Birdy Fish Ponds

While Mai Po Nature Reserve is arguably the best birding spot in Hong Kong, there are plenty of wetlands outside of Mai Po that can be very productive during the migration. Fung Lok Wai is one of the areas that I've come to really like, the overgrown fishponds in the area provides a lot of cover for reed warblers, this is likely one of the best place in Hong Kong to look for Manchurian Reed Warblers, as I found two there just one morning. One of them was relatively showy, although still incredibly difficult to get any clear photos with nothing in the way.

Manchurian Reed Warbler

Oriental Reed Warblers and Black-browed Reed Warblers can both be found here with relative ease, there's almost at least one Black-browed Reed Warbler in every patch of tall grass. Dusky Warblers were in even higher numbers, they were simply everywhere you look, with one almost every few metres, with this many of them, it gives you a lot of chances to get good photographs of at least one of them.

 

Oriental Reed Warbler

Black-browed Reed Warbler

Dusky Warbler

Other interesting birds in the area includes a female Plaintive Cuckoo, the Pheasant-tailed Jacana is still around, although still incredibly difficult to approach and often fly off way before you are anywhere close to it. Eurasian Coots are not that common in Hong Kong anymore, but can still be found here relatively easily. Four Amur Falcons drifted through high up, this species is often very on time when it comes to migration.

Plaintive Cuckoo

Pheasant-tailed Jacana

Eurasian Coot

Amur Falcon

The tall grass also attracted plenty of buntings, I had at least two Chestnut-eared Buntings along the track, while several flocks of Yellow-breasted Buntings came through, mostly seen inflight, but quite a few came down to feed on the ground as well, including several lovely looking males.

Chestnut-eared Bunting

Yellow-breasted Bunting - male

San Tin is another good areas of fish ponds, the area also attracts a good numbers of buntings, including Black-faced Buntings, several Yellow-breasted Buntings, a few Little Buntings and Chestnut-eared Buntings. With this many buntings around, I can only imagine how good it will be to be in Long Valley!

Black-faced Bunting

Yellow-breasted Bunting - female

Little Bunting

Chestnut-eared Bunting

A half drained fish pond attracted plenty of waders, including a few Spotted Redshanks and many Common Greenshanks. A small flock of Eurasian Teals also decided to drop in here. Other than the three species of Reed Warblers (Manchurian, Black-browed and Oriental), Zitting Cisticolas can also be found in the tall grass, but often not as skulky.

Spotted Redshank

Common Greenshank

Eurasian Teal

Zitting Cisticola

The best bird for me at San Tin was a Japanese Quail, there seems to be a good number of these around at the moment, with several reported at various locations. Its been a while since I got a photographable one, so I was quite happy to catch a glimpse of this one before it ran off to the side of the road and not to be seen again!

Japanese Quail

Along Tam Kon Chau Road I had a Pied Harrier, it flew in quite close but completely caught me off guard! So I had completely wrong settings on my camera, luckily I was able to salvage a few shots from the burst of photos that I took.

Pied Harrier

Tai Sang Wai is becoming increasingly popular amongst photographers, so birding there is now much less enjoyable. That being said, there are still some good birds there, most notably a Japanese Quail, although I didn't see it while I was there as there were too many people on the road...A rather friendly Chestnut-eared Bunting though was more obliging to show.

Chestnut-eared Bunting

There were a few interesting birds around, but none were too photo friendly, including a rather distant Black-winged Kite and several species of waders on a drained fish pond. The only note worthy bird was a single Common Starling, which I think is quite an early bird, only 4 days shy of being the earliest recorded in autumn.

Common Starling

There were up to five Red Bishops along the fish ponds, being very colourful these birds naturally attracted tons of photographers...Although I am quite concerned about how these birds got there in the first place. These are no doubt released caged birds, but I suspect these may have been released on purpose by photographers rather than from mercy releases, as most mercy releases only happen during certain festivals. If this is the case, I find this a rather tasteless practice that should not be encouraged, not only does this encourage to buy birds from the bird trade which may include wild caught birds, but releasing caged birds can lead to bird flu getting spread to wild birds or even worst create invasive species that fight for resources with our native birds...'Luckily', they only seems to sell males at the bird market due to popular demand, as females are drab and not desirable, so there is very little chance that these exotics will establish themselves in Hong Kong.

Red Bishop - male

Northern New Territories - Quail and More

I spared a little time at San Tin the other day, and as my car drove along the track, I noticed a brownish bird walking along the side, coming in and out of the vegetation. I suspected it to be one of the two species of Buttonquails (Turnix) that we often get on passage in Hong Kong. I stopped my car and waited for the bird to come into view, and a few minutes later it instead revealed itself to be a Japanese Quail.

Japanese Quail - a close encounter

This is a species I see almost annually, although most of the time I only catch a fleeting view of this usually shy species. This individual however was not as shy as most I've encountered before, and ventured out into the open for excellent views. The car didn't seem to bother it that much, therefore I stayed inside the car to take these photographs.

Japanese Quail - walking tall...

Although an overall common species with a fairly wide distribution, the Japanese Quail is now listed as Near Threatened, as is suspected to be undergoing population decline due to habitat loss and hunting. They are a great bird to see in the wild and an absolute joy to get good photographs of, I enjoyed good views of this individual until it got darker and I left it to continue feeding along the track.

Japanese Quail - a hungry migrant busy feeding

Zitting Cisticolas are common winter visitor in Hong Kong, many have been arriving and I saw up to five or six on a single track at San Tin. While Black-browed Reed Warblers are also becoming more common, they are not difficult to see at San Tin. There were also plenty of Oriental Reed Warblers around, although none of them were particularly photogenic.

Zitting Cisticola

Black-browed Reed Warbler

Oriental Reed Warbler

Siberian Stonechats can now be seen everywhere at San Tin, being a common winter visitor in Hong Kong, they will remain here until spring next year. Some movement of Red-collared Doves was also noted, with numbers increasing from previous month.

Siberian Stonechat

Red-collared Dove

Hundreds of Whiskered Terns had turned up at San Tin, amongst them were a few White-winged Terns, they were not in their smart summer plumage, but you can still pick them out with their 'headphone' like head pattern. They are usually more common in spring, and a scarce autumn migrant.

Whiskered Tern & White-winged Tern

White-winged Tern - juvenile

Whiskered Tern - juvenile inflight

The Red-backed Shrike was still present but became more shy. I saw little else of interest except for this White-headed Munia feeding amongst a flock of White-rumped and Scaly-breasted Munias. This is obviously an ex-captive individual, they are fairly popular caged birds and often seen in the bird market, we often get a few of them mixed in the Munias each year. A few Yellow-breasted Buntings had also arrived at the paddies, although remained pretty shy, I could only managed photos of one perched up in the tree after being flushed.

White-headed Munia - ex-captive

Yellow-breasted Bunting

Finally, a Black-winged Kite at Tai Sang Wai provided excellent views and photo opportunity. In Hong Kong we only get them as scarce passage migrant and winter visitor, therefore it is a real treat to see one up close. It only stayed briefly before flying off into the distant. With all the crazy stuff happening in Hong Kong, it is a real breather and luxury to be able to do some birding in the countryside.

Black-winged Kite

Quail and a few odd birds

Got news of a few Yellow-legged Button-quails at Long Valley in the morning circled around, so I decided to head over and check it out in the afternoon. The fields filled with Yellow Wagtails, a few Red-throated Pipits were there as well. But otherwise things seemed quiet.

The first interesting bird I saw was indeed a Quail, not a Button-quail but a Japanese Quail. We get these as regular migrants and winter visitors, though their numbers fluctuates from year to year. I personally have not seen them for a long while, so I was quite pleased to see this one. I managed a quick photograph before it "quailed" off, nothing spectacular but indeed my first photographic record of the species.

The usual Black-winged Stilts were business as usual, though you may still get nice compositions from their graceful postures from time to time. I must have taken hundred of photos similar to this one by now...

There weren't as many Buntings as I would expect, there were a few Yellow-breasted Buntings around. This species is now becoming rarer and rarer by the year, due to heavy poaching and hunting in China, less of these beautiful Buntings make it to their winter grounds. Yellow-breasted Buntings are considered a delicacy in China, people pay thousands of dollars just to eat it's supposedly nutritious meat, though I doubt very much that there are in fact any medicinal properties to it at all. It is very sad to know that such uncivilised practice still goes on till this day, and even sadder to know that they are being driven to extinction simply by one nation's appetite. The birds I saw were quite far away, no good photos either.

The second Bunting species were a pair of Chestnut-eared Buntings. They flew about the place, both remained in the distance. We get them every year, though in quite small numbers. Our hope for Amur Falcon faded as the sun went down, none came down to perch...Guess I will have to look some other time!