Many wetlands across Asia are facing destruction, with them the waterbirds that lives in those wetlands. Many of these waders and wetland birds winter in Hong Kong, such as the endangered Black-faced Spoonbill. While many of the larger wetland birds such as cranes or storks winter further north around the large lakes in southern China, due to habitat loss, many of them are now listed as endangered or vulnerable, including the Oriental Stork. We are lucky enough to have two visiting Mai Po at the moment, and they have been showing exceptionally well.
 |
Oriental Stork
|
I caught up with the pair one afternoon and marvelled at these incredible giants. On their own you don't really get a sense of how big they really are, only when they are right next to some Great Egrets do you really start to appreciate just how much bigger they are compared to the already very large Egrets. The Black-faced Spoonbill is dwarfed when compared side by side...They can be as tall as 150cm, with a wing span of over 2 metres!
 |
Oriental Stork - look how small the Great Egret looks next to it...
|
 |
Oriental Stork - the pair together
|
 |
Oriental Stork
|
Also around Mai Po I finally caught up with the Ferruginous Duck, although other birders reported at least 3 birds, I only saw a single female within the flock of Tufted Ducks.
 |
Ferruginous Duck - female with Tufted Ducks
|
Around the reed beds there were many Chinese Penduline Tits, this is a pretty good season to find them, especially if you know their calls. I can never get bored with these cute little birds, the way they perch lightly on the top of the reeds, and their 'panda eyes' look just makes them adorable.
 |
Chinese Penduline Tit
|
Dusky Warblers are in no short supply at this time of the year, although usually not very photogenic, I was happy to find this one feeding in a ficus tree that at least gave me a chance for a decent photo. Yellow-bellied Prinias are usually quite skulking during winter months, this one however perched right out for a good photo. I found various Black-faced Buntings around Mai Po, a small flock gave good views along a quiet path.
 |
Dusky Warbler
|
 |
Yellow-bellied Prinia
|
 |
Black-faced Bunting
|
Collared Crows are fairly common around Mai Po, you can hardly get around the reserve without seeing at least some of these now vulnerable corvids. A good numbers of Great Mynas within a large flock of Crested Mynas caught me by surprise, while I have usually seen a few, I have never seen a good size flock of this recently introduced species, it seems they have started breeding and slowly increasing in numbers.
 |
Collared Crow
|
 |
Great Myna
|
Both Eurasian and Black-faced Spoonbills can be seen around the reserve regularly, with Eurasian being less common. A few of these lovely spoonbills feeding at the scrape provided brilliant photographic subjects under the late afternoon light.
 |
Eurasian Spoonbill
|
 |
Black-faced Spoonbill
|
Birding around my local patch at Tai Mei Tuk Catchwater have picked up slightly, with a lot more action than previous month. Grey Treepies were active along here and often seen perched near tree top. While warbler numbers had increased the last weeks or so, with quite a few Two-barred Warblers along the catchwater.
 |
Grey Treepie
|
 |
Two-barred Warbler
|
Best birds so far were a pair of female Grey Bushchats which showed well consistently, I was surprise the pair didn't fight very much, a male Daurian Redstart was not particularly happy about their presence, it protested constantly with warning calls.
 |
Grey Bushchat - female
|
No comments:
Post a Comment