be being pursued by a couple of the male birds.

Other birds adding to the night's chorus included a couple of Chinese Francolins, a a Hwamei, a Lesser Coucal, a Collared Scops Owl and my first Large Hawk Cuckoo of the spring. You can hear a short recording here:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10155283019460333&pnref=story

Driving over to see if we could get closer to the cuckoo we stopped at the edge of the dam, where this lovely Bamboo Snake (aka White-lipped Pit Viper - what was the taxonomist thinking!) posed nicely for pix before oozing back into cover.

Next morning the heavy fog and a light drizzle dropped a lovely adult male White-shouldered Starling onto one of the waterfront trees as I was walking the dogs, while this morning's walk was blessed with a Common Kingfisher and a lingering Dusky Warbler.

Cheers
Mike

Congrats on the Red-throated Flycatcher, Mike ! Gorgeous snake too !

Now where are those Francolin shots ?

Many thanks Kevin.

Actually the Red-breasted Flycatcher was a bigger deal than I realised, at it was my 200th species on Lantau.

A quieter morning at Pui O with little in the way of migrants, but the typical spread of wetland species was enjoyable, and provided a few pictures.

First up was this Grey Wagtail which popped up off the stream and unusually perched on a branch and posed to check me out.

Out on the marsh there were three or four Little Egrets, half-a-dozen Cattle Egrets among the Water Buffalo, including a couple most of the way into breeding plumage, and a magnificent Intermediate Egret.

Others included singles of Richard's, Olive-backed and Red-throated Pipits plus a superb simillimaYellow Wagtail and a taivana Yellow Wagtail that ws coming into summer plumage.

A Large Hawk Cuckoo was calling over the other side of the river and the highlight of the day was an Osprey which flew over carrying an unfortunate fish is the approved two-footed head forward grip. Above it an Eastern Buzzard circled a few times before drifting off.

And that was pretty much it, apart from the Lantern Bug - one of three on a knurled old lychee tree, and my first this year.

Cheers
Mike

Congrats on the Lantau milestone, Mike! When did they start making those hats for the Puffer Fish?

Mike, excellent Egret comparison shot there. Well done!

Thanks Tom - I was delighted how well that shot came out!

Friday was probably my least productive day's birding (and certainly during what should be a peak migration week) at both the Roundabout AND Tai O!

An hour at the Magic Roundabout between 7am and 8am - a much better time than my usual lunchtime circuit - netted a single Yellow-browed Warbler and a couple of Richard's Pipits on the golf course. So far so bad, but I then headed off to Tai O where two hours of birding delivered one Little Bunting, one Zitting Cisticola and a Richard's Pipit, although there was some redemption in the form of a rather distant Chinese White Dolphin. And it wasn't just me - John Allcock walked round the southwest tip from Shek Pik to Tai O via Fan Lau and only managed a couple of Ashy Minivets - in a 16K hike!

So, having done my duty to the patch, I set off on my first big twitch of the year yesterday afternoon in pursuit of Hong Kong's first Ijima's Leaf Warbler - which had been found on Po Toi last Sunday and seen again on Tuesday and Friday.

Ijima's Warbler has a tiny distribution, being confined to two small sets of islands (the Izu Islands to the south of Tokyo and the Tokara Islands near Kyushu in southern Japan) and its wintering grounds are thought, but not proven to be, in the Philippines. The bird was named after a leading Japanese zoologist, Isao Ijima, by Stejneger (of Stonechat fame), who also has various subspecies named after him including Copper Pheasant, Sand Martin, Japanese Bush Warbler, Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker and a now subsumed race of Varied Tit. Something of an all-rounder, Ijima was also an expert on leeches and sponges, and was known to enjoy a pipe and a glass of wine.

About ten other birders were on the 0810 ferry from Aberdeen. This can produce birds, and today delivered my first Red-necked Phalaropes of the year. A flock of five that took off from the sea surface and flew away southeast about 20 minutes out from Po Toi.

It was apparent as soon as we landed on the island that this was not a day of major passage, and the fear was that the gentle southerly winds and clears skies overnight both might induce the Warbler to make a run for it. Two hour later it wasn't looking good and there were precious few other birds by way of distraction - a couple of singing Yellow-browed Warblers, a Rufous-tailed Robin giving its Dabchick trill in deep cover and a similarly uncooperative Siberian Rubythroat. My struggle to find something to look at was cut short by a message from Geoff Welch, telling me that the bird had been seen in the same spot it had performed in yesterday, so I headed back for another stressful forty minutes before, to my relief and delight, it was picked up close behind me and I was immediately able to get onto it and start drinking in the features of this unexpectedly distinctive phyllosc.

Despite being something of a thicket skulker my first view was from below allowing me to see its rather broad and distinctively long all-yellow lower mandible to perfection, along with an unexpectedly bright white underparts, with just a hint of yellow on the undertail coverts. It also had a distinctive white eyeing (broken in front of and behind the eye by the eyestripe )and straight supercilium in a predominantly blue-grey head.

As it moved about and fed in the mid-story over the next 30 minutes I was also able to see the brighter green tinge to the edges of the primaries but could not pick up the very faint wing bar shown in a few of the photos. I've included a dodgy record shot, but top quality images can be found on the HKBWS website (here).

After that I stumbled around in the heat adding a Pallas's Leaf Warbler, a male Japanese Thrush and a female Ashy Minivet, but these were minor garnishes to the stunning main course!

Cheers
Mike

Love the harbor shot, Mike. Perfect composition with the Star Ferry.