[Frogfish]

Sounds like it's getting very crowded in there Mike

[MKinHK]

Turnover is certainly pretty good Frogfish

I'm making about two visits a week (today was my 13th since the first on 16 October) for not more than 45 minutes and have so far racked up 32 species. Bird density is pretty low, as the habitat is distinctly sub-optimal, and very few birds stay around for long. Regular short visits is definitely the way to go.

Today's new bird was a sadly long-dead female/juv Watercock on the grass verge, while I have never remembered to write down the resident Tree Sparrow and Common Tailorbird previously.

Other migrants today included some of the usual suspects - single Stejneger's Stonechat and Daurian Redstart and two YBWs.

Cheers
Mike

[DavidJStanton]

149 (all leucopsis). They gather of the flat roofs near the arrivals lounge and pile into the line of Ficus in Carpark 1 just before dusk. Easy enough to watch from the escalators/stairs outside. The only limitation I've found is when VS201 arrives early and you miss them going into roost as you have to go into the lounge to meet your visitors!

The peak count could/should easily be greater than this given the numbers of white wags at the airport.

If you have time/inclination you could get to the Golf Course to boost your list - Little Grebe and Richard's Pipits are guaranteed!

[MKinHK]

. . . and here's the big question Dave.

I'm pretty sure I can add more birds by extendign the patch, but part of the attraction of the current patch is its tiny size and proximity to the office.

Should an Oriental Plover, Little Curlew or similar turn up the temptation to expand would increase rapidly, but right now the fact that even this very degraded area is producing such good birds is good enoyuugh reason to stay small.

Also, I 've already got Richard's Pipit on my list!

Cheers
Mike

[MKinHK]

Long overdue, here's a pic of the patch from the building I work in. A good job my office doesn't have this view or I wouldn't get much done!

This actually makes the area I bird in look bigger and better habitat than it really is. The actual roundabout with the palm trees is pretty useless, and the area that the great majority of the birds appear is the patch behind the bus with the yellow roof and the grass verge just in front of that, which can not really be seen on this view.

The other thing worth noting is that this is an exceptionally clear day! The hill in the distance is Castle Peak, which marks the southwestern corner of the New Territories, with the town of Tuen Mun just to the right.

The other pic is of course of the unfortunate Watercock.

Cheers
Mike

[Jos Stratford]

Good one Mike, I like this kind of thread. Keep it going

Hong Kong still climbing on my list of destinations, didn't have a roundabout/part-time toilet in mind, but hey been to worse

[Gretchen]

Thanks for the pic - it is nice to visualize this patch. It reminds me of my least favorite aspect of the semi-urban birding I do - traffic noise. I guess you have lots of it here too. I shouldn't be so grumbly about it. Twas a great day for a photo!

[johnjemi]

Mike, with all this HK rain, you'll be getting Little Grebe on "The Magic Roundabout" very soon !

[MKinHK]

Gutted not to have got to the roundabout on a single day last week in what I expect were very good falls conditions with all the rain and cloud.

Anyway half an hour at lunch today delivered two Stejneger's Stonechats, including a smart male, at least five each of YBW and Dusky Warbler, a definite five Silky Starlings foraging with the Crested Mynas and a Cettia that was I think a Japanese Bush Warbler, but looked rather small.

Cheers
Mike

[MKinHK]

A good session on the roundabout this lunchtime - more migrants moved in by the cold front and generally dingy weather. as I arrived the same two Stejneger's Stonechats and a couple of Yellow-browed Warblers were on the grassy verge and five Oriental Turtle Doves flew over.

The same rather small Japanese Bush Warbler as yesterday popped up as I was trying to turn three more YBWs and a couple of Dusky Warblers into something more interesting, but better still a female Japanese Thrush flew into a tree, showing its finely spotted belly and a Brown Shrike almost directly above me in another tree showed little more than a flash of a neatly barred flank.

Just a few further inside the wood the Oriental Turtle Doves came up off the ground and peered at me suspiciously from the cover of the higher foliage, and a second, very dark male Japanese Thrush was rooting on the deck with a second feale and a male Chinese Blackbird.

As I stepped out from under the canopy a Chinese Pond Heron flew over- my first one at this site. Even better was to come - as I headed back towards the office two Red-rumped Swallows flew low overhead, over the grassy verge and away to the East giving me a fine hatrick of new patch birds!

Cheers
Mike

[MKinHK]

It had to happen . . .

Yesterday as I headed for the roundabout a sixty-ish year-old taxi driver wandered in ahead of me while I stopped to check out a female Daurian Redstart and a Stejneger's Stonechat on the grassy verge.

When I did get there he'd hung his shirt on the pole barrier across the road and was doing various stretches and exercises. I did my best to carry on birding, but it was just too wierd, and I beat a hasty retreat - thankful that it wasn't a really birdy day.

Today was my first day for a long time without a Stonechat. Best bird was a juvenile Oriental Turtle Dove, and the slim support came from two YBWs, a female Daurian Redstart, what was likely the same thrush from yesterday - possibly a female Grey-backed on very brief flight views - and a female Chinese Blackbird as I headed back to the office.

Cheers
Mike

[Frogfish]

Originally Posted by MKinHK

It had to happen . . .

Yesterday as I headed for the roundabout a sixty-ish year-old taxi driver wandered in ahead of me ......

Whew. When I read this I feared the worst *holds nose* !!

[thirudevaram]

Originally Posted by MKinHK

. . . and here's the big question Dave.

I'm pretty sure I can add more birds by extendign the patch, but part of the attraction of the current patch is its tiny size and proximity to the office.

Should an Oriental Plover, Little Curlew or similar turn up the temptation to expand would increase rapidly, but right now the fact that even this very degraded area is producing such good birds is good enoyuugh reason to stay small.

Also, I 've already got Richard's Pipit on my list!

Cheers
Mike

You wish!

[MKinHK]

Dev

My birding motto is "always be greedy", so yes, I do!


Kevin

It could have been so much worse!

Mike

[MKinHK]

The highlight today was a very distinctively-plumaged and very handsome male White Wagtail which, after consultation with John Allcock appears, to be a leucopsis x alboides cross.

Unfortunately I don't have any pix but you can see what the front end looks like from these pix:

here and here.

What these pix don't show is the strikingly black upperparts (from crown to tail tip) with just the broad white coverts and an outer tertial for contrast. My bird also showed a larger breast patch than these two.

The English name for Alboides is Himalayan Wagtail, but it is known in China from as far east as southern Shaanxi and as close to Hong Kong as Guizhou. Leucopsis x alboides has been proposed for a couple of other birds in HK (see here), but none have shown anything like the striking plumage of my bird.

Randomly, I was also delighted to learn that the Italian for wagtail is "ballerina"

Not too much else except for a couple of female Daurian Redstarts and a female Stejneger's Stonechat, plus two thrush sp. one of which might just have been Japanese.

Cheers
Mike

[thirudevaram]

Pretty distinct! Fortunately, it's not even complicated as hybrids of gull species. Good for me. Should be an interesting species for a work day.

[MKinHK]

Distinctive indeed Dev. There was no sign of it today, but I did add another bird to the Roundabout list - a Common Buzzard - my 39th species since I started here in October. With three working days left the obvious target is 40 spp. in Q42012

Other birds included a well-seen female Japanese Thrush (giving a bit more substance to my guess on the zeep-away from the day before) and a male Grey-backed Thrush, both in the northern border, plus three Olive-backed Pipits and a female Daurian Redstart on the lawn.

Ten Japanese White-eye were too high and flighty to check for Chestnut-flanked, and a Common Tailorbird was my first for a week or two.

Other regulars included three leucopsis White Wagtails, a couple of YBWs and the rock-steady female Stegneger's Stonechat.

Cheers
Mike

[MKinHK]

One more speciers for the list today, but not a new one - I'm pretty sure I've seen Black-necked Starling previously, but a pair flushed by a maintenance team provided sifficient confirmation to safely claim my 40th species.

Therre usual suspects were still about (Stejneger's Stonechat, Daurian Redstart, White Wagtail and YBW), but a male Chinese Blackbird seen from the bus on the way in was a good start to the day, four Olive-backed Pipits was a new high count, a Dusky Warbler was my first for a while, and bird of the day was a Wryneck, which may have been brought in by yesterday's cold front.

This will be be my last post before the holiday, so Merry Christmas and many thanks for following this rather random thread which (gardens apart) must be the smallest patch on BirdForum.

Cheers
Mike

[Gretchen]

Merry Christmas Mike (and your readers)! Hope you have a happy celebration.

Thanks too for sharing what must be one of the most unusual patches on the forum!

[MKinHK]

It's been a real pleasure to find this site Gretchen . . . and even more to be finding birds of the quality that I have been seeing . . . and again saw today!

It started predictably enough with a Chinese Blackbird from the bus this morning, and the two female chats - Stejneger's Stonechat and Daurian Redstart and four Olive-backed Pipits on the grassy patch, plus my first view of the Long-tailed Shrike - nicely fluffed up against the cold - for several weeks.

As I walked up to the crash barrier I saw a rather slender and upright thrush on the grass some forty metres away. Thinking it would be Eye-browed I got the bins on it and was somewhat nonplussed by the slightly washed-out rufous orange breast and head. Then the penny dropped - a stonking adult male NAUMANN'S THRUSH!. This is an absolutely massive bird for me - a self-found Hong Kong tick, on the Magic Roundabout, just the second since 1990 and the thirteenth ever, and even better, a claw-back from one I dipped at Lok Ma Chau two years ago!

Absolutely delighted, I watched it feeding on the grass for a few minutes in full view - another big bonus as most thrushes grot about nervously in the leaf litter in deep cover and flush out, giving the dodgiest of arse-end views.

My delight deepened as I realised it was just too classic a bird to have any hint of the hybrid about it.

The head and breast were beautifully washed orange-rufous which extended from the lower breast up the neck and throat and onto the sides of the neck, where it merged smoothly into the slightly colder brown of the upperparts. From the side the long supercilium looked the same colour, but a paler straw yellow from head-on. It had a brown eyestripe through the eye and connecting with the nape and down onto the ear coverts.

The crown nape and back was a less orangy brown, while the rump and tail was distinctively rufous - looking all rufous in flight, but with a couple of darker brown central rectrices and the same diffuse darker tones across the tip when on the deck. The dark tertials showed distinctive narrow rufous fringes, while the folded primaries looked all-dark, contrasting with the brighter orange-rufous of the rump and uppertail.

Most importantly the spotting on the flanks was a consistent rufous orange against a pale belly, becoming denser on the rear flanks and merging nicely into the orange-rufous rump.

It was wonderful to watch it feeding to within 25 metres of me, first on the grass, and then rooting vigorously through the leaf litter in front of the recently-pruned bushes. It twice flew in the twenty minutes I watched it, but each time returned within a couple of minutes, obviously deciding that however poor, this was still the best available habitat.

A real red-letter day, but with two more working days to go I'm reluctant to call time just yet on a glorious end to the year on my truly Magic Roundabout!

Cheers
Mike

[McMadd]

Congratulations Mike!

Excellent record, excellent bird! We had one last weekend up here and I have to say I was well taken with the subtlety of the bird...pics on my thread once I've got my act together to write things up...

Here's to a bird-filled 2013...let's take this as an omen of the riches to follow!!

ATB
Mark

[JWN Andrewes]

Nice one Mike. Been enjoying this thread. Good luck for 2013 (and indeed the balance of 2012).

James

[Gretchen]

A wonderful thrush - and great to see it so well. Congrats and indeed hopefully a tiding of things to come in the new year.

[Dong Bei]

I wise man once said, "there is nothing like a self-found lifer on your patch!" Great stuff Mike.

[MKinHK]

Many thanks everyone!

The Naumann's Thrush a.k.a. King of the Magic Roundabout as I've called him showed superbly again today, although preferring to forage in the leaf litter under the canopy rather than the open lawn.

It didn't matter. It came to within 10 metres of the bunch of photographers who turned up to pay homage, and received much more grief from a pair of Magpie Robins, a Brown Shrike and an unidentified thrush that occasionally chased it off for a few minutes.

I got some shots and a short film of it foraging, but then left my camera in the office, so the pix will have to wait until next week. However the pix from my friends Peter and Michelle are pretty spectacular.

Other birds seen today included two Daurian Redstarts, a Pale Thrush, a Brown Flycatcher, and the usual 4 OBPs and female Stejneger's Stonechat.

Cheers
Mike

PS Tom, I wonder who that wise man was?