Exploring Lantau (4 Viewers)

Wow, mega bird to kick-off the season! Congrats Mike. Red-necked Phalaropes must be looking sexy at this time of the year.

Thanks Dev. The Ijima's Warbler far exceeded my expectations but the phalaropes were flying away and a good 100m away when first picked up, so the state of plumage was, sadly, not easily seen.

Lantau has remained relatively quiet, with just a few bits and pieces adding some colour in the park as I walk the dogs before work. My personal highlight has been a late and engagingly cheerful Dusky Warbler, which I have heard singing far more often than I've seen it.

Other bits and pieces include passage Common and breeding White-throated Kingfishers a calling Chinese Francolin, a displaying pair of Indian Cuckoos, newly arrived (hopefully to breed) Black Drongos, a flock of 20-odd Black-crowned Night Herons early lin the week and Chinese Pond Heron and half-a-dozen Cattle Egrets yesterday morning, a Common Sandpiper and a Grey Wagtail count that reached the dizzy heights of . . .wait for it . . . . two birds on Wednesday!

Fellow birder Kevin Laurie also had four Grey-streaked Flycatchers on Thursday.

Cheers
Mike

Enigmas in the mist

Sunset Peak continues to draw me this year, and this morning I took a punt that the clouds would stay away and climbed up from the pass to look for montane specialists - Upland Pipit and Chinese Grassbird being the main targets.

I didn't get lucky. Not only did the mist start at about 650 metres and not let up until I had dropped below 500metres on the other, but I also chose a day when 100 people were running up and over the mountain and back in some kind of adventure race.

There were however a few birds kicked off by a Besra buzzing a Black Kite over the pass and the first of a couple of calling Lesser Coucals and a Chinese Francolin - neither of which showed.

Just before the summit things changed for the better as a Chinese Grassbird materialised out of nowhere right next to the path, and perched just high enough above the grass to give me a good grilling. I crossed the path and again stopped to check me out before flying purposefully uphill. I then saw it bomb away downhill into the mist. A couple of minutes later I heard a noisy call, like a softer version of the chattering of a Long-tailed Shrike, and it came zooming back up. It again appeared oblivious of the hill runners, stopping for half a minute on either ice of the path, and giving me a mist-obscured view of its prey - which looked like a very pale, and perhaps just emerged wasp.

A few hundred metres along the contour trail I found another Chinese Grassbird right by the path, again showing no fear , but buzzing away on a grass stalk and very interested in my pishing. This one allowed me to take some shaky and misty video, and sadly the sound of the wind mostly obscured the call.

Despite the wind and mist this is without question the best views I've ever had of a species which until recently was virtually unknown away from Hong Kong - and until not long ago was thought to be either a warbler or a prinia. It's identity was finally resolved after after trapping, museum research and review of old records first confirmed it was closely related to Striated Grassbird from Nepal and therefore a babbler, before the DNA finally confirmed that it was actually a different species, formerly found in Hainan, SW China and Myanmar that had not been seen away from Hong Kong for the best part of 100 years.

I had no joy with Upland Pipit except for a flyby in the mist that could equally have been the small non-migratory race of Richard's Pipit that also breeds on montane grassland here, but had wonderful views of a Chinese Francolin (at long last your wish is granted Dev!)which kicked off with a couple of growly pre-calls before hopping up on a boulder some 20 metres away and giving its full throated call for the next 20 minutes. Once again the mist obscured the view and made photography troublesome, but like the grass bird, this was the best close views I've ever had of a typically very shy and elusive species.

Other bits and pieces included a Large Hawk Cuckoo (rare this spring) and a couple of Indian Cuckoos, plus lots of Yellow-bellied Prinias in the grass and a couple of Chestnut Bulbuls at lower levels in the forest.

Videos of the Grassbird and the Francolin will be uploaded on my Youtube page shortly.

Cheers
Mike

Here are the promised videos, which show how misty it was - and what a good job the SX50 and iPhoto's "enhance" function can do of turning mud into gold!

Chinese Grassbird: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9nQ6fT-B-w

Chinese Francolin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-6qyLsJCcQ You can even hear the footsteps of one of the hill runners coming through on the Francolin track!

Cheers
Mike

Deep in the summer doldrums in HK,but I did climb Sunset Peak again yesterday and heard bu tdid not see, Chinese Grassbird, Chinese Francolin and Lesser Coucal.

For anyone interested, I'm compensating for the lack of birds here by writing up my recent trip to Melbourne and Tasmania in the Vacational Trip Reports section.

Cheers
Mike

A few minutes between meetings allows more than enough time for a swift update from Discovery Bay.

The Black Drongos have successfully raised a chick and were in furious action seeing off a Besra over the school on Sunday morning.

A pair of Sooty-headed Bulbuls had produced three fledged youngsters which were hiding in a rubber tree near the power substation last week. This same substation has hosted a Blue Whistling Thrush nest that had three chicks that were close to fledging wheezing from a poorly hidden nest yesterday morning.

Other bits and pieces include a Lesser Coucal that has been calling on the hills behind my block and a few Black-crowned Night Herons on the main pond in the park.

Sadly there have been no terns in the bay this summer as there were lat year, and no sightings of the Osprey out on the rocks for a good long while.

Cheers
Mike

Finally got fed up of shaping the dent in the sofa to my butt and took a a walk along a previous unexplored contour path on the south side Sunset Peak.

As expected there were not many birds - a couple of Red-billed Blue Magpies, a party of four Hwameis and singles of Crested Serpent Eagle and Crested Goshawk floating just below the clouds were all that was on offer.

There was some compensation in the form of three dragonfly species and a couple of attractive waterfalls, and a very attractive black and yellow potter wasp. The former included the red Chinese Mountain Damsel, a couple of pairs of Chinese Yellowface and best of all, and my first ever Guangdong Hooktail.

A few bits and pieces around Discovery Bay in the last couple of weeks included an Osprey out on the rocks in the bay one day, a Striated Heron on the seafront a few days later and a mixed post-breeding flock of Black-naped and Roseate Terns last week that I saw both from the ferry on Sunday, and from home with the scope a few days earlier.

There was also a Common Kingfisher on the sea wall when I walked the dogs this morning.

Its now mid-August and I'm expecting my first autumn passerine migrant anytime now.

Cheers
Mike

An Asian Paradise Flycatcher flying across the lawn was a nice bonus for giving the dogs the longer walk on a work morning.

Cheers
Mike

After an amazing hour on the Magic roundabout on Friday I was keen to get out on the patch over the weekend and see what migrants might be coming through.

My strategy was to bird a contour path on the north-facing slope of Lantau Peak, figuring that this would make a decent migrant trap. ANGGG!! - WRONG! In four hours I had zero migrants but the walk was rescued as five or six Red-billed Leiothrix zipped through the canopy of some tall trees near the monasteries at Tai Tei Tong. These were emu first for Lantau and apparently only the third Lantau record.

Much more spectacular was the Moon Moth I found clutching onto a fern at pretty much the same spot. These are big moths - the size of my hand - and they are not easy to see, so this was a nice reward for an otherwise quiet walk, which incidentally ended with a comprehensive drenching less than 10 minutes from the bus stop . . .

Today was almost as wet. the rain started as I got off the bus at Pui O to check out if there were any migrants on the marsh, and basically continued to rain or drizzle all day. I always enjoy watching the Water Buffaloes here, and the various birds which take advantage of them. My favourite today was a Black Drongo that was hawking from the back of a young female, which also had a Cattle Egret in close attendance. The pic below captures the moment when one of the two Intermediate Egrets wandered across in front of them. 20 or so Crested Mynas were scattered across the marsh and I was delighted to discover that the macronyx Yellow Wagtail in the flock of seven taivanas was Hong Kong's earliest record by nine days!

Other birds here included a couple of Swintail Snipe, three Common Sandpipers, half-a-dozen each Little Egret and Black-crowned Night Heron, and five Chinese Pond Herons. Three or four Barn Swallows, a gang of Black-throated Laughingthrushes, a morose-looking Koel, ten White Wagtails and a Grey Wagtail completed the picture on a soggy, but still enjoyable morning.

Cheers
Mike

That's really a bugzilla moth except the good looks.

I took the day off work today and, resisting the temptation to head straight back to the golf course which has been performing so well at the Magic Roundabout, I caught the bus to Shui Hau and explored the sand flats to see what waders I might find.

There weren't many, but one of them was my first Common Greenshank on Lantau - and vindication for visiting Shui Hau as picking up cheap wader patch ticks was the main purpose for visiting the site! Other waders here included a rather worn and faded Greater Sandplover, a Grey-tailed Tattler and two Common Sandpipers.

The other, much more ambitious, reason to go to Shui Hau was to find a Ruddy Kingfisher or a Pitta along the stream that feeds into the sea. Predictably enough I managed neither, but I did pick up a Black-capped Kingfisher, a Common Kingfisher and two Striated Herons, plus an accipiter sp. that kept flying away in front of me alng the river.

After that, as it was still only 0945 I decided to drop in on Pui O, and scored well with a Cinnamon Bittern, a rather more respectable Lantau tick, 25-odd taivana Yellow Wagtails and a nicely confiding Black-winged Stilt on the buffalo fields.

Other bits and pieces included four very active Black Drongos and the absolutely superb swordtail butterfly in the last photo below.

And as a final hurrah. I was scoping the rocks in the bay when a line of black-and-white dots appeared behind them, and flew steadily into the bay towards me. As they came closer I was able to pick out the a hint of a long red tail behind each bird - Red-tailed tropic Birds! Just kidding. Not that mmd-blowing but still delightful - a flock of eleven Black-winged Stilts migrating through the harbour and along the coast - and not at all bad for a flat tick!


Cheers
Mike

My first visit to Tai O of the autumn brought it all back: baking hot, clouds of mosquitoes, a Chinese White Dolphin from the ridge and, most importantly, a nice selection of early migrants in the valley behind the Shao Lin centre.

First up was a cheerfully noisy Asian Paradise Flycatcher that refused to show, and then not much until a Grey Wagtail flew up from among the graves, and two Arctic Warblers and a Yellow-rumped Flycatcher appeared in the big Chinese Hackberry just above me.

Exploring a little further on - and dodging the various Large Woodland Spiders in their large webs on the way - the flycatcher and Arctic Warbler were joined briefly by the Asian Paradise Flycatcher, and a bit later by a Sakhalin/Pale-legged Leaf Warbler, which I picked out as usual by its distinctive high-pitched "pink" call.

Other bits and pieces included confirming Zitting Cisticolas as a breeding record, a few Black Drongos, and half a dozen White-shouldered Starlings from the bus stop. And a Common Rat Snake that I must have walked right by without seeing - until it slithered across the path six feet behind me!

Any guidance on what species the blue flower is would be most welcome

Cheers
Mike

MKinHK said:

Any guidance on what species the blue flower is would be most welcome

Cheers
Mike

Click to expand...

Hi Mike,

I'm no flower expert, but your blue flower sure looked familiar so I checked out some garden websites. Not sure this is yours exactly, but seems pretty close:
http://www.havlis.cz/karta_en.php?kytkaid=678
Platycodon grandiflorus "ASTRA BLUE"

Better photo here:
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/200619306/100-blue-balloon-flower-platycodon

Hope one of the forum botanists can give you a positive ID.

Bruce

Many thanks Bruce - that looks right to me.

Today was a quieter day at Tai O, although I was pleased to at least have a chance of a shot of an Asian Paradise Flycatcher in the big trees above the covered market. Other birds included two each of Arctic Warbler and Sakhalin/Pale-legged Leaf Warbler, a couple of Hair-crested Drongos, and a flyover flock of 62 Cattle Egrets.

Cheers
Mike

The swordtail is a clear winner. A lovely photo to inspire non-macro ppl like me.

Thanks Dev - butterflies are bit easier than birds.

I got off the bus early where the road crosses the river that feeds into the Tai O marshes. This turned out to be a good move as in a few minutes I'd heard and then seen a Sakhalin/Pale-legged Leaf Warbler, an Asian Brown Flycatcher and my first Dusky Warbler of the autumn.

The Eastern marshes were a disappointment - absolutely no migrants at all - but as I arrived at the Shaolin Valley an Arctic Warbler was in the first big tree by the garden and 30 yards further on a screech overhead revealed a moulting male Black-naped Oriole that had just caught a large mantis.

A bit further on a phyllosc with an all-yellow bill eventually revealed itself as an Eastern Crowned Warbler before I was distracted by another movement high up - my first Black-winged Cuckooshrike of the autumn. Continuing the purple patch a female Verditer Flycatcher in the same canopy toyed with me for a few minutes before showing dark-edged under tail coverts and eliminating the optimistic hope of Pale Blue Flycatcher from the reckoning. A second Sakhalin/Pale-legged Leaf Warbler and a an Asian Brown flycatcher completed the morning haul in the valley, but I did also see three Chinese White Dolphins and a couple of Zitting Cisticolas from the ridge and a third Asian Brown Flycatcher in the big acacia above the covered market where I'd photographed the Asian Paradise Flycatcher last week.

Cheers
Mike

A couple of pix from Sunday

Hello Mike

Very interesting reading your posts in bird form. I wonder if you can help. I am going to be in Hong kong for 2 weeks in November and would love to do a bit of birding but I am not familiar with birding place in hong kong. could you give me some tips about where to go and how to get there, that would awesome. I have look at some website for bird tour but the price is just out of my reach. Many thanks.

You'll find lots of info about sites and how to get to them on the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society Website here:
http://www.hkbws.org.hk/web/eng/birding_eng.htm

I would also warmly recommend a couple of books by David Diskin, which provide excellent information on nature walks including some very good birding sites. His books can be found on his website here:
http://www.accipiterpress.com/hong-kong-nature-walks.html

My two regular sites on Lantau - Tai O and Pui O are easily reached by bus (Nos 11 and 3M, respectively)from Tung Chung MTR Station or if you prefer to travel by ferry to Lantau Island bus No 1 from Mui Wo to Tai O, which stops at Pui O and terminates at Tai O.

A smartphone with a maps function would also help with way finding.

Cheers
Mike