Ho Man Tin Strikes Again! Fairy Pitta!

September is an excellent time for migrants, the unpredictable weather may have brought in some interesting birds the past week. We were getting intense showers throughout the week and easterly winds. At migrant hotspot Ho Man Tin, other than the Tiger Shrike (which I missed again), a Fairy Pitta turned up on the 16th of September. As always it caused quite the stir and a lot of photographers and birders flocked to this little hill to try their luck. I was very lucky and connected with the bird quickly, where I was at the right place at the right time, as the Pitta perched up in a tree and stayed still for at least 3 minutes!

Fairy Pitta - a species that never fails to impress

Fairy Pitta is a regular but rare migrant in Hong Kong, their secretive nature makes them difficult to observe in the wild. No breeding records as yet in Hong Kong, but they do breed in the forest of Guangdong, so perhaps breeding pitta is not too far fetched a dream. This young Fairy Pitta only stayed one day, it wasn't spotted the next day.

Fairy Pitta

Other interesting birds at Ho Man Tin I encountered includes a pair of Scarlet Minivets, a species that seems to occur at Ho Man Tin annually in small numbers, likely dispersing pairs of individuals from forested sights. A male Plaintive Cuckoo was sighted while I was looking for the Tiger Shrike, while the only shrike I managed to find is a Brown Shrike...Yellow-rumped Flycatchers were in no short supply this year, although I never found a male anywhere.

Scarlet Minivet

Plaintive Cuckoo

Brown Shrike

Yellow-rumped Flycatcher

A juvenile male Siberian Blue Robin was also present for a few days, long enough for photographers to set up a feeding station. This was a nice bird to see, but what I really want to find is an adult male Siberian Blue Robin, which I have yet to see in Hong Kong.

Siberian Blue Robin - juvenile male

Elsewhere, San Tin had been quite productive of late, and I enjoy being able to bird in the car when weather gets bad. Here are a few more common species found along the fish ponds, such as the White-breasted Waterhen, Black Drongo, Black Kites, Eurasian Collared Dove etc...A few Oriental Turtle Doves also arrived.

White-breasted Waterhen

Black Drongo

Black Kites with Eurasian Collared Dove

Oriental Turtle Dove

The only wader of interest I found the other day was a nice looking Long-toed Stint. Little Ringed Plovers are always fun to watch as they run along the side of fish ponds. Zitting Cisticolas have just started arriving, and I saw quite a few in the tall grass, along with a few Pallas's Grasshopper Warblers, Oriental Reed Warblers and a Manchurian Reed Warbler, none of which wanted to be photographed. Eastern Yellow Wagtail have also returned.

Long-toed Stint

Little Ringed Plover

Zitting Cisticola

Eastern Yellow Wagtail

A Black-winged Kite had been frequenting the fish ponds at San Tin as hunting grounds, I caught up with this beautiful raptor in the dimming lights. It was also a perfect opportunity to test out the tracking capabilities of my EOS R6, which did nothing but impressed. I was shooting with my EF 500 F/4 IS II lens with 2X extender, and the results were mind blowing. With my EOS 7D mark II I was never able to track flying birds when I have 2X extender attached, the camera simply can't keep up with the subject at F/8, let alone in gloomy conditions like that day.

Black-winged Kite

At one point the Black-winged Kite dived straight towards me, and the camera was able to stay focused on the bird on most frames! On a few occasions even when the bird was quite far away and flying in front of a noisy background of buildings and trees, the camera still recognise the bird in frame and tracked it with relative ease. This opens up a lot of opportunity for BIF shots even in darker conditions.

Black-winged Kite - BIF shots with EOS R6