Hot October with Good Migrants!

September was hot, the beginning of October is no better, we had two days of slightly cooler weather but the heat came back quickly, with the same intensity as before! That being said, there are evidently more migrants coming through now, although I have not been able to chase all the migrants, still managed to connect with a few. The most important one for me, is no doubt a Band-bellied Crake found at Telford Gardens! The finder initially thought it was a Slaty-legged Crake, which is far more common in Hong Kong and almost ignored it, luckily someone else got a better photo and confirmed the ID! I got there as soon as I got the news, luckily the bird showed as well as a shy and skulky crake ever could. The last known record in Hong Kong was a bird at Lung Fu Shan back in 2009! This marks my 511th bird on my Hong Kong list, being a lifer too!

Band-bellied Crake - barrings and spots on the wing and reddish legs to confirm its ID!

I had a decent outing at Mai Po, even though the numbers of waders feels way down, and the variety was honestly quite poor, other than the more common species, I only turned up a single Ruddy Turnstone, a few Dunlins, some Terek Sandpipers and some Red-necked Stints...A distant Pin-tailed Snipe was also worthy of note, I managed to record shot of it landing later on to confirm its ID.

Common Greenshank

Terek Sandpiper

Pin-tailed Snipe

The main scrape was flooded, therefore making it quite unsuitable for roosting waders, a few Purple Herons have been quite active there and often see them flying in and out of the tall grass, fighting with one another. I took the chance to take some inflight shots of these lovely looking herons.

Purple Heron

Though there were not that many waders around, terrestrial birds faired slightly better. I had my first Eastern Marsh Harrier of the season, took a few record shots as it circled above the reedbeds. A distant Black-naped Oriole showed briefly, a species I always enjoy seeing no matter how many times I have seen them. An Amur Paradise Flycatcher was slightly surprising for me, as I have not seen one at Mai Po for many years.

Eastern Marsh Harrier - juvenile

Black-naped Oriole - juvenile

Amur Paradise Flycatcher - juvnile

Best of the bunch though were two Eurasian Wrynecks, one calling from the reedbeds, the other perched up in a tree. I picked it up by call and slowly pinpointed it, they are not the easiest bird to find, especially when perched motionlessly! Eurasian Wrynecks are regular passage migrants with some over wintering in Hong Kong, certainly a species I enjoy seeing very much.

Eurasian Wryneck

The fish ponds at San Tin is facing destruction very soon due to the new development plans in place, it is a real shame that such a high biodiversity area will soon be destroyed. It is an area I enjoy birding very much, and breaks my heart to know it will soon be gone forever. Common Kingfishers are a common sight there, often seen perched on wires or wooden poles by the fish ponds. Partially drained ponds provides much needed feeding area for waders, Little Ringed Plovers and Green Sandpipers are often seen along the edge of these ponds.

Common Kingfisher

Little Ringed Plover

Green Sandpiper

A few more migrants were present as well, including a very tired looking Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, a few Red-necked Stints and quite a few more Temminck's Stints. Three Little Terns were seen flying around and occasionally diving for fish, a nice change from the many Whiskered Terns we've been having.

Sharp-tailed Sandpiper - with Temminck's Stint

Red-necked Stint

Temminck's Stint

Little Tern - non-breeding

I haven't been able to turn up anything super exciting at Tai Po Kau lately, no matter how hard I tried. The only notable new arrival being returning Hartert's Leaf Warblers. It is still a nice birding spot with plenty of local birds to see, Huet's Fulvettas are always a lovely sight when seen up close. Mountain Tailorbirds are notoriously difficult to see despite how common they are, as is the Pygmy Cupwing, which I managed to find a very friendly individual to get some decent photos!

Hartert's Leaf Warbler - fokiensis

Huet's Fulvetta

Mountain Tailorbird

Pygmy Cupwing

My most interesting encounter though was a large East Asian Porcupine in broad daylight! Porcupines are usually nocturnal, even though I have seen them during the day before, it is not the norm. This individual was fairly calm and continued feeding when I approached it, it did stopped briefly to take a sniff at me but figured I probably wasn't a threat and continued on its way.

East Asian Porcupine

Speckled Piculet was still a fairly rare to uncommon species 10 years ago, since then their numbers have really exploded in Hong Kong, you can now find them in any forested area with relative ease, such as this friendly one found while out working near Shatin Pass.

Speckled Piculet

Last week I took a wildlife photographer from the UK on a 3 days tour around Hong Kong, we were able to visit some less explored sites and got some interesting stuff. Since the tour was more photography oriented, our main goal was to get good close-up photos some of the more common species (or common for me). The Chinese Blackbird was one found at North District Park, a species that is now a regular breeder in Hong Kong. This lovely Blue Whistling Thrush on the other hand was found at Mui Shue Hang Park, which posed nicely for us.

Chinese Blackbird - juvenile

Blue Whistling Thrush

Mui Shue Hang Park is most likely one of the best location to photograph Velvet-fronted Nuthatch in Hong Kong, being more open, you are far more likely to get open shots of these fabulous birds, they also often feed at eye levels here, something that only happen every so often elsewhere.

Velvet-fronted Nuthatch

Red-billed Blue Magpie was another target species for the guest, luckily for us they are usually quite easy to find even in urban parks, these were seen at Shatin Park, a location I often see small flocks of these noisy birds, we got lucky that day as a group of them was feeding on a fruiting ficus tree.

Red-billed Blue Magpie

We also saw plenty of interesting butterflies and dragonflies along the way, such as this Swallowtail feeding, and the fairly rare Tiny Grass Blue. A lovely Scarlet Basker gave good photo opportunity. We even saw a young Checkered Keelback poking its head out from the water during our visit to Mai Po. All in all, great fun!

Swallowtail

Tiny Grass Blue

Scarlet Basker

Checkered Keelback