On the first day of Chinese New Year Carrie and I went for a walk at Bride’s Pool, where, purely coincidentally, a Rufous-gorgetted Flycatcher had been showing well the day before, feeding on flies emerging from a ventilation pipe.
Although I found the site right away I went straight past because there were no photographers or birders marking the spot. Fortunately I had very good directions and seeing the pipe from another, necktwisting, angle I was delighted to find that the bird on top was the flycatcher!
Back at eye level we had terrific views of the bird – a superb male with a rich, robin-red gorget - as it flicked from perch to prominent perch, alternately flashing its short white super and Taiga Flycatcher-like white tail-sides, just 10 yards away! I’ve seen at least four Rufous-gorgetted Flycatchers previously in Hong Kong, all on my patch up the steep and heavily forested valley at Ng Tung Chai, but none have been so bright and none has ever been nearly so confiding as this amazing bird.
During the same visit to Bride’s Pool we also saw a fine male Plumbeous Redstart, a couple of Grey-backed Thrushes, a Greenish Warbler, and the feathers from a recently killed juvenile Striated Heron. The other highlight was the spectacle of several large bats hunting over the bridge across the river at Chung Mei a good hour before dark.
Three days later, on Sunday, I finally had the chance to go back, this time with my ‘scope and coolpix to try to get some pictures of this amazingly showy bird. I was not at all pleased therefore to find that some 40 luxury sports cars – Porsche and Ferrari predominated - were parked at Tai Mei Tuk. The road the flycatcher was on is notorious for road racers. Being a well built, but quiet road through a Country Park its also much used by cyclists for road training, and it just seems a matter of time before some unfortunate soul gets to play “splat-a-cake splat-a-cake cyclist man, hit by a Porsche going fast as it can”. Thankfully the only problem today was the horrendous noise as they roared past, which the flycatcher, a class act in every way, completely ignored.
The pipes were at the edge of a winter-browned lawn, backed by a well-wooded slope that fell away to the river about 40 metres below. The bird first appeared among the branches of the nearby trees, but quickly took up station on the pipe from where it flicked about flycatching, and also checking the pipe for the emerging flies that obviously made the presence of birders, boy racers, and even photographers a very minor nuisance compared to this ever-ready supply of food. Since the light was far from perfect and with the vegetation from the trees casting the pipe in shadow my hand held pictures were far from perfect, but I nonetheless had a thoroughly enjoyable hour watching it hunt and singing quietly to itself in between snacks before a femaleDaurian Redstart knocked it off its perch.
After a while some more serious photographers arrived and set up a perch out in the better light to which they attracted the bird with mealworms. There is no question that the pictures I got then were brighter and sharper, but I still had a sense that this was not quite right and not really necessary since the bird was already giving such terrific views. But since the flies emerging from the ventilation pipe were hardly a natural food source, it seemed a bit much to criticize!
Cheers
Mike
