March is always a bit of a quiet month, not a lot is happening at the moment, spring migrants are arriving at a very slow rate, and a lot of our wintering birds are starting to depart. A Yellow-browed Bunting at Ho Sheung Heung seems to have stayed on through the winter, it was seen feeding with a few Little Buntings. Around the same area were three White's Thrushes, its been an exceptional winter for this species, and I can hardly get bored of them. A Peregrine Falcon was observed on one of the electricity pylon.
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| Yellow-browed Bunting |
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| Little Bunting |
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| White's Thrush |
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| Peregrine Falcon |
Asian Koels are now a constant background noise, here is one found singing on top of a tree at Shek Kong Airfield Road. Common Rosefinches are still around, and I finally located one male there and lots of females, these should be departing very soon. Yellow-billed Grosbeaks are of course another species we most expect to find there, feeding together with the Rosefinches. Asian Barred Owlets have been showing relatively well along the road here, although locating them can still be tricky sometimes. Another species that should be departing very soon is a Daurian Redstarts, we are seeing a lot less of them this month, and most wintering individuals should be gone by next month.
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| Asian Koel - male |
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| Common Rosefinch - male & female |
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| Yellow-billed Grosbeak - male |
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| Asian Barred Owlet |
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| Daurian Redstart - male |
Some wintering species are lingering on at Tai Po Kau, including a nice looking male Red-flanked Bluetail and several very friendly Tristram's Buntings. Both showed well on my last visit. A few Hartert's Leaf Warblers are still present.
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| Red-flanked Bluetail - male |
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| Tristram's Bunting - female |
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| Hartert's Leaf Warbler |
Not a lot of spring waders arriving yet, but the Black-faced Spoonbills are now moulting into their beautiful breeding plumage, always lovely to see as always. Lots of large gulls are still present, other than the two (or three) common species such as Vega and Lesser Black-backed Gulls still lingering on, two Slaty-backed Gulls were also observed, one very bleached individual, plus a much darker looking but smaller individual, the bi-coloured bill threw me off slightly, but the rather light and unicoloured primaries plus deep red legs kind of leave very little choice in terms of large gulls in this region. I only saw one Pallas's Gull there. Other than the still lingering Oriental Stork (was too far away so I didn't bother to photograph it), a Javan Mongoose was a nice sighting along the border fence. 48 Falcated Ducks were also a lovely sight to behold.
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| Black-faced Spoonbill - in glorious breeding plumage |
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| Slaty-backed Gull (middle) |
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| Slaty-backed Gull - another 1st winter |
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| Pallas's Gull |
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| Javan Mongoose |
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| Falcated Duck - 48 of these fine looking ducks! |
San Tin's been relatively productive lately, I had a few Eurasian Spoonbills feeding on one of the fish pond, together with some Black-faced Spoonbills as well, these provided very close views and were very fun to watch.
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| Eurasian Spoonbill |
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| Black-faced Spoonbill |
Pipits numbers seems to be up, many Red-throated Pipits were seen, plus a few Buff-bellied Pipits around the place. The Buff-bellied Pipits are now moulting into their breeding plumage.
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| Red-throated Pipit - male |
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| Buff-bellied Pipit |
A Yellow Bittern was spotted along some reed, while the long staying female Pied Harrier is still around the area, although I still fail to get any decent photos of it flying close by, as it always seems to drift away from me when I was there.
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| Yellow Bittern |
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| Pied Harrier - female |
Finally, some clear signs of spring migration! At least two Oriental Pratincoles, and a single Pacific Swift amongst the Barn and Red-rumped Swallows. Both giving me hope that something IS happening and we will finally get some new arrivals in the next couple of weeks.
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| Oriental Pratincole |
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| Pacific Swift |
