Monday 30th December – Mai Po
Mai Po Nature Reserve is simply fantastic, this was my tenth visit since I started using eBird in 2004, and it remains well worth the effort to visit. Significant money and effort has evidently been invested in improving both the habitat and visitor facilities (including hides) over the years I have visited. With the possible exception of the mudflats (which changes in sedimentation may have made less attractive), this always brilliant reserve continues to get better.
Prior to my visit I checked tide times to work out which day I could conceivable visit had the most suitable high tides; check tides at Tsim Bei Tsui (
Predicted Tides at Tsim Bei Tsui), you want a high tide of 1.6m or above, ideally in the middle of the day or early afternoon. Having picked the 30th December as the best of a poor set of options, I applied for a ‘Solo Walk for Overseas Naturalists - One Day Pass’ from the WWF – Hong Kong website (
solo_walk_for_overseas_naturalists___one_day_pass_application), sending photos of my passport and RSPB membership card. The WWF team promptly responded to approve my pass, and I was all set.
Advice re birding Mai Po can be found at
Mai Po , and this includes a link to a map which shows the pond numbering system I refer to (there are now more hides than are shown on the map):
map_of_mai_po
On the day I took the MTR to Yuen Long, and a taxi to the reserve visitor centre (the taxi driver knew it). I arrived just before 8am, giving me an hour to bird the trees around the car park and entrance road fishponds, before the reserve opened. This didn’t reveal anything that I didn’t subsequently see in the reserve, but was enjoyable being out in the morning light, watching
Common,
White-throated and
Pied Kingfishers,
Black Drongo and
Long-tailed Shrikes.
At 9am I signed in, paid my entrance fee and deposit, and made my way to the warden’s office to complete registration (all very straight forward). My first stop was the new ‘Kingfisher’ hide overlooking ponds 7, 8a and 9. This area, especially 8a was largely dry, but produced one of my main targets for the day, two
Oriental Storks (perhaps an increasing winter visitor to Mai Po), the first in flight and the second roosting in a treetop.
Purple Herons showed nicely, as did an
Eastern Buzzard and the first of several
Greater Coucal. I didn’t find either Sooty-headed Bubul or Black-faced Bunting, both of which used to be regular here, but given what I did see, I can’t complain.
From here I skipped hide 8 and walked along to the boardwalk that traverses ponds 13 and 14, hoping to see
Chinese Penduline-Tit in the reedbeds. I was successful, with two birds providing distant flight and briefly perched views. The reeds also held a skulking
Oriental Reed Warbler (and I am sure much more I didn’t see).
The boardwalk leads towards hide 1, overlooking pond 17, and the view from here in the morning light was fabulous. No less than 17
Oriental Stork were present, often active and relatively close. Other common waders and herons were also present, if rather overshadowed.
With the prospect of a rather meagre 1.6m high tide at mid-day I pressed on, keen to get to the mudflat hide by 11am, so I walked briskly up between ponds 18 & 19, skipping the hides overlooking the length of pond 17, and the new interesting looking hide looking south of ponds 20 – 23. After a brief check of the
Shoveller,
Wigeon and
Teal at the west end of pond 17 I walked briskly through the mangroves out to the northern-most floating/mudflat hide.
At the mudflat hide the tide was a reasonable distance out, and still rising, with my scope I could identify waders, gulls and ducks along the tideline, and of course those closer in on the mudflats and along the mangrove edge. Oddly, with the exception of a single
Little Ringed Plover and a load of
Common Sandpipers there were no smaller waders – nothing smaller than a Black-bellied (Grey) Plover or Redshank. There were however plenty of
Eurasian Curlew,
Avocet,
Black-winged Stilt,
Black-bellied (Grey) Plover,
Greenshank, and
Marsh Sandpiper, with smaller numbers of
Whimbrel,
Redshank and
Spotted Redshank.
Black-headed Gulls were present in large numbers, and the most numerous gull, though I soon picked out a few daintier
Saunder’s Gulls. Scanning through the larger gulls most were evidently
Lesser Black-backed (Heuglin’s) Gulls. Five
Pallas’s Gulls were relatively easy to pick out amongst these, and at least one
Mongolian Gull was also present. Ducks got closer and easier as the tide rose, and comprised large numbers of
Tufted Duck,
Northern Shoveller, and
Eurasian Wigeon. With these were a reasonable number of
Pintail and (Eurasion)
Green-winged Teal, and with persistence I picked out two fully plumaged male
Falcated Duck.
Aside from a few marauding
Black Kites, three
Osprey occupied prominent perches, occasionally scattering wildfowl as they took to the air, and another birder picked out a fleeting
Harrier, which on subsequent views proved to be
Eastern Marsh. Looking along the mangrove front produced one of my favourite birds, a
Black-capped Kingfisher, in addition to several
White-throated and
Common Kingfishers. Whilst
Chinese Pond Herons,
Grey Herons,
Great and
Little Egrets were numerous, there was only a single roosting Spoonbill sp., and no Striated Herons.
By 1pm it was clear the tide (and birds) were receding, and keen to cover as much of the reserve as possible I moved on. From the end of the mangrove track I briefly headed north to check ponds 11 and 10. Matthew had flagged that good numbers of
Falcated Duck had been seen here, and I saw 15, though all bar one were eclipse plumaged. Turning around I headed south to complete the circuit around ponds 19-24.
The southern end of Mai Po is much less visited, and comprises more fresh-water wetland and marsh, often offering different birds to the salt/brackish water ponds in the northern half of the reserve. As I walked along the track passed pond 20 I was pleased to see a nice male
Daurian Redstart hop out onto the road from the fence-side vegetation. I was then delighted and amazed when a male
Siberian Rubythroat popped out next to it, staying front on in clear view whilst I set up and watched it through my scope. This was lucky on my part. Once the two birds disappeared back into the vegetation I walked on, and flushed a
Asian Barred Owlet. The presence of this may have been what had pushed the Redstart and Rubythroat out into the open.
Careful scanning of pond 20 failed to reveal anything scarcer amongst the many
Tufted Ducks, but did produce a pair of
Garganey and the first of two
Coot. Looking beyond the pond to check the few large trees between the ponds at this southern end first revealed a magnificent adult
Imperial Eagle, perched out in the open. Then in another tree a second, largely obscured, large eagle. Walking slowly on I found a point with a clear view of the second eagle, proving it to be an adult
Greater Spotted Eagle. This area has tended to be where I have seen wintering eagles previously – it is bot more open and quieter.
As I tracked along the Southern perimeter of the reserve, by pond 22, I was checking the now grass track regularly, which finally produced my only
Oriental Turtle-Dove of the day. The west segment of pond 23 held the first two
Eastern Spot-billed Duck, an increasing scarce duck in HK, and amongst a large group of roosting
Black-faced Spoonbills, two
Eurasian Spoonbills.
Rounding the corner to turn north brought me alongside the various parts of pond 24, this fenced-in area held reasonable numbers of water buffalo and was very birdy. With more time I suspect I could have seen more in this area. The main highlight was at the northern end, where the two pools held a notable total of 27
Eastern Spot-billed Duck (the most I have ever seen previously at Mai Po was 14 in 2004, with only single birds since 2006).
This was more or less the furthest point from the entrance, and conscious of the 5pm reserve closing time I now needed to move more quickly. After a brief stop at the education centre to top up drinking water and check ponds 15, I returned to the reedbed boardwalk crossing pond 14. This immediately paid off, as a
Yellow Bittern took flight and then edged slowly into the adjacent reeds, though I didn’t get further views of Chinese Penduline Tits.
From here I tracked back to the Kingfisher hide overlooking ponds 8 and 7, close to the entrance, to bird for my remaining time.
Oriental Storks were still present, and as the penultimate new bird for the day, so too was a single
Grey-headed Lapwing roosting on pond 8. Finally I made my way back towards the warden’s hut, one last scan of the adjacent fishpond poles producing a stunning
Black-winged Kite, its red eyes glowing brightly in the later afternoon sun. Magic.
After walking nearly 14km, and seeing 96 species of birds I was tired and happy. The staff at the visitor centre reception kindly called me a taxi, and I was soon whisked back to Yuen Long and urban Hong Kong.
