Kadorie Farm & Mai Po

After Kadorie Farm and Botanic Garden reopened recently, some birder relocated the Black-chinned Yuhina first found by Kadorie Farm staff over a month ago, I tried my luck one morning but had no joy, except for a lot of Indochinese Yuhinas. This species is generally a common winter visitor in Hong Kong, but showing signs of breeding in recent years, I saw quite a few gathering nesting materials. The Black-chinned Yuhina didn't show on the day I went, but reappeared the day after. I have only seen this species in Jiangxi back in 2007, this species is rarely recorded in Guangdong, making this a very interesting addition to the Hong Kong list.

Indochinese Yuhina - carrying nesting materials

Black-chinned Yuhina - photo from Wuyishan, Jiangxi, 2007

Plenty of other birds were in the area, including many Grey-chinned Minivets, many were feeding at close range. Scarlet Minivets were also in no short supply.

Grey-chinned Minivet - male

Grey-chinned Minivet - female

Scarlet Minivet - female

Velvet-fronted Nuthatch also showed well, foraging along tree trunks. A very worned Two-barred Warbler was present, it made a slightly unusual call that sounded similar to Greenish Warbler, but with its lower mandible being so pale I think it is safer to call it Two-barred Warbler. An interesting Leaf Warbler was also present, overall shape and plumage looks like Kloss's, with overall shape shorter than Hartert's, bill was also shorter, but since it did not make a single call I can't be 100% sure of its true identity. 

Velvet-fronted Nuthatch

Two-barred Warbler

Possible Kloss's Leaf Warbler

Since I haven't been to Mai Po for a while, I decided to give it a go. Wintering ducks will soon be heading off, some of the males have moulted into their full plumage, such as this glorious looking Northern Shoveler. 

Northern Shoveler - male

I went out to the mudflat slightly earlier than the predicted tide, with numerous Chinese Pond Herons and Great Egrets are now moulting into their breeding plumage. To my surprise there wasn't any Plovers or Stints on the mudflat, Pied Avocets, Eurasian Curlews and Whimbrels were plentiful.

Chinese Pond Heron

Great Egret

Pied Avocet

Whimbrel

As the tide rose higher, hundreds of Black-headed Gulls came in, there were also quite a few Saunders's Gulls feeding on the mudflat, such as this very confiding individual which came right in front of the bird hide.

Black-headed Gull

Saunders's Gull

Large gulls are always an interesting subject to scan along the mudflat, although the majority of them remained pretty far out, I counted over a hundred of them, with the majority being Heuglin's Gulls (Lesser Black-backed), a few Mongolian Gulls (Now a subspecies of Vega Gull) as well as one or two Vega Gulls (THE actual Vega Gull). I also saw two Pallas's Gulls, but they were way too far for photographs. The only other odd one out was a single 1st year Slaty-backed Gull.

Large gulls...

Slaty-backed Gull

The main attraction on the mudflat was however a juvenile Lesser Frigatebird thats been present lately, it came in as the tide was at the highest and terrorized the birds along the mudflat, although without much success, it came through twice and disappeared further out. Although Frigatebirds are in general more of a pelagic species, a few do wander into Deep Bay every now and then, likely drawn to the congregation of waterbirds in the area.

Lesser Frigatebird

Another bird that terrorized the waterbirds was a young Peregrine Falcon, which swooped past the front of the bird hide at high speed on an attempt to chase down a Whimbrel, unfortunately (or fortunately) the Whimbrel got away, and the Peregrine flew off without a decent lunch. I must once again praise the EOS R6 for its lightning speed focusing and accurate tracking, even with the 2x teleconverter attached, it was able to lock onto the bird almost instantly, almost 80% of my shots were usable.

Peregrine Falcon