MKinHK
Mike Kilburn
Thanks Gretchen
A big day today at Tai O started well with three White-bellied Sea Eagles over the hill just to the East of Shek Pik Reservoir dam and absolutely bizarrely a Japanese Quail trying to hide behind a lamp-post on a shot-creted slope a little uphill from the western end.
I got to Tai O a little after 7:00am and headed along the northern edge of the island to see if any migrants had dropped in. There were a couple of Dusky Warblers calling in the mangrove around the tidal pool and a Pale-legged/Sakhalin Leaf Warbler that did not want to come out to play.
The big trees in the christian retreat centre held a couple of calling Yellow-browed Warblers. While trying to spot them in the upper branches of a chinese hackberry I spotted a larger pale green phyllosc that piqued my curiosity but promptly disappeared. When I did get back onto it I was surprised to see that it had no wingbars, no crown stripe and a plain yellow face and throat above a whitish belly.
This started major alarm bells as it looked like none of our regular phylloscs and that combination can only belong to Willow Warbler, which has occurred only once, and Wood Warbler, for which there are no records in Hong Kong (but there are from Japan and the Shanghai area). Having reviewed what there is about the eastern form of Willow Warbler and the very limited info on how Wood Warblers look in autumn I'm pretty sure it was Wood Warbler based on its heft - it looked stubby and stocky rather than slim and long-tailed, the clear demarcation between the yellow on the throat and the white belly, and the overall ice-green tone of the upperparts.
Be that as it may, getting a written description of a briefly seen first record through the records committee is a far from foregone conclusion- and in some ways it would be better if it had been Willow Warbler as the bar for acceptance for a second record is never quite so high.
It feels a bit like deja vu after finding the large locustella at the Magic Roundabout a couple of weeks ago, which can only be either Styan's or Gray's Grasshopper Warbler. What really annoys me is that I've just bought a new camera to get pix in exactly such situations - and I didn't get a single shot!
I kept searching for about an hour, but these trees tend to be the point of first arrival for incoming migrants and there is lots of woodland for the birds to filter off into. Once I'd seen the same Asian Brown Flycatcher and Dusky Warblers coming round for the third time and having no sign of the YBWs and the Wood Warbler, I assumed they'd moved on and did the same myself.
Elsewhere the Shaolin Valley was its usual mozzie-filled self, but I did add a Taiga Flycatcher and a couple of Olive-backed Pipits to the usual crop of Asian Brown Flycatcher and phylloscs which included two Pale-legged/Sakhalin Leaf Warblers, a very noisy Arctic Warbler and a couple each of YBW and Duskies. Despite the gentle NNW winds The dolphin ridge was unproductive and the only sign of movement was a Hair-crested Drongo and a Black Drongo that could both very easily have been local birds.
Cheers
Mike
A big day today at Tai O started well with three White-bellied Sea Eagles over the hill just to the East of Shek Pik Reservoir dam and absolutely bizarrely a Japanese Quail trying to hide behind a lamp-post on a shot-creted slope a little uphill from the western end.
I got to Tai O a little after 7:00am and headed along the northern edge of the island to see if any migrants had dropped in. There were a couple of Dusky Warblers calling in the mangrove around the tidal pool and a Pale-legged/Sakhalin Leaf Warbler that did not want to come out to play.
The big trees in the christian retreat centre held a couple of calling Yellow-browed Warblers. While trying to spot them in the upper branches of a chinese hackberry I spotted a larger pale green phyllosc that piqued my curiosity but promptly disappeared. When I did get back onto it I was surprised to see that it had no wingbars, no crown stripe and a plain yellow face and throat above a whitish belly.
This started major alarm bells as it looked like none of our regular phylloscs and that combination can only belong to Willow Warbler, which has occurred only once, and Wood Warbler, for which there are no records in Hong Kong (but there are from Japan and the Shanghai area). Having reviewed what there is about the eastern form of Willow Warbler and the very limited info on how Wood Warblers look in autumn I'm pretty sure it was Wood Warbler based on its heft - it looked stubby and stocky rather than slim and long-tailed, the clear demarcation between the yellow on the throat and the white belly, and the overall ice-green tone of the upperparts.
Be that as it may, getting a written description of a briefly seen first record through the records committee is a far from foregone conclusion- and in some ways it would be better if it had been Willow Warbler as the bar for acceptance for a second record is never quite so high.
It feels a bit like deja vu after finding the large locustella at the Magic Roundabout a couple of weeks ago, which can only be either Styan's or Gray's Grasshopper Warbler. What really annoys me is that I've just bought a new camera to get pix in exactly such situations - and I didn't get a single shot!
I kept searching for about an hour, but these trees tend to be the point of first arrival for incoming migrants and there is lots of woodland for the birds to filter off into. Once I'd seen the same Asian Brown Flycatcher and Dusky Warblers coming round for the third time and having no sign of the YBWs and the Wood Warbler, I assumed they'd moved on and did the same myself.
Elsewhere the Shaolin Valley was its usual mozzie-filled self, but I did add a Taiga Flycatcher and a couple of Olive-backed Pipits to the usual crop of Asian Brown Flycatcher and phylloscs which included two Pale-legged/Sakhalin Leaf Warblers, a very noisy Arctic Warbler and a couple each of YBW and Duskies. Despite the gentle NNW winds The dolphin ridge was unproductive and the only sign of movement was a Hair-crested Drongo and a Black Drongo that could both very easily have been local birds.
Cheers
Mike
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