The Magic Roundabout (2 Viewers)

MKinHK · Apr 24, 2014

Thanks Gretchen - do go through the BF thread of the SX50 - it saves a world of trouble in getting the setting right.

Even though the Roundabout itself was bird-free on Tuesday lunchtime I did add two glowing Cattle Egrets from the morning bus, four Pacific Swifts and a couple of Barn Swallows overhead and both Richard's Pipit and another Oriental Pratincole on the golf course.

Today (Thursday) was a different story altogether. After a couple of days of rain, easterlies and grim skies I immediately picked up a non-breeding Chinese Pond Heron, my first Brown Shrike of the year and just my second ever Black-winged Cuckooshrike on the Core Area.

Even better was to come on the Eastern Tangle, where first an unidentified brown passerine zipped away, then a Common Tailorbird and then a "zip" in the bushes set hopes soaring . . . and on the third time a superb male Chestnut Bunting (119) appeared on a bare branch of an acacia sapling and sat there for a good minute, allowing me to get a couple of pix of the Roundabout's first ever bunting.

An Asian Brown Flycatcher on the Northern Edge wrapped up the birds on the Roundabout proper, but there was more quality on the golf course in the form of a Pacific Golden Plover with a fine black front, a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper and another patch tick, a macronyx Yellow Wagtail on the fairway close to the water.

Cheers
Mike

MKinHK · Apr 29, 2014

Monday 28th April
The roundabout is a riot of yellow at the moment. A good half of the trees are a taiwanese acacia that has thousands of tiny yellow pom pom flowers that I hope make the roundabout hugely attractive to day-flying migrants.

Yesterday's highlights were a fine male Red Turtle Dove that was in the other yellow flowers - of the banksia - along with a bunch of Crested Mynas, the first House Swift of the year and best of all I flushed my first Grey Wagtail (121) up from the carpark on the Northern Edge. Two Richard's Pipits were still on the golf course.

Tuesday 29th April
A swift 45 minute session at lunch today produced a Brown Shrike on the Eastern Tangle, the leucopsis x alboides White Wagtail and a Grey Wagtail again in the carpark on the Northern Edge and best of all, and probably bird of the spring, a fine Little Curlew on the golf course!

Geoff Carey, who found the December bird, had been round the course this morning and seen 5 Black-faced Buntings (one I still need for the patch) and 15 Yellow Wagtails (taivana would also have been a new taxon). Neither of these showed for me, but the Little Curlew, perfectly silhouetted against the fountain, and seemingly untroubled by the golfers, was a very nice self-found claw-back for the patch.

Cheers
Mike

thirudevaram · Apr 29, 2014

Little Curlew again? Damn, Let me ask Kevin to revive his golfing skills, time to visit some golf courses. Nice shot of the Chestnut Bunting, Mike.

MKinHK · May 3, 2014

. . .and again Dev! The Little Curlew was again on the golf course at lunchtime yesterday on a decent day which also included a splendid 27 Brown Shrikes, two Arctic Warblers, four simillima Yellow Wagtails and a glowing male Stejneger's Stonechat.

The last two were new for the quarter and brought my total to 55, making this the second best quarter ever on the Roundabout - despite it seeming to be a rather slow spring.

For the sake of completeness, I should also add that on Tuesday I had eleven Brown Shrikes, three Arctic Warblers, a Dusky Warbler and a distant Yellow Wagtail of indeterminate race.

Cheers,
Mike

MKinHK · Jul 22, 2014

After almost three months of neglect its long overdue time to get back in the saddle with this thread. Not that there have been many birds, but sheer boredom did push me out along the walkway that overlooks the golf course on Thursday last week. The highlight was a House Swift - perhaps the most elusive of the resident species around the airport - swooping low over one the golf course ponds, but I did also get a Long-tailed Shrike and four or five flyover Little Egrets. There have also been one or two Great Egrets hanging around the reclamation works I see fem the bus, and the first sign of autumn passage was a couple of small plovers flying over the road last Friday afternoon.

A summary of the last quarter is also long overdue:

I recorded 55 species in 11 surveys, of which just four - Chestnut Bunting, simillima Yellow Wagtail, Grey Wagtail and Brown-headed Thrush - were new for my patch list. This was my second-highest total - beating the same period last year (16 visits) into third place by a single species, but my lowest total of new species. May birding was curtailed by my trip to Sabah and a general HK-wide lack of birds in late May that provided a strong disincentive to get out and go birding in the heat.

Top bird was undoubtedly the Little Curlew on the golf course, which I was delighted to add to my self-found list.

Cheers
Mike

MKinHK · Aug 7, 2014

A speculative walk to check the golf course for waders turned into a rather longer walk as the fresh(ish) northerly winds enticed me to walk a bit further round the patch this lunchtime.

There was nothing on the golf course except three distant and presumably leucopsis White Wagtails, plus a few Crested Mynas, Tree Sparrows and a Black-necked Starling - but I did have a Spotted Munia yesterday a and a Sooty-headed Bulbul last week.

The male leucopsis x alboides White Wagtail was mooching around the garbage trucks with more Tree Sparrows and a Magpie Robin, but the real prize was on the Western Tangle, where, after a couple of false alarms with Great Tit, Crested and Chinese Bulbuls and a couple of Japanese White-eyes a juvenile Yellow-rumped Flycatcher - a genuine autumn migrant! - flipped up onto a branch and checked me out for a few seconds.

This bird is 14 days earlier than my first record here last autumn and comfortably my earliest ever in Hong Kong.

Cheers
Mike

PS - just checked the 2102 HK Bird Report - turns out that until last year this was the earliest autumn record of Yellow-rumped Flycatcher by ten days - last year two were at Mai Po on 2nd August.

MKinHK · Aug 20, 2014

After two days over which I managed a mere 9 species (Crested Myna, Tree Sparrow, Crested Bulbul, Oriental Magpie Robin, Large-billed Crow, Common Tailorbird, Spotted Dove, White Wagtail and Little Egret) which hopefully marks the nadir of this year's birding, I finally got a return for my efforts today as an adult Pacific Golden Plover, two Little Ringed Plovers and three Barn Swallows were making the best of a rather waterlogged golf course.

There were also six White Wagtails including the freshly moulted and devilishly handsome leucopsis x alboides hybrid.

With no let-up in the weather I'm expecting more migrants to drop in over the next few days and dreaming of something to match the quality of the Ferruginous Duck currently entertaining low listers, photographers and other lesser life-forms on the Mai Po Access Road. OK, OK That's just the grip-factor talking - some terrific shots of this smart-looking bird are on the HKBWS bulletin board.

Cheers
Mike

MKinHK · Aug 21, 2014

The Roundabout was a disappointing blank today, but a Blue Rock Thrush at the western end of the south runway was a nice early autumn record for the airport.

Cheers
Mike

MKinHK · Aug 26, 2014

Monday was another blank, but HK's first Brown Shrike of the autumn was on the Eastern Tangle before being hustled off by a typically territorial Long-tailed Shrike.

Other than that a Barn Swallow flew across the road near the garbage truck park, a House Swift was again over the golf course ponds and the Leucopsis x alboides White Wagtail was again on the golf course.

Cheers
Mike

MKinHK · Aug 28, 2014

Despite the rainstorms overnight and during the morning there were no passerines today, but two Barn Swallows were hunting low over the golf course and a superb Black-winged Stilt (122) was stalking one of the fairways - the first new species of the quarter - while a Little Ringed Plover poked about in the foreground.

Cheers
Mike

thirudevaram · Aug 29, 2014

Hang in there, Mike. Folks are just pouring in here.

MKinHK · Aug 29, 2014

A rather scruffy immature Greater Coucal flew over the bus just as it went past the Scenic Hill this morning. Apart from that the Roundabout was migrant free at lunchtime, but I'll post a few pix from the last couple of days.

And another tantalising piece of news - one of my colleagues had a Eurasian Eagle Owl over the Scenic Hill while doing a frog survey on 10th July . . .

Cheers
Mike

MKinHK · Sep 1, 2014

Thunderstorms on Sunday and rain overnight delivered a flock of 9 taivana Yellow Wagtails onto the very nearest corner of the golf course.

The Eastern Tangle finally delivered its second migrant of the autumn - a fine Asian Paradise Flycatcher. Trying by failing to photograph it was extremely frustrating, especially as getting shots of these wonderful birds is one of my targets of the autumn.

The only other bird of interest was a Barn Swallow seen from the bus on my way in this morning.

Cheers
Mike

MKinHK · Sep 6, 2014

Another tough week on the roundabout finished with some reward in the shape of a nicely photogenic Brown Shrike on the core area on Friday.

Other bits and pieces of biodiversity included this fine chunky spider and one of the blues.

Cheers
Mike

MKinHK · Sep 8, 2014

Passage seemed to really kick off today as more overnight rain and a mid-morning squall dropped the first Pale-legged/Sakhalin Leaf Warbler of the year into the Western Tangle, and a potentially very interesting flycatcher onto the core area. I barely got eyes onto this bird, but I did hear it call a couple of times - giving a slow broken rattle.

Checking on Xeno Canto this appears to fit best for Brown-chested Jungle Flycatcher - one of my top target species for this time of year, but its difficult to do too much with a couple of calls so I had a brief and unsuccessful look after work and put it out as a "possible". There is a superb photo of a bird photographed just 100-odd KM north in Guangzhou yesterday on the HKBWS website.

Other migrants in the Core Area included what was most likely Friday's Brown Shrike and three flyover Barn Swallows heading purposefully west. Two extra bonus birds were an overflying juvenile Chinese Pond Heron and a fine male White-shouldered Starling which exploded raucously out of one of the trees on the Grassy Patch as I heeded in for a late lunch.

Cheers
Mike

McMadd · Sep 8, 2014

B-c J-f is just an evil bird!

Sorry I didn't manage to make contact Mike...the days just flew by in the end!

McMadd · Sep 17, 2014

A couple of shots from around the airport for you Mike:

Long-tailed Shrike dark phase
Red-whiskered Bulbul

Both from the area immediately outside the Marriott

cheers
Mark

MKinHK · Sep 18, 2014

Nice bulbul pix Mark.

Today, after a very quiet few days, when the highlight was a flyover Chinese Pond Heron, I went anti-clockwise around the roundabout, and started with four macronyx Yellow Wagtails strutting and bobbing across the more distant fairways on the golf course.

The Northern Edge was showing the ravages of the typhoon that went through on Monday night/ Tuesday morning, and as a result it was much easier to see into the shady parts under the trees. First up was a tail-pumping Sakhalin / Pale-legged Leaf Warbler which thoroughly enjoyed toying with me as I completely failed to get a decent shot of it, so I was delighted when my third Yellow-rumped Flycatcher of the autumn flipped across the top of the slope and settled on a shady branch and flashed its fine double wing-bar.

The sea watch point came up trumps - delivering no birds whatsoever, but compensating magnificently with a fine pair of adult Chinese White Dolphins which teased me almost as well as the leaf warbler - before leaving me with the very merest flash of a dorsal fin.

The Tangles were empty, but the Core Area supplemented the goodies of the Nothern Edge with Asian Brown, Grey-streaked (just my second here) and my very first Dark-sided Flycatcher (123) - for the Roundabout - all in the same group of trees in less than five minutes!

With just 12 days to go I'm on 35 species for the quarter, and need eight more to avoid this being the worst ever quarter.

Cheers
Mike

PS Pix to follow.

MKinHK · Sep 19, 2014

Another good day today as heavy still skies kept some of yesterday's quality birds on-site and dropped a range of new migrants.

The outstanding highlight of these was my first Pechora Pipit (124) for more than 15 years and my first for the Roundabout lurking in the deep shade of the Eastern Tangle, as my second Arctic Warbler of the day lurked in the branches above.

They were preceded by my best views this autumn of a Yellow-rumped Flycatcher and a very bronzy Pale-legged / Sakhalin Leaf Warbler on the Eastern Tangle and my first Arctic Warbler of the autumn on the Northern Edge plus an adult Chinese White Dolphin from the Seawatch point.

The Dark-sided Flycatcher and the Asian Brown Flycatcher were both on the Core Area and I was delighted to find a Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler and a Zitting Cisticola lurking in the uncut grass.

Autumn's hotting up . . .

Cheers
Mike

Gretchen · Sep 20, 2014

Sounds like lots of fun watching Great to see a bird for the first time in 15 years! It inspires me to be more ready for the unusual birds.

The Magic Roundabout (2 Viewers)

Mike Kilburn

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Trapped in mist ***s

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Trapped in mist ***s

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You should see the other bloke...

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