San Tin Fishponds (and beyond), Hong Kong (2 Viewers)

Sad to hear your numbers are dropping Owen - very much hope its this year rather than a long-term trend. I worry especially about shorebirds and buntings at present. We're fighting a constant battle here too. the latest is a new "NGO" that is being funded by the developers to argue our wetland buffer area should be sacrificed to high density development - supposedly so as the guarantee the integrity of the Wetland Conservation Area. Thankfully San Tin fishponds are owned by two developers, but since the whole area is inside the WCA it is relatively safe at present.

Sunday was another clear sunny day with gentle easterlies and followed a week with reports of new arrivals at various sites. Unfortunately I had lost one battery and forgotten to charge the only remaining battery in my camera , so had to do without on what turned out to be an excellent day.

I kicked off with three Grey-headed Lapwings in the Main Drainage Channel along with the usual Black-winged Stilts and 20-odd Eurasian Teal but much lower numbers of Wood Sandpiper and other waders,although I did pick a solitary Spotted Redshank which was flushed by a jogger.

Less than a minute after entering the fishponds a Japanese Quail flew up from the side of the track and within 50 yards of that I had two brief flight views of a Barred Buttonquail . This bird showed uniformly chestnut-tinged brown wings without a hint of the curving yellow patch on the forewing of the Yellow-legged Buttonquail of 6th October.

I have just done a web search to look for photos or illustrations of button quails in flight. There is very little anywhere - with Birds of SE Asia showing the most. As they are so often only seen when flying away at high speed this might make a very useful project for someone with the photographic skills (and patience) or interest in looking at museum specimens.

This area around the gate and the two long fishponds where the Common Pochard and last week's Ferruginous Duck and Phalaropes had been hanging out (but were not on show today) was again full of interest. An Eastern Buzzard was my first of the autumn and there was the now usual mix of Oriental Reed, Black-browed Reed and Dusky Warblers in the emergent vegetation and the tall grass on the bund. My first good bird was a female Black-faced Bunting - my first of the autumn, which was followed a couple of minutes later by a small almost sandy-brown and streaky backed passerine the size of a Stejneger's Stonechat flushing out of the short grass and perching helpfully on a taller stem to reveal itself as Pallas's Reed Bunting! In addition to being noticeably small it had a distinctively soft-edged, round-headed jizz which was emphasised by the small pointed bill (which is a useful differentiator from the more bulbous-billed Common Reed Bunting. Other buntings show a more oval head shape and a more obvious neck. The lower half of a black bib identified it as a first winter male.

This is a species that almost never hangs around, and is found more often in mist nets than in the field, making it far from easy to connect. All of the twenty or so previous records come from the Northeast New Territories, including my first at Long Valley in 2014 and another I saw last winter at Tai Sang Wai - where an over-friendly dog enlivened proceedings and was eventually banished by the photographers (see pic), but this one was special as my first self-found individual. Other buntings in this highly productive area included four Yellow-breasted Buntings and the first of five Chestnut-eared Buntings including a cracking male.I also flushed a Richard's Pipit and an obviously rusty-rumped Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler from another bund nearby.

As I walked over to check out the northern edge of the site I was entertained by a steady passage of fifty-odd Red-rumped Swallows, forty Barn Swallows and at least 20 Pale Martins, most of which pushed straight on through. A larger dot in the sky behind became my first views this autumn of a fine adult Greater Spotted Eagle soaring over Lok Ma Chau reserve. Just below it a Eurasian Kestrel was hassling an Eastern Buzzard before the scrubby patch in the northeast corner delivered a fine juvenile Dark-sided Flycatcher, a couple of Yellow-browed and Dusky Warblers, a tikking bush warbler of some sort and most interesting a very interesting passerine which appeared to show a uniformly buff supercilium and underparts, and with the discovery last week of Hong Kong's first Buff-throated Warbler in a mist net at the Wetland Park the prospect of a monster bird should have occurred to me. However it also looked like some of the more buffed upRadde's Warblers I've seen,and given the lack of an obviously long and slender bill and long tail, the latter seems much more likely.

I was pleased to find three typically elegant female Pintails in one of the ponds, and in the same area, two more each of Yellow-breasted and Chestnut-eared Buntings, and even better a typically pale and gawky Black-headed Bunting which posed very nicely for pictures - feeding on seeds halfway up a grass sheaf. This is a bird that seems to find me with a pleasing regularity, and although it challenges juvenile Barred Warbler for awkwardness, I have a real soft spot for them. A fine male Daurian Redstart on my way out past San Tin lotus ponds was another new arrival, and the last of a new patch record of 78 species.

Cheers
Mike

Having twice accidentally deleted almost the whole of this post, which covers both this morning's visit and a beautiful day on Wednesday I'll leave it with highlight pix of the Pallas's Reed Bunting, a nicely white-spectacled Pied Harrier, the helpfully returning female Mandarin, and a Eurasian Teal that posed beautifully in the early morning light on the drainage channel.

On both days I saw over eighty species and added the following new birds for the autumn:

Wednesday: Falcated Duck ( a female hiding in the grass less than 20 yards from the Pied Harrier) , 2 Tufted Duck, an Olive-backed Pipit, an Asian Brown Flycatcher calling in the thicket that still held the Dark-sided Flycatcher and a Black-faced Bunting.

Other good birds included: a juvenile Yellow Bittern, 3 Marsh Sandpipers, Spotshank and 75 Black-winged Stilts and 52 Eurasian Teals on the drainage channel, now four Northern Pintail, eighteen Eurasian Wigeon, the Common Pochard back again, two Coot, the Great Spotted Eagle and Eastern Marsh Harrier, three Eastern Buzzards and a Kestrel. Buntings continued to show well with six each of Yellow-breasted and Chestnut-eared Buntings, plus four Little Buntings.

The balance of warblers has now changed with Duskies dominating (with numbers in the seventies), Black-browed Reed Warblers holding on at around 20 and Oriental Reed Warblers now only showing in high single figures (same for both days).

Saturday: one Eurasian Spoonbill and eighteen Black-faced Spoonbills, Chinese Spotbill, Besra, Peregrine, Taiga Flycatcher.

Other notables included a Japanese Quail, eighteen Tufties, two Grey-headed Lapwings loafing on Lok Ma Cha reserve, a nice group of four Common Greenshank, Bluethroat, a curious Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler, two noisy Wrynecks and the same mix of buntings, with the Pallas's Reed Bunting performing for a gaggle of photographers.

Cheers
Mike

A nice collection and some really good photos, Mike. I don't know about how they behave there, but up here the Reed Warblers and Reed Buntings skulk in the reeds and make it really hard to get a photo.

The Reed Warblers are really tough Owen - hence no pix of Black-browed despite seeing hundreds this autumn - but the buntings have certainly been behaving better, especially over the last few days. And - spoiler alert - they continued to do so on Sunday!

The usual suspects (stilts, teals, tringas) were again on the drainage channel in the same sort of numbers, but I did photograph the locally leg-flagged Marsh Sandpiper - bird JO - otherwise known as "Jo", which is a good safe name since it's impossible to say whether its a boy or a girl. I've posted the sighting to the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society forum and hope to learn a bit about the bird in due course. Three Olive-backed Pipits and two Richard's Pipits were also present, enjoying the newly cut grass on the sides of the channel.

The first new bird for the autumn was a female Fork-tailed Sunbird in a flock of Japanese White-eyes that was foraging in the trees on the other side of road from the drainage channel. My first Avocet for a few weeks flew over as I entered the ponds and a crowd of photographers clustered together revealed that the Pallas's Reed Bunting was still showing - feeding happily in the reeds within a few metres of the firing squad - close to the spot it had performed even better for me on Wednesday.

The Common Pochard had found its way over the bund and both the Chinese Spotbill and three or four Eurasian Wigeon were feeding contentedly along the edge of the reeds.Two Chestnut-eared Buntings out of a new site record of seven were feeding on the ground nearby and non bird interest in the form of a Small Indian Mongoose sneaking along the bund. Just as I completed my lap of the pond a visiting birder found three Yellow-breasted Buntings that sat up nicely, but too far away to photograph.

Part II to follow

Cheers
Mike

Nice shot of the Mongoose, Mike. Can't say that I blame the Reed Warblers and Buntings for hiding out. With that array of cameras pointed at me I would hide too!

Good stuff here Mike. Love the Mongoose photo. Are they common by you or is that a good sighting?

Thanks Tom and Owen.

This mongoose species was introduced and become well established, especially in the fishpond areas around Mai Po.

San Tin 4 Nov 2018 part II
As I headed along a rarely walked bund towards the northwest corner I was chuffed to put up a Black-headed Bunting that had the same buffy wash on the breast as the bird I'd found a week earlier. This time I did have my camera and was able to nail shots of what is best described as a "birder's bird". I'm not wholly convinced that this was the same bird as it had a pretty clear ghost hood made up of very thin dark streaks on the crown and ear coverts, but this perception can vary dramatically with changing light conditions, so I'm not at all confident enough to claim it is a second bird. This one was in close company with a fourth Yellow-breasted Bunting and since I didn't get too close to it the pix show an in-the field scene that reflects how they looked when I first saw them. It would probably cause a coronary on Attu or Fair Isle!

Two more Yellow-Breasted Buntings and a Chestnut-eared Bunting were in the corner pond by the rickety bridge, which also held a Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler and a Japanese Quail, and a wonderfully confiding male Common Kingfisher - I'm seeing between five and ten on every visit a t present. A flock of seven White-shouldered Starlings, which have all but disappeared in the last month, zipped purposefully west, a Whiskered Tern offered me some BiF shooting practice with better than expected results and Greater Spotted Eagle, Eastern Marsh Harrier and the nicely spectacled juvenile Pied Harrier drifted over in search of lunch.

The big pond abutting the Lok Ma Chau reserve provided more interest. My ongoing and so far fruitless hunt for a Ring-necked Duck among the 40-odd grottily eclipse-plumaged Tufted Ducks did produce a juvenile Greater Scaup. Lots of the tufts were showing white around the bill, but his bird also had pale patches on the sides of the head below the ear coverts and on closer inspection was slightly larger, and showed a properly rounded head and tinges grey coming through on the back. Greater Scaup is usually only recorded in low single figures each winter in Hong Kong, so this was a pretty good 11th species of duck for the site this autumn - albeit it's in tough company with the Lesser Treeduck, Mandarin and Ferruginous Duck already making this a stellar autumn.

On the way out the Bluethroat was in its usual patch, the final Chestnut-eared Bunting posed beautifully in the afternoon sunshine and a distantly seen tight five of fawn-tinged juvenileEurasian Starlings - also far from common in Hong Kong - had me wishing they'd stayed around a bit longer to confirm there was no Rosy Starling lurking amongst them.

Cheers
Mike

Sounds like a bunting fest there Mike. Great report and nice photos.

Thanks Tom - it has indeed been very good for buntings - and its nice that they've hung about for a few days.

I was back on the patch on Sunday morning after receiving no reward for defecting to Ho Man Tin in search of a Red-backed Shrike on Saturday morning. I did see a few other migrants on this wooded hilltop surrounded by Kowloon's high rises. These included my first Brown Shrike of the autumn, Radde's Warbler and Manchurian Bush Warbler, Greenish Warbler, five YBWs, and Asian Brown and Taiga Flycatchers. Not a migrant, but I did finally get a reasonable shot of a Red-billed Blue Magpie.

On the Thursday I also sneaked in sone lunchtime birding at Telford Gardens - where migrant warblers and other passerines bizarrely turn up in the planters of an otherwise completely concreted podium space. This year I came in search of Lanceolated, Pallas's Grasshopper and Black-browed Reed Warblers and a Rufous-tailed Robin, which for reasons unknown is known to local birds as the "pineapple bun". I scored with all but the Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler with varying degrees of success. in January 2017 a Baikal Bush Warbler spent a few days here, giving stunning views.

Now I've been distracted here's some pix of the above.

San Tin 11 Nov 2018

The drainage channel delivered a fine welcome with a fine pair of Collared Crows checking out a recently deceased tilapia. The Marsh Sandpipers were gone, but the rest of the usual crowd was on show. Once again both Olive-backed and Richard’s Pipits were in the short grass on the banks.

Entering the ponds it was immediately obvious that it was quieter. Nonetheless I was still able to add one new species – a fine adult Eastern Imperial Eagle soaring over Lok Ma Chau reserve. There were still six Yellow-breasted Buntings, a fine male Black-headed Bunting and a single Chestnut-eared Bunting spread across the site, but the Pallas’s Reed Bunting and Black-headed Bunting had moved on.

The ducks were similarly depleted, although the Common Pochard was still hanging about with a quartet of Tufties, the Chinese Spotbill remained nicely approachable and there were now 8 Northern Pintails at the north end of the site with three or four Eurasian Wigeon and eight Eurasian Teals.

Of the more regular migrants Black-browed Reed Warblers were holding their ground at about twenty birds, but Oriental Reed Warblers barely reached five. Red Turtle Doves were down to a dozen or so while Duskies also seemed to have moved through and were down to about thirty.

I gave up all hopes of finding anything good in the area near the rickety bridge that has been so productive as a pack of dozen dogs appeared from over the bridge in hot pursuit of what turned out to be a bitch in heat - she's the one with her tongue sticking out in the third picture.

The other highlights were a fine adult Crested Serpent Eagle soaring over San Tin Village and at least elven and possibly as many as thirteen Eurasian Starlings - all in dusty brown winter plumage in the rows of trees near my exit point onto San Tin Tsuen Road.

I was all too happy to leave in a hurry as the European Golden Plover which had first been recorded at Mai Po had dropped own in front of the new Boardwalk hide just before the tide peaked. After a swift taxi ride and a route march across Mai Po, the like of which I thought I had left in my distant past, I arrived in the hide to be told that it was right there, and within ten minutes it walked across the mud less than 20 metres from the front of the hide and gave fantastic views for the next forty minutes as I and the other photographers in the hide snapped happily away. This was a moderate milestone – as my first HK lifer of the year – and a wonderful bird to watch at close quarters in the company of several obviously slimmer and more graceful Pacific Golden Plovers.

As I rarely visit Mai Po I also took time to enjoy close views of two Saunders’ Gulls, Terek and Marsh Sandpipers, Common Redshank, Dunlin, Grey, Kentish and Greater Sand Plovers, Curlew and Whimbrel, Avocet and Black-winged Stilt, plus the usual gathering of Great Cormorants (which are much more numerous now at San Tin) Black-faced Spoonbills and a host of other more distant waders and ducks.

As I’m enjoying my ducks at the moment I walked out round the north end of the reserve in the hope of pulling out a Ring-necked Duck or a Green-winged Teal. There were none, but I was pleased to find a couple of dozing Common Pochards among the hundred-odd Tufties and another couple of hundred Shovelers, Eurasian Teal, Pintail and Wigeon. One day . . .

Cheers
Mike

Strange place for so many skulking warbler Mike but that's birding isn't it? I saw my first Lancy years ago in a small landscaped bush right in front of my door, also in the middle of concrete. Your photo of the Lancy is the true definition of "bird in habitat". Congrats on the European Golden Plover! Looking forward to seeing the photos. At your latitude, you must love November with all the migrants coming in or passing through.

I'll see if I can talk some Green-winged Teal and Ring-necked Ducks into making the crossing and visiting you. All water is freezing up or already frozen here so they are making a move.

San Tin Fishponds (and beyond) adventure!

Hi Mike,

Great to meet you at San Tin Fishponds on Sunday 4 Nov.; while enjoying a Yellow-breasted Bunting, you pointed out the Eastern Spot-billed Duck, split from Indian now lol.

Very special thanks for finding the Pallas’s Reed Bunting. A tough critter to find at the best of times! Had a gr8 eight days of birding…134 species seen in total, also 2 heard. Then on Sat 10 Nov. saw 87 species in one day at both Mai Po and San Tin respectively.

Other (highlights) key species:

Sat 4 Nov: 4 flying Black-faced Spoonbill; Sooty-headed Bulbul; and Sakhalin Leaf Warbler (heard only, hidden within a flock of Japanese White-eye’s)…Shenzhen Bay Mangrove Park

Sun/Mon: Juvenile Pied Harrier; 6 Whiskered Tern including one at least in breeding plumage, seen from San Tin Tsuen Road flying east; Chestnut-eared Bunting…San Tin Fishponds

Tue: Japanese Sparrowhawk; Eurasian Skylark; male Greater Painted-snipe; Pallas’s Grasshopper Warbler; female Siberian Rubythroat…Long Valley

Wed/Thu: Crested Serpent Eagle; Two-barred Warbler; Eastern Crowned Warbler; Mountain Bulbul; Streak-breasted Scimitar Babbler; Pygmy Wren-Babbler; Asian Stubtail;Blue-winged Minla…Tai Po Kau

Fri: Black-crowned Night Heron; 3 White-bellied Erpornis…Kowloon Park; several male Scarlet Minivet(s)…Hong Kong Park

Sat:Purple Heron; 1 Intermediate Egret; 1 Bezra; distant Eastern Imperial Eagle; 1 Eurasian Golden Plover; 40+ Lesser Sandplover; 1 Far Eastern Curlew; several 1st-winter Saunders’s Gull(s)…Mai Po mud flat, San Tin Fishponds

Couldn’t see the elusive Mountain Tailorbird, singing but playing hide and seek! My burning question is White-bellied Epornis seems unusual in Kowloon Park, I would perhaps expect to see them at Shek Kong Catchment or Tai Po Kau?
Sadly couldn’t locate the Black-headed Bunting(s) my target for next time…Cheers Paul

Very good to meeet you and great to see your report of over a week in HK during prime migration season Paul. You chose a good week as its gone quieter since then

White-bellied Erpornis has also been found at Ho Man Tin, another urban site . So not wholly unexpected and rather, a good record!

Could I clarify if you scored 87 species at San Tin and another 87 at Mai Po on 10 Nov, or whether this was a combined total?

Glad you connectes with the Pallas’s Reed bunting - my personal star bird of the autumn - despite getting cracking views of the European Golden Plover last weekend.

Cheers
Mike

San Tin Fishponds (and beyond) adventure!

Yes certainly, I scored 87 species for (both) Mai Po (and) San Tin combined on the same day. I think getting 87 species just for San Tin Fish Ponds would be incredibly tough (but certainly do-able), in peak migration. As I was staying in Four Points by Sheraton Hotel in Shenzhen (easily seen from San Tin Fish Ponds) and 10 minutes walk from Futian Checkpoint, the earliest I could get into Hong Kong was about 7am as the checkpoint opens at 6:30. I started birding on Saturday at about 8:30 at Mai Po.

So, I probably missed birds like Eastern Water Rail and Japanese Quail at Long Valley. And may be at first light in San Tin, I might have seen more eagles such as Greater Spotted Eagle.

However, I saw some fantastic birds and picked the right week!

Cheers,
Paul

Many thanks Paul

My record is 83 species for San Tin this autumn usually with a 8:30-1:30 visit.this includes he main drainage channel and the walk back to the castle orak highway along San Tin Tsuen Rd. These areas have a few trees and provide some atypically wetland species which help to bump up the score

I know 100sp has also been achieved in a day at Mai Po in the past.

Eagles are not necessarily early morning birds here - I mostly see them after 11:00am.

For San Tin I think covering as many bunds/ponds as possible and getting to the edges is important for pushing a good day list.I would love to achieve 100 species on “perfect day”.

Cheers
Mike

San Tin 24 November 2018-11-25

After a quieter day last Sunday when I was introducing a neighbour and his boys to the joys of San Tin and as a result covered significantly less ground. Yesterday I had more time and started well with a Taiga Flycatcher rasping away across the drainage channel.

There were 75 Grey Herons in the lower half of the drainage channel – doubtless taking advantage of the lower water levels to feast on the tilapia and snakefish. Two Avocets were among the 90-odd Black-winged Stilts, 50 Common Teals but there were no Marsh Sandpipers this week.

As I entered the ponds a bevy of photographers hunkered down on the bund raised my expectations and almost immediately a redhead Smew glided into view among the Little Grebes. There are less than ten records of Smew in Hong Kong, making this a fantastic twelfth duck for the patch this autumn! The bird showed down to about 25 metres as it foraged across the pond, which is as close as I've seen this charismatic sawbill. A short while after a Northern Shoveler - which I'm frankly surprised not to have seen earlier in the year - landed on the neighbouring pond adding yet more more to my duck count. As if to make up for lost time there were 25 more on the northernmost post - presumably chased off Lok Ma Chau by a hunting eagle or harrier.

In fact duck numbers in general were up again - there were close to 100 Tufties, two female Pochards, another 50 Common Teal, the solitary Chinese Spotbill, half a dozen Eurasian Wigeon and the three loitering female Pintails. 8 species is a new high count for the patch. Other good waterbirds included a dozen Black-faced Spoonbills coming up off a drained pond, a Coot and a single Grey-headed Lapwing which posed nicely just as I was leaving the site. On a poor day for raptors I was pleased to see just my second Osprey of the autumn, in addition three Common Buzzards and the usual Black Kites.

Black-browed Reed Warbler has continued its very good year - the grassy pond margins again holding some 25 birds, while Oriental Reed Warbler had further thinned out to two birds, with Dusky Warblers also down to about 30 and Zitting Cisticolas and Stejneger's Stonechats at about the same level. Yellow Wagtails were back up to 25 birds and a single Red-throated Pipit was in the norther corner near the rickety bridge. A Wryneck and a single Eurasian Starling showed briefly in the northeast corner, and the Bluethroat showed in its usual spot as I headed out, but once again it was the buntings that dominated the passerine honours board.

The five species present today included three Black-faced Buntings including a fine male, three Little Bunting, one of which posed beautifully by the rickety bridge, six Yellow-breasted Buntings, two Chestnut-eared Buntings and a surprise Pallas's Reed Bunting which helpfully popped up and perched on a reed at eye level and then showed intermittently as it was harassed by a male Stejneger's Stonechat with an appalling Napolean complex, who clearly felt no other bird had a right to occupy his turf and eventually chased it away. I'm not sure if this is the same bird as the one I found back in October, but up to there have been claimed, so the possibility of this being a second bird is certainly not impossible.

Cheers
Mike

Here's some of the pix from Saturday's visit:

1. The Main Drainage Channel (MDC)
2. Grey Herons on the MDC (round the corner from the previous photo)
3. Richard's Pipit on the MDC
4. An exceptionally elegant Red-throated Pipit
5. Eastern Yellow Wagtail

Cheers
Mike

Here's a few more:

1) Smew
2) Smew wingflapping
3) Chinese Pond Heron - eyeballing
4) Chinese Pond Heron - abstract
5) Black Kite - still life with power lines

One more set to follow.

Cheers
Mike

Another cracking post Mike. I'm drooling over the Chinese Pond Heron photo that is partly obscured but still has the subject sharp and in focus. I love photos like that. Plenty of migrants on the checklist.

Many thanks Tom - it was a very good day!

The close encounter with the Chinese Pond Heron was a real pleasure. It wandered up to within 5 metres of me as I was hunkered down waiting for the Smew to approach and frankly that photo is much more satisfying than the shots of the Smew.

And as they say on the shopping channels ... But wait ... there's more!

1) Zitting Cisticiola
2) Pallas's Reed Bunting
3) Little Bunting (posing outrageously)
4) Grey-headed Lapwing (and friends)
5) Grey-headed Lapwing in flight

Cheers
Mike