Ng Tung Chai, Hong Kong (1 Viewer)

Well, I'm pretty sure I can i.d. the celery :-O - look forward to others' opinions on the bird.

Nice set of pics! Really like the Crested Serpent Eagle. Nice that the JG finally let you get a shot. I've yet to see any female grosbeak yet, and I imagine the little flock will be leaving our campus soon as the 10,000s return...

Glad the celery and lettuce were so appreciated by the northeasterners . . .

Early mornings before work have been made much more enjoyable by the Japanese Thrush which marked its fifth day this morning, the Grey-backed Thrush which is covering the same part of the veggie patch, and the Chinese Blackbird which finally posed like a champion in the papaya tree.

All of the pix are taken through green-tinted glass and had to be tinted to get something closer to a natural colour, but this is the cost of the close views I'm getting without even leaving the house.

I also got a couple more crappy pix of the phyllosc - in particular the back view showing the lack of white on the tertials. Still hoping for any wisdom on offer. . .

Cheers

Mike

It's a Yellow-browed Mike, as you suspect, extremely worn and poorly marked tertial fringing but otherwise in a similar state to this individual - http://orientalbirdimages.org/birdi...es&Bird_ID=1837&Bird_Family_ID=162&pagesize=1

Nice japanese Thrush.

MKinHK said:

Glad the celery and lettuce were so appreciated by the northeasterners . . .

Click to expand...

It's tons better than it used to be, but I'm sure you can remember, it's pretty grey up here in the winter :-O Though, I haven't recently noticed the old ornamental cabbages they used to plant up here to bring some winter color. But all our fragile trees and bushes are wrapped in red, white, and blue (or sometimes green and yellow) plastic. I guess in such a dry climate even evergreens take on an awfully grey aspect when dust covered... so you have evidence we're a bit color deprived now

As I was about to head out the door for work a small, but rather robust bird perched on the topmost branches of a leafless tree across the far side of the grassland caught my eye.

There was just enough odd about it to be worth a quick glance with the bins, but it was still pretty distant. On my initial brief views through the green-tinted glass the bill appeared to have hint of warmth about it, and I assumed it was a female Chinese Grosbeak. I headed for the door, and had already got my shoes on before my subconscious kicked in, and started pounding hard on alarm bells buried deep in my skull, and demanded I check properly if lost tail feathers were really the reason it looked so stubby and whether that really was just a shadow under the bill . . .

Getting the scope on it from the balcony confirmed it was indeed a Hawfinch (the Chinese name for Hawfinch is Steel-billed Finch, and it required a swift check in Brazil to remind me that winter birds have horn-coloured bills).

At present this species is a considered by the records committee to be an escape owing to the fact that several unseasonal birds have turned up with obvious cage damage. Furthermore, a February bird from three years ago appeared to have uneven tail feathers, which led the Records Committee to suspect it may have been of captive origin. (they also decided the same, albeit with obvious hesitation, on my Red-headed Bunting from December. Scroll down to the bottom of the posting for the full story

However this record, and another just posted today, but photographed in Yuen Long on Tuesday (here) adds to a clear pattern of mid-late winter occurrence of Hawfinch in recent years.

However, there have been only been 3 or 4 previous winter records and regardless of what's ultimately decided, its another cracking addition to the Lam Tsuen list!

On a less ambiguous note there were two Chinese Blackbirds in the veggies this morning, along with the Grey-backed and Japanese Thrushes and the female Daurian Redstart . And as a sobering reminder of how close we all are to eternity, a Crested Goshawk oozed menace from the same papaya tree that yesterday's Chinese Blackbird posed on so well yesterday morning. When I looked back for the Hawfinch it had, unsurprisingly, disappeared.

Cheers
Mike

After the excitement of Thursday morning (the good news is that the Records Committee will review the status of Hawfinch next week on the basis of my record and the birds - it turned out that there had been two - in Yuen Long) I had a quieter weekend for birds on the patch, but it was still pretty good for pix.

The Japanese Thrush made it into its tenth day this morning, along with the Grey-backed Thrush, Chinese Blackbird and Daurian Redstart, but a White's Thrush down at She Shan was the first for a couple of weeks.

Other birds behaving well included three Chinese Grosbeaks in the Dusky Thrush tree yesterday and a fly-over flock of 25 this morning, a Bright-capped Cisticola that jumped out in front of me just as I was photographing a pair of preening Spotted Doves. A fine male Scarlet Minivet made its first visit in quite a while, and the Barn Swallows returned this week and are singing away, while up on high I again had four Crested Serpent Eagles displaying over the valley.

Finally, two species which rarely sit still for long enough to be photographed - Oriental Magpie Robin and Olive-backed Pipit, finally caved in today.

Cheers
Mike

Indeed nice pics! I'm glad to see the pipit so clearly - I should always study them more. I like the expression you caught on the cisticola, and the simultaneous preening as well. Those lettuces must attract most excellent worms as far as your thrush is concerned!

A strangely satisfying weekend, with all my birding within a few hundred metres of the flat.

Having not shown all week, I was delighted when the male Japanese Thrush popped up again yesterday afternoon and showed again this morning. This, along with seven female Chinese Grosbeaks, was some compensation for dipping on the Hawfinch, which reappeared briefly yesterday morning for Brendan, who came looking for the Japanese Grosbeaks.

This morning I finally caught up on my record entry, and kept getting distracted from leaving the house. First up was a Koel, whose call was so strangled he ended up sounding like a curlew - "Ko-lee" instead of "Ko-el"

Then the Japanese Thrush and Chinese Blackbird appeared again, and first six, then seven then twenty Chinese Grosbeaks appeared in the Dusky Thrush tree, bringing with them one of the Japanese Grosbeaks. Why leave the house when the birding's this good?

The reason was to see if the Hawfinch was regularly using the tree above the cemetery at Tai Om Shan where it had bee seen yesterday. The answer - a resounding YES! While I had the briefest of front-on views from well below, Kwan, another birder, got a couple of pix showing more of the bird from my secret eye-level viewing spot about 20 minutes after I'd left him there.

A walk in the fung shui woods produced a fruiting tree, that pulled in four Grey-backed Thrushes, and I also had good views of a fine male Fork-tailed Sunbird and heard my first White-bellied Erpornis (or Yuhina) of the year.

Cheers
Mike

Sounds like decent birding out your windows Mike. I must confess I would be quite happy to get a Hawfinch off my balcony. I know where I'm staying if I ever get to Hong Kong! How much for your valley-view suite?

Admittance is very exclusive . . . persuading my wife to allow another birder in the house overnight is a big challenge. There are definitely easier ways to see Hawfinch!

Cheers
Mike

Anyway, the records committee decided this week that they're all escapes in HK . . .

A quiet few days with the highlights being my first Large Hawk Cuckoo of the year - the true harbinger of spring here - calling yesterday morning when I got up, and a few days before having Pale Thrush and Grey-backed Thrush squabbling in the veggie garden. The Chinese Blackbird is still about, but it seem the Japanese Thrush has finally moved on.

. . . and the Records Committee has tarred my Hawfinch with the same brush as two others found in an urban park and labelled it an escape . . . somewhat galling when there is no evidence its an escape except 2 other birds 15KM away may well be.

Ho Hum.

Cheers
Mike

A cold front pushing through dropped three Masked Buntings and a male Grey-backed Thrush on the edge of the lychee orchard.

A couple of pix from last weekend - my first Changeable Lizard of the spring, and a couple of fallen starfruit in different stages of decay. There was also a Long-tailed Shrike which, unusually was hiding in a tree.

Cheers
Mike

Another good reward for a session with the hula hoop from hell this morning - a Barking Deer (or more accurately Reeve's Muntjac) feeding along the edge of the marsh. They're normally extremely shy, so I'm guessing the foggy weather made it feel safer.

Also at the edge of the veggie patch another Chinese Blackbird - this time a female perched for a couple of minutes on the edge of the longan tree.

Cheers
Mike

Mike: I'm with your sentiments on post #711

http://johnjemi.blogspot.com/2011/03/hawfinch-twitch-tai-om-lam-tsuen-valley.html

VERY jealous of your daytime Muntjac views !

Quiet days in Ng Tung Chai ...

Hi Mike,

No word for awhile. Hope things are going so well that there's just no time to come inside to the keyboard!!

Best,
Norm

Norm, you'll have to check here for Mike's latest escapades! Looks like lots of fun!

Back in HK for 10 days since the end of my monster trip to the US and its hot and migration is basically over. However my mates have told me that I've missed a truly terrible spring, which makes the long period away even better!

I have had a few migrants - a couple of Black Drongos and a Brown Shrike on Thursday, and replacing all the winter birds lots of cuckoos with a very noisy Hodgson's Hawk Cuckoo topping the list, which also includes Large Hawk Cuckoo, Plaintive, Koel, Greater Coucal and Lesser Coucal .

Today the most fabulous Chinese Pond Heron dropped into the stream bed that runs though the veggie patch - plumage immaculate, bright yellow facial skin, a duck-egg blue base to the bill, fading into yellow and with a strong black tip and the brightest red legs I've seen on any CPH. It's likely that it's half of the seven or eight pairs that are nesting in the bamboo grove next to the carpark again this year.

But much better than flaunting its beauty it caught and ate three worms and a fish about the same length as its bill within about 15 minutes,giving some excellent photo-opportunities and a chance to really enjoy it.

Later on the same afternoon a Checkered Keelback curved its way though the stream the CPH had been hunting in. An hour earlier and I suspect it would have ended up down the same gullet as the worms and the fish, but instead it slid under the bridge with admirable composure.

Cheers
Mike

Sometimes God just smiles on you

Having spent the entire weekend vegging out on the sofa and making no effort whatsoever to go and find downed migrants (even the Chinese Pond Heron pix were taken off the balcony!) between the rainstorms, a Lesser Cuckoo called 4 or 5 times over the main car park in the village as I was coming back from church about an hour after dark.

The call on Xeno-Canto of a bird recorded in Taiwan is just right:

http://www.xeno-canto.org/sounds/uploaded/SFPCKSRWSJ/LesserCuckoo004434.mp3

As soon as I got home and confirmed the call I grabbed a torch and my bins and in a fit of outrageous optimism I went out to look for the bird. Unsurprisingly I didn't I didn't see it, but the rain had brought out good selection of frogs which included 3 Brown Tree Frogs (including two locked in a passionate if slightly ridiculous embrace - the much smaller male clinging to the back of the female), a couple of Paddyfield Frogs, several Asian Painted Frogs, lots of Common Toads and a delicate golden-backed, chocolate-dotted Spotted Narrow-mouthed Frog.

This is the first record of Lesser Cuckoo in the valley, so I'm hoping it might linger for a day or two to so that I can see it. Since I'm on my wild optimism streak I'll point out that it breeds in South China (including Guangdong) so there an outside chance (OK infinitessimally small chance) that it could stay to breed.

Cheers
Mike

Great pictures of the heron - especially like him and the very long worm. The fish is an impressive size too, and as you say the CPH is in beautiful plumage. Hopefully their breeding goes better this year.

What a collection of frogs to see. I googled the spotted narrow-mouth which is an unusual looking one.

Sounds like despite the season, it's worth keeping an eye open!

Aw, just had a warm tingle with the pic of the CPH, and Gretchen's mention of CPH, for a time when "Kerf" was a regularly used word in mine and Nicky's world.