A Warm January

January is usually the coldest month of the year, but this year it had been relatively warm, temperature rarely dropped below 10°C. Due to health reasons my birding activities had been kept to a minimal, as I could not venture too far, I've been itching to get up to Tai Po Kau with extremely good birds reported up there on a regular basis, but unfortunately it is out of the question for the time being...There are a few birds around which requires minimal walking distance to get to, one of them being a White-tailed Robin on 'show' at Lung Fu Shan, it was spotted by birders late December, but had since been fed meal worms by photographers. Most of the photographers had already been and gone by the time I went to investigate. The young bird was perched on the designated perch created by the photographers when I arrived, these types of setups make it so easy to get 'good' photographs, but certainly take the fun out of it...I was only there for 5 minutes before I got completely bored and left. This species is still a fairly rare winter visitor in Hong Kong, so by all means it's worth a look.

White-tailed Robin - a very obliging subject...

Red-flanked Bluetails and Daurian Redstarts are fairly common in winter, although Red-flanked Bluetail numbers certainly had seen a major decrease in recent winters, I am not sure why that is but perhaps milder winter is changing their migratory patterns.

Red-flanked Bluetail - female

Daurian Redstart - female

The Tristram's Buntings at Wonderland Villas had returned yet again, this time there were only two, but they're still absolute joy to see especially at your local patch. They are not shy either, often allowing quite close views.

Tristram's Bunting - a great bird to see as always

A naturalist never let anything stop them from going outside...Although I could not walk long distance for the time being, I still regularly venture outside to look for birds and other critters, spiders being one of my new favourites. There are always some spiders around us if you look closely, and you will be surprise at the variety you get in a small area.

Carrhotus sp.

Chrysilla acerosa - female

Cyclosa confusa

Parasteatoda songi

Lycosidae sp.

Castianeira hongkong

Thanatus hongkong

Finally, the best bird of the month for me so far, an Ashy Minivet at Mt. Davis. I was there to look for the Yellow-streaked Warbler with my dad, as he haven't seen it. We somehow dipped on that, but got a very surprising Ashy Minivet mixed in with a few Scarlet Minivets. Although this is a fairly common spring migrant, there are very few winter records of this species as far as I know.

Ashy Minivet - a fairly decent surprise

Hopefully I will recover by next month for more birding, not exactly the best start of 2019...