Brown Booby - A Distinguished Guest

 A Brown Booby stayed on a buoy near Cheung Chau for a few days last week, what made this bird interesting is that it was an adult! Which is not a common sight at all in Hong Kong. Hoiling and I made the effort to go see this distinguished guest, we contacted the sanpan owner which saw us on the 9am ferry to Cheung Chau, where we met the owner at 10am. The trip from Cheung Chau to the buoy of interest took another 30 minutes. We saw the bird sitting on the buoy way before we even got there. 

The bird was not particularly active, it was very alert and was aware of our presence, although it did not mind us getting close to the buoy in true Booby fashion. We enjoyed fantastic views of this large goofy looking seabird, although knowing that it probably won't change pose for us we decided to leave it in peace. The bird was reported for another day after our outing and disappeared the day after, hopefully gained enough strength to continue on its journey. Though not a lifer, this was a Hong Kong tick for me, and I am glad to get this on my Hong Kong list at long last.

Locustella season has begun at Telford Gardens, this little gem on the rooftop garden of a shopping mall in Kowloon have become one of the best places in Hong Kong if not the world to see Grasshopper Warblers. While my friends found a Baikal Bush Warbler that showed for only a day, numerous Pallas's Grasshopper Warblers been coming and going in the flowerbeds. I saw this at least two birds on my last visit, one of which was relatively showy, although not easy at all the photograph.

Still not much luck with any snakes, but got a lifer in form of the Hong Kong Slender Gecko. This species was only recently described and is the only endemic gecko in Hong Kong. It does look a bit like a Chinese Gecko, but the patterns on its back is different, plus they are much smaller, only the size of a juvenile Chinese Gecko. 

Shan Liu Village is one of the butterfly watching hotspot, though I myself is not a huge butterfly person, I do feel quite fortunate to be able to live in close proximity to so many beautiful butterflies. Here are some interesting ones I found along the stream of late.

Common Gull - Cepora nerissa

Tawny Rajah - Charaxes bernardus 

Spangle - Papilio protenor

Chinese Peacock - Papilio bianor

Common Grass Yellow - Eurema hecabe

Other than common species, I few rarer species also turned up, including the Green Skirt Baron, it looks similar to the male Common Archduke but much smaller and have a dark trail edge to the hind wings. The Five-bar Swordtail is not rare but still one that I enjoy seeing everytime, especially when it is drinking water.

Green Skirt Baron - Tanaecia whiteheadi

Five-bar Swordtail - Graphium antiphates

One of our local specialty is the Spotted Sawtooth, a rare species in Hong Kong but regularly sighted at Shan Liu. I have seen them even at my doorstep, although seeing it drinking by the stream resulted in some good photos. A Forget-me-not is perhaps one of the less impressive looking species, although also quite uncommon in Hong Kong.

Spotted Sawtooth - Prioneris thestylis

Forget-me-not - Catochrysops strabo

Brown Fish Owl Revisited

Brown Fish Owl - Ketupa zeylonensis

Since Hoiling didn't get to see the Brown Fish Owl the other night, I went with her again two nights later. Kennth Lam joined us as well, and the three of us made our way once again to the supposed location. Another local Cheung Chau resident birder was already there and pointed out the Owl on top of a ship far away, it's eye-shine clearly visible when it look towards the bright lights from the seafood restaurants. I soon noticed a large shadow flying in towards a closer boat, and once again the Brown Fish Owl perched on it's favourite perch to look for fishes below.

We were given some wonderful views of the Owl before we noticed that there were actually another individual perched further away on another ship! Two Brown Fish Owls at the same location was simply amazing! Soon, they settled on a boat further away and didn't move for a while, so we decided to have dinner.

Perched on top of a fishing boat.

When we returned from dinner, Fai along with Wing Tung were still observing the pair. Soon enough a large fishing vessel came into the harbour to dock, which got closer and closer to the owls until they were finally spooked! The two flew towards the shore and I thought it might have landed on a tree, so we all rushed to that direction to relocate it. I was on the right track but way off target...luckily Wing Tung was there to point us all to the right direction and we were able to observe one of the owl much closer. Thanks to her's and Hoiling's expertise with the hand torches, we were able to get some good shots of the owl.

Naturally our setup attracted a crowd of local residents asking us what exactly we were photographing. Many of them had never seen an owl before, and many children were able to get good looks of the owl. Sharing is still the ultimate joy of birdwatching, and there's nothing like being able to share this magical moment with nature with all these locals. There were of course a few residents which seems also familiar with the owls here, and stated that they had regularly seen them around the harbour before. A man also stated he had seen an large owl near the football field before, with wingspan near 6ft! While it is possible that he over exaggerated, I also wondered if it could have been an Eagle Owl...

And that wrapped up for a wonderful night out. As I heard, a lot more photographers had flocked into Cheung Chau to seek for the owl, so good thing we went early, I am sure the harbour front is packed.

Relocated on a tree on the waterfront.

Brown Fish Owl - simply a majestic creature to behold!

I was asked another question the other day about the identification of larger owls in Hong Kong, this usually consists of the Eurasian Eagle Owl and Brown Fish Owl (Although we also now have the Brown Wood Owl, but it looks very much different). One key feature is their eye colour, BFO being yellow and EEO being orange. BFO also lack any prominent "face-disk" while the EEO is much paler around the bill. EEO have much thicker dark striation along it's breast and belly compare to the thin striations on BFO.

On a very different note, I picked up a baby Pallas's Squirrel last week. I couldn't see any obvious injuries on it, but it certainly weren't behaving as a squirrel should be, wandering around on the ground slowly. I managed to put it into a wooden box and called KFBG (Kadorie Farm & Botanical Garden) whether I could send it over to them, but it was already 5pm by then and they are closing. So, I had to call up RSPCA to pick up the poor fella, and they should help transfer it to KFBG the next day...I was hoping to hear from KFBG about it, but turned out it never made it to KFBG...

Pallas's Squirrel

Spring Summary

Dollarbird - nice to get them at home every year

Spring is coming to an end, with temperature up to 31°C on Buddha's Birthday, it surely feels like we are barely clinging onto the tail of spring. There's been very little bird movement at home, no flycatchers to note and lacking any interesting migrants. A pair of Blue Whistling Thrushes had been seen in the gully though, likely will start breeding soon at their previous nest site just across the road. They provided some great views the other day and allowed me to get quite close, this was taken in quite dim light handheld at 1/40.

Blue Whistling Thrush

The best migrants were probably a few Dollarbirds around the valley, they usually perch on the high voltage cables, where they appear like small dots on the wire. I was lucky and managed to snuck up to a few perched on a tall tree down the valley and got a decent view, not particularly close but closer then those on the wire. Dollarbirds are quite common during spring or autumn, but it's during spring that we see mature adults with bright red beaks and purple throats, their colours are also generally sharper.

Dollarbird - a spring and autumn staple in Hong Kong

A day trip to Cheung Chau at the end of April didn't produce much migrants, I got a few distant Grey-streaked Flycatchers, a few Arctic Warblers and a single Brown Shrike. The local Pacific Reef Egrets can always be seen around the beach, where they perch on the top of shark nets to hunt for small fishes below.

Brown Shrike - lucionensis

Pacific Reef Egret - coming in for the landing

I visited Po Toi Island for both the Labour Day holiday and Buddha's Birthday. On the ferry you can see plenty of Terns have returned on one of the offshore island, Bridled being most numerous but also a few Black-naped Terns around.

Bridled Tern - circling the island

Black-naped Tern

Things on the island were generally quiet on the two days, with a minimum amount of flycatchers, only a few Grey-streaked Flycatchers were seen dotted around. A pair of Mugimaki fluttered around the mangroves but not so well for photographs. Arctic Warblers were numerous but none showed very well, I missed the chance for the Large-billed Warbler earlier. A few Pacific Swifts drifted around in the bay, surprisingly this is the first photo I have ever taken of this species, not sure why but sometimes you do "forget" to take photos of the common birds.

Grey-streaked Flycatcher

Pacific Swift

Things got very excited on Monday when fellow birder Leo found himself face to face with an Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher next to the helipad! We all darted there but the bird was nowhere to be seen. We waited around the area for the next eight hours but the bird was not what you call cooperative...It showed only once more that day and I received a brief flyby view of it. An amazing record for Hong Kong, only the second recorded, both in May. Certainly a species we should look out for in near future. Birders who went on the next day (not a public holiday) received much better treatment from the Kingfisher, with many able to get good photographs. I therefore tried again on Buddha's birthday along with Hoiling, but so did over sixty other birders...naturally a bird this rare and beautiful is worth twitching for. Unfortunately, the bird never showed and my guess was that it left the island early morning that day seeing the weather was clear. A bummer for all the birders wanting to catch a glimpse of this little jewel, and one nice holiday wasted!

I have to keep reminding myself that it's OK that I missed the opportunity for any photographs, at least I got this little guy on my HK checklist! It's not like I haven't seen one before either, flashback to my last Fraser's Hill visit, on our last morning we found an ODK trapped inside the hotel's restaurant! I later managed to grab the bird and brought it outside where it perched for a little while for us to enjoy in a more "natural" setting. But I guess seeing one at home still feels slightly different and just a little bit more exciting.

Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher - a shot from Fraser's Hill

Seeing that the Kingfisher was a no-show (although many optimist waited), Hoiling and I joined Captain and his father, a long with John and Jemi Holmes on a short pelagic trip to the southern waters on Captain father's small fishing sampan. They have had a great morning and counted a total of six Short-tailed Shearwaters just south of Po Toi! This was a bird I have yet to tick off my Hong Kong list, so joining in the action seems like a better plan. I've never had much luck with these seabirds, I never seems to be able to connect with them whenever I am out at sea. Good news was that I managed to see a single bird that flew just above the water some distance away, unfortunately it was brief and was gone before I could reach for my camera. Oh well, you got to start somewhere! On our way back to Chai Wan we encountered a few more obliging Red-necked Phalaropes.

Red-necked Phalarope - coming into breeding plumage

So, that kind of sums up my spring adventures. Not terribly exciting but not half bad either, although many birds seems to have eluded me the whole time...Tomorrow I will be off to Cambodia on a little quest for some of the Cambodian specialties, hopefully my luck will be better there then at home! I am kind of counting on that!