Brown Booby - A Distinguished Guest

 A Brown Booby stayed on a buoy near Cheung Chau for a few days last week, what made this bird interesting is that it was an adult! Which is not a common sight at all in Hong Kong. Hoiling and I made the effort to go see this distinguished guest, we contacted the sanpan owner which saw us on the 9am ferry to Cheung Chau, where we met the owner at 10am. The trip from Cheung Chau to the buoy of interest took another 30 minutes. We saw the bird sitting on the buoy way before we even got there. 

The bird was not particularly active, it was very alert and was aware of our presence, although it did not mind us getting close to the buoy in true Booby fashion. We enjoyed fantastic views of this large goofy looking seabird, although knowing that it probably won't change pose for us we decided to leave it in peace. The bird was reported for another day after our outing and disappeared the day after, hopefully gained enough strength to continue on its journey. Though not a lifer, this was a Hong Kong tick for me, and I am glad to get this on my Hong Kong list at long last.

Locustella season has begun at Telford Gardens, this little gem on the rooftop garden of a shopping mall in Kowloon have become one of the best places in Hong Kong if not the world to see Grasshopper Warblers. While my friends found a Baikal Bush Warbler that showed for only a day, numerous Pallas's Grasshopper Warblers been coming and going in the flowerbeds. I saw this at least two birds on my last visit, one of which was relatively showy, although not easy at all the photograph.

Still not much luck with any snakes, but got a lifer in form of the Hong Kong Slender Gecko. This species was only recently described and is the only endemic gecko in Hong Kong. It does look a bit like a Chinese Gecko, but the patterns on its back is different, plus they are much smaller, only the size of a juvenile Chinese Gecko. 

Shan Liu Village is one of the butterfly watching hotspot, though I myself is not a huge butterfly person, I do feel quite fortunate to be able to live in close proximity to so many beautiful butterflies. Here are some interesting ones I found along the stream of late.

Common Gull - Cepora nerissa

Tawny Rajah - Charaxes bernardus 

Spangle - Papilio protenor

Chinese Peacock - Papilio bianor

Common Grass Yellow - Eurema hecabe

Other than common species, I few rarer species also turned up, including the Green Skirt Baron, it looks similar to the male Common Archduke but much smaller and have a dark trail edge to the hind wings. The Five-bar Swordtail is not rare but still one that I enjoy seeing everytime, especially when it is drinking water.

Green Skirt Baron - Tanaecia whiteheadi

Five-bar Swordtail - Graphium antiphates

One of our local specialty is the Spotted Sawtooth, a rare species in Hong Kong but regularly sighted at Shan Liu. I have seen them even at my doorstep, although seeing it drinking by the stream resulted in some good photos. A Forget-me-not is perhaps one of the less impressive looking species, although also quite uncommon in Hong Kong.

Spotted Sawtooth - Prioneris thestylis

Forget-me-not - Catochrysops strabo

Christmas Rarity - Eurasian Oystercatcher

This year had been exceptional for rarities, and one of the most long awaited rarity that turned up is an Eurasian Oystercatcher, this is only the 3rd record in Hong Kong that I am aware of, of which I missed both previous times. This bird was actively feeding along the mudflat looking for razor clams. Despite being quite common in Europe, Eurasian Oystercatcher is not that common along the coast of Southern China, naturally limiting to the coast of Fujian, they very rarely venture as far south as South East Asia. All previous records in Hong Kong had been from Deep Bay area, and this one was no exception.

Eurasian Oystercatcher

Nobody really knows why this species is not recorded in Hong Kong more often, as they are unlikely to be overlooked, their large size and conspicuous plumage means they don't really blend in well with other waders. Either way, this was a very special bird that is certainly one of my favourite Hong Kong ticks this year.

Eurasian Oystercatcher - inflight

Around the same area Western Ospreys can often be seen, patrolling the coast for fish, occasionally flying quite close to the shore. Despite being quite common, they are by no means boring birds to look at.

Western Osprey

I haven't been birding that much of late, but other notable bird sightings were a male Siberian Rubythroat near Tai Lam Ecological Garden, like any other Rubythroats I have seen it was quite shy, but showed long enough for a record photo. At Lam Tsuen I was greeted by a flock of Asian House Martins, I haven't seen much of them this year, so I am glad to get them on my year list.

Siberian Rubythroat - male

Asian House Martin

Hoiling and I finally got around to visit a wintering butterfly roost at Tai Lam, and it was quite the spectacle, with over thousands of butterflies clinging onto trees and flying around. The exact reason for this spectacular congregation is still not known, but it is likely that by staying together they are safe from predation (although many butterfly species of Danainae are poisonous anyway). It is also incredible to think that these butterflies goes through 4 - 5 generations per year, how they find their way back to the exact location each year is mystifying to me.

Wintering butterfly roost

Most of the wintering species are Blue Spotted Crow (Euploea midamus) and Common Indian Crow (Euploea core), but there were other butterfly species present at the site, including numerous Grey Pansy (Junonia atlites) and Mottled Emigrant (Catopsilia pyranthe). 

Grey Pansy - Junonia atlites

Mottled Emigrant - Catopsilia pyranthe

Other Danainae species includes Plain Tiger (Danaus chrysippus), Glassy Tiger (Parantica aglea) and Blue Tiger (Tirumala limniance), none of these species rare, but seeing them in good numbers was still pleasing.

Glassy Tiger - Parantica aglea

Blue Tiger - Tirumala limniance

Plain Tiger - danaus chrysippus

The species that out numbered everything else was no doubt Blue Spotted Crow (Euploea midamus), although a common species in Hong Kong, you are unlikely to see so many in one place as you will at a wintering roost, they are not bad looking butterflies either, although they may look dark brown from afar, in the right lighting they are iridescent blue!

Blue Spotted Crow - Euploea midamus

Nature never seize to amaze us, and mimicry in nature is always something that fascinated me. How can one species evolve to look so much like another? Here is a butterfly that at first glance you may think look very much like another Blue Spotted Crow, when in fact it is a Great Egg Fly (Hypolimnas bolina), which actually belongs to a whole different family altogether!

Great Egg Fly - Hypolimnas bolina

Summer Is Here

Hot and humid are two perfect words to describe summer in Hong Kong, it is not for the faint hearted, as the heat can be intense at times. It is also not a great season for birds, as most migrants have gone north to their breeding grounds, very few birds stay behind to breed. One of the more exciting breeding species in Hong Kong is the Chestnut-winged Cuckoo, they are pretty widespread throughout Hong Kong, found in a wide range of habitats, but they are almost never easy to see or photograph. A few individuals near Nam Chung have been pretty showy of late, I decided to try for it early morning, sure enough I saw a pair almost immediately after I arrived. They are impressive looking birds, being quite large and colourful, even got a crazy looking crest to go with that ever repeating call that sounds almost exactly like a reversing truck.

Chestnut-winged Cuckoo

Another local species with chestnut wings is the Greater Coucal, which is very common throughout, they are usually shy but occasionally can give good views, like this individual at Tai Mei Tuk Catchment, which was evidently looking for something to eat along the dried up catchment, my thought was that it was trying to pick up some tadpoles in the gutter.

Greater Coucal

Tai Mei Tuk Catchment is a great place for raptors, I saw a juvenile Crested Goshawk the other day, it was probably hunting for a Spotted Dove but obviously not quite quick enough...it perched there for a few minutes after losing the meal and flew off into the forest.

Crested Goshawk

Tai Po Kau is also fairly quiet, the only interesting birds I recorded were Lesser Cuckoo calling in the distance, I also caught a glimpse of a Bay Woodpecker but some hikers came through and likely scared it off. The only photogenic bird there was a Crested Serpent Eagle, back on its favrourite tree. It is a species I always enjoy seeing up close, and always ends up with me taking tons of photos...It perched there for over 10 minutes, where I left it to look for snakes in peace.

Crested Serpent Eagle

It is no surprise that the Crested Serpent Eagle is out and about, as a night walk at Lung Fu Shan yielded three snakes, including two Taiwan Kukri Snakes, a very pretty species that specialize in eating eggs, they are non-venomous and usually pretty docile. The other snake being a Bamboo Pit Viper. Near Wu Kau Tang while out for night birds survey, we encountered my first ever Banded Krait! Like its cousin the Many-banded Krait they are highly venomous, although the Banded Krait is usually docile. This individual was pretty gentle and only wanted to escape when we got closer, protecting its head under leaf litter or its body.

Taiwan Kukri Snake

Bamboo Pit Viper

Banded Krait

Its been too dry for most frogs, the forecast of rain throughout the week maybe good news for our local amphibians! We often find Spotted Narrow-mouthed Frogs out and about at this time of the year, they are surely one of Hong Kong's cutest frog species. The Hong Kong Whipping Frog which is also known as the Brown Tree Frog is also a very common species throughout.

Spotted Narrow-mouthed Frog

Hong Kong Whipping Frog

It is also a good time of the year to see the Nanhaipotamon hongkongense, also known as the Hong Kong Stream Crab, they can be easily found along mountain streams, being bright red they are hard to miss. This is an endemic species to Hong kong, and recently they discovered yet another species of this genus on Lamma Island, which is also endemic.

Nanhaipotamon hongkongense

It is also a great time of the year to look for butterflies, I am not a particularly active butterfly person, but given the chance I do look at the odd one. Like this Glassy Bluebottle which stopped briefly for a drink, this is an uncommon species in Hong Kong, and I rarely get to see one so well. Another uncommon butterfly is the Indian Awlking, one of the prettier member of the Skippers.

Glassy Bluebottle

Indian Awlking

We've also had some success in rearing a few larvae, including two Tailed Jays which we collected from the Magnolia figo on our rooftop. We also reared two Cephonodes hylas larvae, both of them successfully emerged, it is a beautiful species of hawk moth, they actually have a few scales on their wings when they first emerge, but seems to wear off pretty quickly.

Tailed Jay

Cephonodes hylas