Unexpected Rarity(?) - Black-chinned Fruit-Dove

Fruit-Doves are generally considered a fairly exotic genera of birds, mainly found in the Philippines, Malaysian Peninsular, Indonesia and all the way down to Australia. As their name suggests, they are mainly frugivores, favouring fruits such as figs, therefore they are fairly nomadic within their range. We have our range of exotic looking Columbidae in Hong Kong in form of various species of Green Pigeons which occasionally turn up in Hong Kong, but never have we gotten a Fruit-Dove before...until recently! A friend of mine Charles Cheng sent me a photo one early morning of a green dove, which I immediately replied was a Black-chinned Fruit-Dove, I thought he was on a trip down towards the Philippines, therefore I asked him where he took the photo, and to my surprise he said "Lai Chi Kok Park"! Having gotten the gps coordinates to where he took the photo, I went over straight away. 

By the time I got there it was just around 9:30am, light was harsh and getting very hot, the fruiting fig tree was filled with Asian Koels busy feeding, but no Fruit-Dove in sight. It took Hoiling and I 10 minutes before out of nowhere, a green dove climbed up from the branches below to the fruiting tree. And there it was! In full glory, a Black-chinned Fruit-Dove feeding on the figs right before our eyes.

Black-chinned Fruit-Dove - female / immature male

I am not entirely sure whether this is a female or an immature male, as they can be tricky to tell apart, both have been suggested. Eitherway, there is very little debate as in what species this is. However, I noticed 2 broken terials on its right wing, which is certainly odd, considering the rest of the bird looks immaculate. Whether this 1st record is accepted onto the Hong Kong list remains to be seen, but certainly an interesting and very exciting bird to see in Hong Kong.

Black-chinned Fruit-Dove - broken tertails on the right

For the next few days, the dove showed fairly regularly in the early hours of the day, attracting hundreds of twitchers and photographers. I went once more before I had work one morning, but it only perched high up in the tree and didn't move around. Apparently that was the last day it appeared, and it was not found again the next day.

Black-chinned Fruit-Dove - one last look...

I've not had too much luck with much of the forest migrants, except for Amur Paradise Flycatchers. Theres been quite a few Yellow-rumped Flycatchers seen at Ho Man Tin, I just haven't bothered to head over there...Over at Tai Po Kau, it was much the same with a few Amur Paradise Flycatchers still around, plus other common resident species, otherwise it was fairly quiet.

Velvet-fronted Nuthatch

Crested Goshawk

Black-throated Laughingthrush

Silver-eared Mesia

There are certainly birds moving through, such as Oriental Pratincoles, which included a few juveniles. Richard's Pipits are now returning in small numbers, no doubt will soon see many more of this species. Over at Tai Sang Wai I had a single White-winged Tern, plus a drained pond with quite a few waders on it, including a pair of Red-necked Phalaropes.

Oriental Pratincole

Richard's Pipit

White-winged Tern

Red-necked Phalarope

I finally had a bit more luck with some snakes, including a Diamond-backed Water Snake that was sleeping on a branch above the stream. I find this to be one of our prettier snake, with lovely patterns on its back, while not really a rare snake, I haven't gotten much chance to photograph this one up close before.

Diamond-backed Water Snake - Trimerodytes aequifasciatus

A nice encounter with a baby Checkered Keelback was nice, I find juveniles to have much nicer patterns than adults. Adults are known to be quite bitey when handled, but this juvenile was fairly docile and calm.

Checkered / Yellow-spotted Keelback - Fowlea flavipunctata

Finally, two adults Many-Banded Kraits, seen on the same evening. The bigger of the two individual was seen cruising along a rice paddy, probably looking for Long-tailed Skinks I presume. The second smaller individual was seen coming out of the pond, it immediately coiled up to take the classic Krait 'defensive' pose, and soon cruised off back into the water and out of sight. Even though they are common, I still find them to be an exciting species to encounter.

1st Many-Banded Krait - Bungarus multicinctus

2nd Many-Banded Krait - Bungarus multicinctus

Autumn Beginning - Buttonquail & Amur Paradise Flycatcher

I had an interesting encounter with a Barred Buttonquail in Kam Tin, this species is so seldomly recorded in Hong Kong it can almost be considered a rarity. Although, there is now confirmed breeding records in Hong Kong, meaning they may not all be autumn migrants as once thought, but actually a rare resident as well. Whether this was an early migrant or a resident bird is hard to know, either way I enjoyed this little encounter, and one that certainly made braving the hot weather worth the while.

Barred Buttonquail - quite a nice surprise!

There are still a few Hainan Blue Flycatchers around, including this juvenile male I saw at Tai Po Kau, although at this time of the year they are not as vocal and become harder to detect. I spotted a 'brown flycatcher' type bird hawking for insects high up in the tree, which I initially thought was an Asian Brown Flycatcher, but upon closer inspection, it had pale legs and the head and mantle colour was different, so no doubt a Brown-breasted Flycatcher, an odd place to see this usually riverine species. 

Hainan Blue Flycatcher - juvenile male

Brown-breasted Flycatcher

One of our first proper autumn migrants are usually Amur Paradise Flycatchers, and they seem to be coming in good numbers at the moment, I had 3 individuals at Tai Po Kau, all in one feeding flock. Another returning migrant that is usually one of the earliest is the Grey Wagtail.

Amur Paradise Flycatcher - good sign of autumn migration!

Grey Wagtail

Resident species such as Crested Serpent Eagles are seen all year round, although I find them to be not as vocal at this time of the year. Same goes with Great Barbets, while their presence can still sometimes be made known by their call, they are nowhere as vocal as in spring.

Crested Serpent Eagle

Great Barbet

Strangely enough, late summer and early autumn always seems to be quite a good time to see Pygmy Cupwings, perhaps post breeding many juveniles are dispersing? While I have no idea exactly why that is, here are three different individuals which showed very well to me in the past week along the same stretch of road at Tai Po Kau, just to prove my point.

Pygmy Cupwing

Except for a few waders, the fish ponds around San Tin and Tai Sang Wai is still relatively quiet, a drained pond had a few small waders on there, including 2 Red-necked Stints, a few Long-toed Stint earlier in the week, and a single Temminck's Stint. All were very far away. At San Tin, I noticed a few White-cheeked Starlings, some obviously looked like juveniles, while mostly a winter visitor, they do breed in Hong Kong in small numbers. Azure-winged Magpie is an introduced resident species in Hong Kong, the population is still going strong, and I saw plenty of juveniles in the flock around Tai Sang Wai, here a juvenile enjoying a papaya.

Temminck's Stint

White-cheeked Starling - juvenile

Azure-winged Magpie - juvneile

Black-winged Kites is mainly considered a passage migrant and winter visitor in Hong Kong, although a few do over summer in Hong Kong, mainly in Mai Po area, apparently a pair was seen building a nest. Whether their attempt was successful is not known, but one of the bird I saw during my recent visit was a juvenile, whether from nearby area I am not sure. Common Kingfishers are of course one of our 3 breeding kingfisher species in Hong Kong, and looks like they have had another successful year, as I saw quite a few juveniles while out birding.

Black-winged Kite - juvenile

Common Kingfisher - juvenile

I don't think there really is a bad time of the year to look at butterflies in Hong Kong, you get various species throughout the entire year, and late summer is quite a good time when we have a good abundance of species around. I am not a huge butterfly person, but I do take a few photos if I get the chance. I have rarely seen Chestnut Angle hold up their wings while resting, so this one was an interesting observation for me. The fabulous looking Fluffy Tit, once a rarity in Hong Kong, is now regularly sighted in many areas, it is usually considered to be a fairly tropical species, their increase therefore quite often believed to be linked to rising temperature in the region. Both Common Rose and Common Birdwings are now easy to see, both fabulous looking species as always.

Chestnut Angle - Odontoptilum angulata

Fluffy Tit - Zeltus amasa

Common Rose - Pachliopta aristolochiae

Common Birdwing - Troides helena

Other late summer observations of interest, including many Pale-spotted Emperors, this particular male flew in and hovered very close to me, which allowed for a good flight shot of this usually very quick species. Yellow Featherleg and Blue Forest Damsel are both fairly common forest stream species, but doesn't make them any less attractive.

Pale-spotted Emperor - Anax guttatus

Yellow Featherleg - Copera marginipes

Blue Forest Damsel - Coeliccia cyanomelas

Finally, one of our most interesting arthropods in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Freshwater Crab, always fun to see this colourful crab walking through the forest floor on a damp day.

Hong Kong Freshwater Crab - Nanhaipotamon hongkongense

San Ming, Fujian - Aug 2024

Day 1 -

Kenneth suggested a quick trip to San Ming in Fujian, mainly targeting the fabulous Elliot’s Pheasant and Blyth’s Kingfisher, there are not many birds in that area that are lifers for us, so our target was clear. Four of us met up at West Kowloon station on Saturday morning and we took the train up to Shenzhen Bei, Captain met us directly there, where we got onto another train towards SanMing Bei. The train journey was surprisingly long, it took over 5 hours to get there, where we were met by our guide Mr. Xie.

SanMing Bei

The weather at SanMing was very hot, it was 37°C and not at all comfortable. It took another two and a half hours by car to reach our lodge at Dangzhou in Mingxi county. Mr. Xie owns the lodge and run his guiding business there. Just before we got to the lodge, a few juvenile Silver Pheasants made an appearance in-front of our car, it was almost dark so I was surprised any of my photos came up clear at all!

Silver Pheasant - juvenile

Dinner was served as soon as we unpacked, it was a hearty home cooked meal prepared by Mr. Xie's mother. As it got darker outside, the stars become apparent and the milky way was visible with our naked eye, somewhat of a rare sighting for us city folks from Hong Kong.

Milky Way

After dinner we decided to head out nearby for a night walk. On a tree right outside our lodge we found quite a few Red Giant Flying Squirrels, which are always exciting to see. This species covers a huge range and is found in India, Southern China, all the way down to Indonesia, the race found in Fujian should be rufipes. A few Whip Scorpions were also spotted, they seem fairly common around the village. Other observation of interest include a Katydid belonging to the genus Tegra.

Red Giant Flying Squirrel - race rufipes

Whip Scorpion - Typopeltis sp.

Tegra sp.

We failed to find any snakes, however there were plenty of frogs around, including many lovely looking Chinese Common Tree Frogs, these little green frogs were very fun to watch and really quite pretty. We found two much larger Chinese Flying Frogs as well.

Chinese Common Tree Frog - Hyla chinensis

Chinese Flying Frog -  Zhangixalus dennysi

Other new species for me was a few Dark-sided Chorus Frog, what is likely an Olive Frog, and a Taipa Frog. There were of course lots of more familiar species such as Gunther's Frogs, Paddy Frogs as well as a single Butler's Pygmy Frog.

Dark-sided Chorus Frog - Microhyla heymonsi

Olive Frog - Nidirana adenopleura

Taipa Frog - Rana longicrus

Butler's Pygmy Frog - Microhyla butleri

Day 2 -

We were off to the bird hide for Elliot’s Pheasant at 5:30am, the bird hide was probably one of the biggest and most well equipped bird hide I have seen in China! We got seated and waited, it didn't take long for a male Silver Pheasant to come into view, while I have seen this species many times, seeing a male is still an exhilarating experience. 

Silver Pheasant - male

No more than five minutes later, a pair of Elliot’s Pheasant came into view from the left! And what a bird it was, the male was absolutely stunning, it does remind me very much of the Hume’s Pheasant, although with white neck and belly. For the next twenty minutes or so we had brilliant views of the trio feeding together. Seeing any pheasants in the wild back in the day was a real challenge, with these feeding stations, these once mythical creatures are now much more of a reality to get.

Elliot's Pheasant - male

Elliot's Pheasant - female

With our morning mission completed, we headed back to the lodge for breakfast. During Breakfast we added a pair of Slaty-backed Forktail from the lodge, as well as a few Collared Finchbills. Our next target was the Blyth’s Kingfisher, it must be said we have probably chose the “wrong” time to visit, as they have just finished breeding, but we thought we might as well give it a try while we were here. Funnily enough, Blyth’s Kingfisher is not a lifer for me, as I have seen one at Che Ba Ling many years ago, although that was way before we had cameras to record what we saw, and it was quite far away. Therefore, I would very much like to refresh my memory of this enigmatic species! We headed towards Ge Shui Kou village, where the bird is frequently reported along that stretch of river. 

Slaty-backed Forktail

Collared Finchbill

Blyth's Kingfisher site

Birding here is extremely slow, with very low density of birds throughout. We encountered very few feeding flocks, and even when we did there were only a handful of birds, with Huet's Fulvetta and White-bellied Erpornis being all there were. We had a pair of Bay Woodpeckers at one point as well, although none of those allowed any photos to be taken. The only relatively good bird were three Grey-sided Scimitar-Babblers, a rather shy species usually, but these decided to play nice and showed fairly well.

Grey-sided Scimitar-Babbler

From then on until lunch, we barely had any notable birds. I heard a White-necklaced Partridge call in the distant, a few Grey Treepies were seen quite far away, one feeding on a big katydid, but that was about it...During these birdless hours, we entertained ourselves with various sightings of butterflies and dragonflies, some of which were certainly quite interesting. Most notable sighting was a Jumbo Dragonfly that perched at eye-levels!

Grey Treepie

White-spotted Crow - Penthema adelma

Jungle Queen - Stichophthalma howqua

Banded Treebrown - Lethe confusa

Arhopala sp.

Black Spotted Labyrinth - Neope muirheadii

Merogomphus pavici

Archineura incarnata

Heliocypha perforata

Matrona basilaris

Jumbo Dragonfly - Anotogaster sieboldii

It wasn't like we didn't try hard for the Blyth's Kingfisher, we went back and forth that stretch of river again and again, hoping to glimpse it fly past or perched on a rock somewhere...but we had nothing. Just before we headed to lunch we saw a Red Muntjac running away from our car.

Red Muntjac

After lunch, we continued our search along the river...again yielding very little birds, let alone any Kingfisher! A few Wild Boar piglets kept us entertained for a little while, as a few little ones struggled to get back up the slope. The only real notable birds we saw all afternoon were a few female or juvenile Elliot's Pheasants. We also saw a few more Silver Pheasants which did not allow for photos.

Wild Boar

Elliot's Pheasant - female

Again, we turned out attention to other creatures, some new to us, while some were familiar faces. By 6:30pm we have had just about enough of seeing very little, all the while being out in the intense heat! We headed back to the lodge for dinner.

Cyrtophora sp.

Actias ningpoana

Common Awlking - Choaspes benjaminii

That evening we did a little walk outside, but was cut short by incoming thunderstorm and heavy showers, which cooled things down quite a bit! We didn't see anything new, but more Chinese Common Tree Frogs were nice to see again.

Chinese Common Tree Frog - Hyla chinensis

Day 3 -

Our last morning to try for the Blyth's Kingfisher, it felt exceedingly cooler, as temperature dropped significantly throughout the evening after the storm, for the first time in two days it actually felt nice being outside! After breakfast we began our patrolling route yet again, the first birds we saw were again a few juvenile Silver Pheasants.

Silver Pheasant - juvenile

We went back and forth a few times along the same stretch of river, but coming up empty handed once again. I suggested we try something else just to keep ourself from going insane, so we walked into a little footpath that run along a smaller stream, while there were not a single bird in sight, a snake suddenly crashed landed right in front of us! Which turned out to be a Beauty Rat Snake! After that rather lousy entrance it swam away swiftly.

Prime Blyth's Kingfisher habitat...

Beauty Rat Snake

There were really not that many notable birds, except for a few heard only White-necklaced Partridge and Collared Owlets, two Mandarin Ducks were also seen. A few Red-billed Blue Magpies came through as if to mock us of our futile efforts. We again resorted to looking at other creatures for past the time, and to be fair there were some nice insects and spiders around. Best of the morning for me was probably an Orange Oakleaf!

Red-billed Blue Magpie

Argiope ocula

Olive Frog - Nidirana adenopleura

Orange Oakleaf - Kallima inachus

By 11am, we thought we have tried all we could, and accept unwillingly that this will not be our time to see the Blyth's Kingfisher. Just as we were packing our stuff at the lodge, Captain shouted "Black-throated Tit!", which had all of us dashing out to the balcony to see no less than a dozen of these tiny birds flitting about in the tree nearby.

Black-throated Tit

After lunch, Mr. Xie drove us back to SanMing Bei station and bid our farewells. Our return journey was anything but smooth, as our transit at XiaMen Bei was delayed for one and a half hours! Which meant we got back to Shenzhen but later then we originally planned.

All in all, I would say the Elliot's Pheasants certainly did not disappoint, although I was just very surprised by the lack of birds in general, despite fairly good habitats with good diversity of insects and other animals, the low density of even common birds felt strange to me. Either way, it was still interesting to bird with friends in new places. Huge thanks to Kenneth for organising the logistics to make this trip as smooth as possible!

	Species	Scientific Name	Note
1	Madarin Duck	Aix galericulata
2	White-necklaced Partridge	Arborophila gingica	Heard
3	Elliot's Pheasant +	Syrmaticus ellioti
4	Common Pheasant	Phasianus colchicus
5	Silver Pheasant	Lophura nycthemera
6	Spotted Dove	Spilopelia chinensis
7	Black-crowned Night Heron	Nycticorax nycticorax
8	Little Egret	Egretta garzetta
9	Chinese Pond Heron	Ardeola bacchus
10	Eastern Cattle Egret	Bubulcus coromandus
11	Crested Goshawk	Accipiter trivirgatus
12	Mountain Scops Owl	Otus spilocephalus	Heard
13	Asian Barred Owlet	Glaucidium cuculoides
14	Collared Owlet	Taenioptynx brodiei	Heard
15	Dollarbird	Eurystomus orientalis
16	Great Barbet	Psilopogon virens	Heard
17	Chinese Barbet	Psilopogon faber	Heard
18	Speckled Piculet	Picumnus innominatus	Heard
19	Bay Woodpecker	Picumnus innominatus
20	Grey-chinned Minivet	Pericrocotus solaris	Heard
21	White-bellied Erpornis	Erpornis zantholeuca
22	Long-tailed Shrike	Lanius schach
23	Red-billed Blue Magpie	Urocissa erythroryncha
24	Grey Treepie	Dendrocitta formosae
25	Japanese Tit	Parus minor
26	Yellow-bellied Prinia	Prinia flaviventris
27	Barn Swallow	Hirundo rustica
28	Red-rumped Swallow	Cecropis daurica
29	Chestnut Bulbul	Hemixos castanonotus
30	Mountain Bulbul	Ixos mcclellandii
31	Collared Finchbill	Spizixos semitorques
32	Light-vented Bulbul	Pycnonotus sinensis
33	Black-throated Tit	Aegithalos concinnus
34	Rufous-capped Babblrer	Cyanoderma ruficeps
35	Streak-breasted Scimitar-Babbler	Pomatorhinus ruficollis
36	Grey-sided Scimitar-Babbler	Erythrogenys swinhoei
37	Huet's Fulvetta	Alcippe hueti
38	Chinese Hwamei	Garrulax canorus	Heard
39	Greater Necklaced Laughingthrush	Pterorhinus pectoralis
40	Black-collared Starling	Gracupica nigricollis
41	Crested Myna	Acridotheres cristatellus
42	Chinese Blackbird	Turdus mandarinus
43	Lesser Shortwing	Brachypteryx leucophris	Heard
44	Blue Whistling Thrush	Myophonus caeruleus
45	White-crowned Forktail	Enicurus leschenaulti
46	Slaty-backed Forktail	Enicurus schistaceus
47	Fire-breasted Flowerpecker	Dicaeum ignipectus	Heard
48	Scaly-breasted Munia	Lonchura punctulata
49	White-rumped Munia	Lonchura striata
50	Eurasian Tree Sparrow	Passer montanus