Hong Kong birding (1 Viewer)

[MKinHK]

A few more Mai Po birds over the last couple of weekends...

Both were little more than smash and grab runs on the Boardwalk, but they did provide an opportunity for some nice shots.

Last weekend Murray Lord - visiting from Australia - and who published an account of a trip to New Caledonia recently was a new BF tick. I also had the wierd and wonderful experience of being gripped off by a stunning display of Taiwanese montane endemics and Kagu (on iPad) while enjoying views of Black-faced Spoonbill and Swinhoe's Egret as the tide washed under the boardwalk hide.

Three of the spoonbills were close enough to read the leg-rings, which gave me the chance to photograph three different birds and enter them into the HKBWS database, which tracks this species throughout the flyway.

E52 was ringed on Gujido Island in S Korea as a juvenile last spring

E35 was ringed on Namjido in S Korea last July and has been recorded nine times since - all in Hong Kong - after arriving on 1st November last year.

E02 was ringed in Suhaam S Korea as a juvenile in 2010. All additional records are from this winter in Hong Kong.


More spectacular than the colour-ringed birds were several adults in full breeding plumage, including this wonderful bird - they are world class birds when the crest is raised! My favourite shot of the day was this group of Black-winged Stilts snoozing as they waited for the tide to drop, but I also enjoyed the look the flat light gave to the ensemble of BW Stilts and a Common Redshank. It looks ideal for a caption competition. Any takers?

As the mud finally emerged the waders that had been roosting inside of the reserve came back in dribs and drabs. Most however did not appear until the tide was well out and they were pretty distant and silhouetted in the flat afternoon light.

Cheers
Mike

I'll write up today's birds in another post

 

[Gretchen]

Wow those young spoonbills do seem to be wearing a lot of jewelry! The stilts group is my favorite too - the water and reflections are beautiful and with black and white birds it has a pleasing monochrome look, but just a little red to show its a color pic.

 

[MKinHK]

Thanks Gretchen

The Stilts are also my favourite - I like wide pix - even thinking about making it my Facebook banner.

Today's offering is of one of the two Swinhoe's Egret I saw on Saturday in a flying visit to the Mai Po Boardwalk with my mate Richard. We also had a great flock of 139 Asiatic Dowitchers, and ten Blue-tailed Bee-eaters on the way out of the reserve.

Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

I've decided to revive this thread as my birding is taking me all over the place this spring. Most recently this has included visits to Po Tai and Lamma Islands which would not be covered by any of my other patches.

Lamma was a long hike from Mo Tat in the southeast corner along the southern edge to Tung O, and then over the eastern slope Mount Stenhouse, through Sok Kwu Wan to Lo So Beach and the graveyard in the east-facing woodland and up to Yung Shue Wan for the ferry back to town. The aim was to look for migrants after a few days of easterly winds. That turned out to be a disappointment. The total migrant count was two each of Dusky Warbler and Yellow-browed Warbler - none of them seen - and three Olive-backed Pipits. A pair of Hainan Blue Flycatchers had technically migrated here from wintering elsewhere and the three or four Cattle Egrets wee likewise also migrants rather than residents, but none of these were the migrant flycatchers, thrushes, minuets, buntings and other assorted goodies I was hoping for. There was some compensation on the beach in the form of this fabulous Greater Sandplover which I inadvertently flushed as it was feeding along the tideline at Shek Pai Wan.



Hoping the sand plover would come back I lay down at hedge of the beach and sure enough the bird was curious, and over about 15 minutes made its way along the tideline towards me, passing not eight feet away!

According to asian wader guru Dave Bakewell this is likely an adult female, given the development of the breeding plumage, which would show much more red on the breast in males and a better defined black mask and white forecrown. It's also clear that it has been in this plumage for some time, especially from the worn median coverts.

More to come . . .

cheers
Mike

 

[3Italianbirders]

Fantastic bird! AND photos!

 

[MKinHK]

Thanks 3IB!

After my long and unproductive walk up to Yung Shue Wan I did find one more reason to be cheerful - a Pacific Reef Egret that was fishing from a bundle of rocks at the outfall of a nullah. This water was not to put too fine a point on it "nutrient rich" and attracting small fish to feed. The Reef Egret had clearly decided that fishing here should not be a straightforward affair as it froze as close to horizontal as it could watching for the fish to come to the surface.



This was made trickier by the fact that it kept choosing rocks that were mostly submerged so that the larger waves would push the bird right off the rock, caused it to fly up and start again its stalk again.

 

[3Italianbirders]

🤦🏻‍♀️
did it manage to catch something eventually?

 

[MKinHK]

I'm glad you asked!

Here's the technique - splash dive, thrash out, get airborne, land on on wave -washed rock, and consume:

Cheers
Mike

 

[3Italianbirders]

Excellent sequence and stunning bird. Well done.

 

[MKinHK]

Thank you! But wait, there's more!

I 'm really more of a birder than a photographer, but this outstanding opportunity to get close to a bird performing superbly was just too good to pass up. It also justified my approach that photography offers the potential to liven up an otherwise quiet day! After one of its forays the Reef Egret stopped on a rock to have a good shake and show the full glory of its breeding plumage.

The fun finally came to an end when a couple of dogs strolling along the beach were obviously just that little bit too close, and the egret took itself of to the far end of the beach.

Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

The morning after the Euro2020 finals was not exactly cheerful if you were an Englishman. However, being a birder I had something to look forward to. Within minutes of the final whistle blowing I was on my way out the door in pursuit of Hong Kong's third Brown Noddy. This required a major trek by Hong Kong standards, as I had to get a bus to the ferry, the ferry into town, a cab to Dave's place, in order to get a lift to the easternmost edge of Hong Kong to catch a nine-seater speedboat out onto the waters of Mirs Bay.

I was not especially optimistic. The Noddy had been found by a birder taking photos of Hong Kong's best tern colony the day before, but the bird was not on the breeding rock but perched on flotsam in the middle of the bay. The likelihood of such an oceanic bird hanging about in HK waters seemed pretty small, especially as the two previous records had both involved typhoon-related birds that were not (except by one especially dedicated fanatic) twitchable. Nonetheless it was July, which is always one of the least productive months of the year, so having something good to go for was a rare pleasure.

And what a day!

Steep green hills framed by perfect blue skies, with the odd cloud for dramatic effect, a fresh wind as the boat zipped over the more deeply blue sea as we checked out one bridles islet before a dark shape low over the water at the southern arm of the bay turned out to be the Brown Noddy foraging around the waves breaking over the rocks at the base of the cliff.

And what a bird!

It flew several laps of a circuit along the edge of the rocks, allowing flyby views down to within four or five metres as it came past the boat several times, giving excellent views of its mat sooty-brown general plumage, with a distinctive broad light brown bar across the coverts that instantly separated it from Black Noddy (for which there is a single Hong Kong record from the same breeding rock in 2017). The distinctive white cap was most visible fro head on, but looked to be only partly formed when seen side-on. A little later it flew off a way and landed on the sea, where it also allowed a reasonably close approach, revealing the finer details of the head pattern and bill structure as it bobbed gently on the water which was a beautiful mix of blues and reflected greens from the surrounding hills. Having had our fill we left it there bobbing on the sea and zoomed back to land well satisfied with an excellent Hong Kong and China tick.

There is a nice postscript. The bird remained available at this site for several more days, and while it was till around a second heavily worn bird was found from the Cheung Chau ferry by Martin Williams. I went for this on a grimly rainy day just two days later - and dipped. I did however have mixed views of a nice suite of terns that included Bridled, Roseate, Black-naped, Little, Gull-billed and, best of the lot, a Greater Crested Tern. And what a contrast! The Brown Noddy performed like a champion of a dazzling sunny morning while the Greater Creted Tern was much more a bird for the purists, flying away on a diverging course in filthy drizzly conditions. The Cheung Chau ferry bird has hung about, and indeed was seen again this morning, so I should probably make another effort to see it - even if it will be hard to beat the stellar views of the Mirs Bay bird that have already softened the wait before football, one day, really does come home.

Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

The maritime theme continues with another attempt to see the Cheung Chau Ferry Brown Noddy, as well as a Lesser Frigatebird that has taken up residence in the Black Kite roost at the southern end of Cheung Chau. Spoiler alert I saw neither, but did enjoy both Cheung Chau and from a birding perspective the terns that did appear on both ferry trips. These once again included the usual breeding species - White-Naped, Bridled and Roseate Terns, plus a singleton Gull-billed and two or three migrant Common Terns.

The terns forage behind the slower boats in the outer waters of Victoria Harbour, hoping to catch fish stunned and churned to the surface by the motion of their propellors. This makes for enjoyable low effort birding during the heat of summer as the slow ferries offer both a breeze and shade, while the terns do all the work.

Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

On Monday I made another trip to Cheung Chau for the Lesser Frigatebird. This time I took the fast ferry and arrived around 4:15 to see it circling over the roost site with several Black Kites and make a couple of abortive passes at its regular perch. This is I think just my fifth Lesser Frigatebird in Hong Kong since 1993 and by far the closest and best-seen. A nice way to round off the traditionally unbirdy summer months.



The pictures helpfully show a good size comparison with the larger Black Kite - our other two, much rarer frigate birds (Great and Christmas) are both significantly larger. They also show that this bird has a distinctive white plumage aberration on the bend of the left forewing.




Cheers,
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

Filthy twitching - Lapland Longspur @ Long Valley

On Wednesday last week Hong Kong's second Lapland Bunting was trapped and ringed at Long Valley and on Saturday morning (30th Oct) I took my opportunity to go for it. Arriving about 0745 I found a crowd of some sixty birders assembled at the spot it favoured but not looking like they were on it. This generated the traditional stressful searching for about 20 minutes before the bird appeared exactly at its favoured spot in the grassy verge of a gravelly path and gave fabulous views at point blank range for the next hour. As with many twitches in Hong Kong these days the vast majority of the crowd were photographers - and I could pick out just four pairs of bins in the wall that'd lined up across the path to see the bird.



I was initially a little concerned when the some of the birders I was lined up with started crawling commando style towards it, but they stopped short of disturbing the bird which continued to potter about as if we were nothing more than a rather over-equipped gang of sheep. Needless to say it gave fantastic views that allowed everyone to walk away happy when a construction worker responsible for transforming Long Valley into a nature park shooed us all off.



Apart from the irritation of always having a piece of grass in the way when I was trying to shoot I thoroughly enjoyed this bird.It's history in Hong Kong is quirky as the first record was picked up in a documentary about another wetland site Nam Sang Wai being set on fire on 13 March 2018. It - a male bird coming into summer plumage - was filmed purely by coincidence picking through the burned-out grass presumably looking for nicely roasted grass grains. No birders got to see it but Victor Sin deserves the credit for an excellent piece of observation!





This was just the first of what turned into a six bunting day. I found the other five while birding at my favourite patch - San Tin, where I also enjoyed superb views of a Black-headed Bunting a week earlier.

Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

On Monday I took a day off to visit Mai Po in pursuit of three potential Hong Kong ticks - Northern Goshawk, Common Reed Bunting, and a drake American Wigeon. While the day didn't turn out as I'd hoped it was still a wonderful day's winter birding. Birding started when I got off the bus at the Tai Lam Tunnel and a Yellow-browed Warbler called. A sure sign of winter, there was a small group of Tufted Ducks on the pond in front of Mai Po village and both Azure-winged Magpies and Black-throated Laughing Thrushes around the rubbish dump in Tam Kon Chau village.

WWF has done a great deal of clearance of vegetation around the ponds, making it easy to find a host of waterbirds including a huddle of 120-odd Little Egrets - half in the water and half on the newly cleared bank, and in amongst them were a dozen Black-faced Spoonbills. The pond next-door held a trio of eclipse Falcated Ducks, presaging a good start to an excellent range of ducks. I spent a while on the edge of the reedbed by the Pond 8 tower hide, where I pished in a Black-faced Bunting, Dusky, Pallas's Leaf and Manchurian Bush Warblers in the vain hope of pulling out a Common Reed Bunting. Over the bund a winter plumage Chinese Pond Heron stalked by virtually at my feet.




A flock of 30-odd Northern Lapwings flying up and landing on the Scrape was a new personal high count for me in Hong Kong, matching my combined total fo almost 30 years of birding in Hong Kong. When I actually got over to the hide a little later 12 were still on the ground just about in range for a photo. Dave Diskin's ever-helpful Annotated Checklist of Hong Kong Birds. summarises their status as follows:

Scarce but annual winter visitor to Deep Bay area, 6 Sep - 13 May. Highest counts of 133 (combined total of various flocks) at Tsim Bei Tsui & MPNR on 29 Dec 1991, and a single flock of 126 at MPNR on 21 Nov 1992. Much smaller (usually single-digit) peak counts since 1999, although 26 at MPNR on 6 Dec 2017.​

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In between these views I was distracted by a thrush jumping up and hiding with the Chinese Bulbuls into a fruiting fig on the eastern edge of the buffalo paddock. After a few minutes of cat and mouse it showed itself as a finely marked but almost monochrome Dusky Thrush. Duskies are one of my favourite thrushes - and one I have a happy knack of finding down the years. These include a bird at Long Valley in January 1994, and another a year later in the surprisingly urban setting of Victoria Park during my lunch break from my first job. I fluked one from home while recuperating from a dog bite in Lam Tsuen, and another from the bus on my way to work at Hong Kong airport, where I also had a magnificent flock of five birds on the airport golf course on my Magic Roundabout patch. I've even had a couple at Pui O, thereby completing my set of patches that have produced Dusky Thrushes.



The southern end of the reserve was quiet on the eastern edge, except for a Daurian Redstart that appeared to show no white spot on the coverts, until I realised that it actually had lost all the coverts on its left wing. A Taiga Flycatcher called a couple of times, but only offered the most fleeting views, and an adult Greater Spotted Eagle hunched over its lunch was the best of the quality on show. As I got to the southern end I came across a fine flock of 33 Chinese Spotbills spread across 2 ponds amongst the usual flocks of Eurasian Teals, Eurasian Wigeon and Shovelers, which also held a couple of Mallard, a solitary female Garganey and a couple more Falcated Ducks. On a good day for ducks I was pleased to see the lone Common Shelduck on the scrape - my first for a few years and another ten or so Falcated Ducks, plus three ever elegant Gadwalls.

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Other good birds as I continued my walk round were a showy adult Purple Heron, half a dozen Chinese Grosbeaks feeding low down in a pond-side Chinese Hackberry, which as usual drew my attention by the noise of them cracking the seeds. As they showed so well I'll do a separate post to show the pics. My final good bird of the day was a real surprise - a Grey-headed Swamphen perched halfway up a reed stem on the edge of the pond by the Rocky Outcrop. This was the same pond I'd seen my first tickable one in 2018 and followed a nicely showy bird at Tung Lok Wai back in July, which I'll post here as I haven't posted pix in BF previously.




Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

Here's a follow-up post dedicated to the lovely flock of Chinese Grosbeaks the same day at Mai Po. The flock comprised three males and three females, but it was the females that really performed for me, as they grabbed and cracked hackberries.



Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

My second visit to Mai Po this week started with a visit to the reed beds with Paul Leader in the hope of picking up one of he wintering Common Reed Buntings during the ringing session. Unfortunately it was too windy to open the nets but we nonetheless enjoyed watching the reserve come to life as the light came up. Highlights included three Eastern Marsh Harriers and a Black-shouldered Kite coming off the roost, several Purple Herons , a couple of Great Bitterns, and a fine pair of Imperials Eagles lording it over the northern edge of the reserve from a treetop.


Photographic highlight of the day was this Eastern Marsh Harrier that came really close on one of its passes over the reeds at Pond 20, allowing me to start learning about the bird in flight capabilities of my new Sony RX10iv. Other good birds included a solitary Common Shelduck on pond 24, an albino Eurasian Wigeon on the Scrape, and another brief view of the flock of Chinese Grosbeaks.

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An unexpected highlight was finding a group of wonderful False Tiger Moths feeding on a scraggly lavender blue flower, while the two Burmese Pythons seen elsewhere were more expected but provided excellent views as they took advantage of the weak December sunshine. On the top shot the light brown stripe on the head provides excellent disruptive camouflage of exactly the same colour as the leaves.

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Cheers
Mike

 

[MKinHK]

Frustrated by my multiple dips for the Northern Goshawk and hopeful of connecting with the American Wigeon on the rising tide I headed back to Mai Po for the rising tide on Tuesday afternoon. The reserve seemed generally quieter than my last visit as I came in round the northern edge, finding generally fewer ducks - although amongst them were a fine male Falcated Duck and a couple of attendant females, and a Besra came in briefly to my pishing at the Rocky Outcrop, as did Yellow-browed, Pallas's, Dusky and Manchurian Bush Warblers.

It all went ballistic around Pond 8 when the Northern Goshawk flew low over the reeds heading purposefully southwards before disappearing behind some trees. Just Hong Kong's third record of this massive accipiter, this very long-tailed and rather pale juvenile female has been around for a couple of weeks now, but proven very difficult to pin down owing to its habit of giving nothing but brief fly-by views no more than once per day. I enjoyed not more than eight or nine seconds of views and never even reached for the camera before it was gone. Result!

two minutes later I struck gold again - refinding the Grey-headed Swamphen I had seen perched up on the reeds on Wednesday last week. It turns out that this is just the 11th Hong Kong record and an excellent addition to my self-found list (now at 414 species). This time its was foraging more sensibly on a tiny muddy area in a gap between the reeds, and I was able to get slightly better pix - albeit still at long range. An Eastern Marsh Harrier, two Purple Herons, a male Chinese Grosbeak, two Ospreys and a Common Buzzard all added to the general sense of quality winter birding.



With some time to kill before the high tide I headed down to the Scrape and enjoyed a fun half-hour as flights of Common Redshanks, the occasional Common Greenshank and two Eurasian Curlews whooshed over the hide before dropping onto the shallow water and low bunds, where good numbers of Pacific Golden Plovers , a Grey Plover, and a range of Common Teal, Eurasian Wigeon (including the albino bird), Shoveler, a few Northern Pintails and a solitary Black-faced Spoonbill were already well settled.

Coming out of the hide I bumped into Roy Smith and together we head down the Boardwalk towards the New Hide in the hope of picking the American Wigeon that thad been seen the day before from amongst the several thousand Eurasian Wigeon gathered in the bay. Our hopes were initially raised by the appearance close-in of the hybrid American X Eurasian Wigeon. Despite the disappointment of a false alarm this turned out to be both a handsome and instructive bird, as it enabled us to figure out that the extensive cream on the face, the rufous tinged nape and the greyish flanks were not what we were looking for from a pure American Wigeon.






As the flocks drifted ever closer with the rising tide I eventually picked out the American Wigeon drifting along asleep amongst the Eurasian Wigeon. The deep maroon of the breast and dark orange flanks and grey rather than rufous head provided the first clues, but we nonetheless had a tense wait before it rotated to show the dark green mask and ear coverts and a white - not creamy! - frontal blaze and finely black-speckled grey lower cheeks and nape. Somehow everyone contrived to lose it as it drifted left behind the big gulls that were arriving steadily from out in the bay, but my second HK tick (now 492 spp) in two hours was safely in the bag!



Other distractions throughout this rather tense process in dark and rapidly failing light included a couple of Black-faced Spoonbills foraging close to the hide - I really like how the patterns on the water show the side to side sweeping action of the bill - an always wonderful Black-capped Kingfisher - now sadly declining in Hong Kong - and amongst the fifty or so Heuglin's Gulls no les than four splendid Pallas's Gulls, which perfectly rounded off an outstanding afternoon of winter birding.

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Cheers
Mike

 

[3Italianbirders]

That Kingfisher is stunning Mike!

 

[MKinHK]

Many thanks 3IB - Black-capped Kingfisher is one of HK's very best birds.

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A late start after taking care of a sick dog at 3am got me to the Fung Lok Wai fishponds for 11am where, after another 20 minute wait I had utterly crippling views of a wonderful "milky tea" Booted Warbler foraging at eye level right next to the road for the best part of 45 minutes. Booted Warblers are rare in Hong Kong, with just seven previous records (of which the seventh was a more rufous bird that was also found at Fung Lok Wai back in November), making it an especial delight to enjoy such good views completely on my own. Mike Turnbull, on his way out from covering the rest of the site, confirmed I was in the right spot, but when it didn't appear after a while I took a loop around the heavily reed-finger pond where it had been showing in the hope of picking up one of an even rarer Hong Kong high count of four Chiffchaffs Mike and some other birders had seen.



I had no joy with the Chiffchaffs, but having got more than three quarters of the way round I heard the bird singing from cover and it almost immediately popped out of some high grass just a couple of metres away to inspect me. It was completely unafraid as it made its way along the bund, with a couple of forays up into some trees and even an overhead wire on the other side of the path where it again sang and gave the distinctive slightly textured 'dzzik call' that easily separated it from a couple of lurking Dusky Warblers before dropping down to feed again.



I have done pretty well for Booted Warblers previously, seeing what at the time was thought to be the first at Mai Po, on the same day I also ticked HK's first Franklins Gulls in late November 2015, and finding the fourth - a similarly pale bird on my San Tin patch in December 2016 that stayed into January 2017. Unlike that bird this one was quickly identified as Booted rather than Sykes's of which there remains just a single record in Hong Kong.


The last pic was shot against the light with no background. It's probably a bit paler than it should be because I had to stop up to prevent the bird being silhouetted. I like it for showing the booted effect of dark grey feet against the pinker legs and the clearly defined pale edges to the tertials, which are broader and less well-defined on Sykes.



I enjoyed my visit enough to make a second visit in the afternoon in the hope of seeing the Chiffchaff. There was a crowd of 20-odd birders and photographers looking for both birds, and although I saw and briefly photographed the Chiffchaff (which had a whopping eyering as well as almost brashly jet black bill and legs) I quickly got frustrated with the crowd rushing from sighting to sighting and headed off to see what I could find for myself. Not much was the answer - a solitary Bluethroat, 24 Coot, 5 Black-browed Reed Warblers and five Black-faced Buntings being the best I could winkle out. More exciting, a long-tailed raptor that dropped like a stone behind the trees at Nam Sang Wai had a distinctly Northern Goshawk-y vibe about it, but never reappeared, and goes down as one that got away. But with the sun drifting gracefully down above a site with lots of vegetation it was a nice place to be at the end of the day.

Cheers
Mike