Hong Kong Southern Waters - Late April Pelagic

Hong Kong is not well known for its pelagic birds, mainly because where we are situated in the south China coast is a bit off course from most of the truly pelagic species, but with the right conditions and a bit of luck we occasionally get a good haul of species out at sea. 25th was such a day, in terms of bird movement it was one of the most exciting pelagic trips I've been on for a long while in Hong Kong, with an almost constant stream of various terns and phalaropes. As usual, Red-necked Phalaropes were in no short supply, with over 60 individuals seen throughout the day.

Red-necked Phalarope

Our first tern species were a few Little Terns, of which we ended with a good count of 24 individuals, other species we saw were numerous Common, a few Bridled and a single Black-naped Terns. Additional species I didn't get a photograph of were Caspian and Gull-billed terns.

Little Tern

Common Tern

Bridled Tern

Black-naped Tern

The most numerous Tern species of the day was the Aleutian Tern, with at least 70 individuals counted. This is a species that up until 1980s ornithologists had no clue where they wintered outside of their breeding range in Alaska and Russia, not until some birders found them along the coast of Hong Kong during migration. Now, we know they winter throughout the warm tropical waters near Malaysia and Indonesia, and is a regular migrant through Hong Kong waters.

Aleutian Tern

Another tern species that often passes through our waters during migration is the Great Crested Tern, we had at least 18 of these large long winged terns, two were found resting on floating polystyrene boards, a well known 'habitat' for migrating terns.

Great Crested Tern

We had up to 6 Arctic Skuas throughout the trip, with an addition of 2 unidentified Skua species. The best one for me was a dark morph adult, which came quite close to our boat. There was also a single adult pale morph in breeding plumage.

Arctic Skua - adult dark morph

Arctic Skua - adult pale morph

There were other individuals with various plumage variety, I am clueless at aging Skuas, so I presume most of them as adult still in winter plumage, or 3rd year birds. Anyone willing to shine a light on this subject matter I will be most grateful!

Arctic Skua

The highlight for me though was no doubt 6 Short-tailed Shearwaters, a species I have yet to photograph in Hong Kong before. They weren't particularly close, but were close enough to see all the diagnostic features. This is a species that up until 2008 we had no knowledge that it was a regular migrant through Hong Kong.

Short-tailed Shearwater