Southern Lantau Migrants - Birding at Hong Kong's Largest Island

I rarely bird Lantau, mainly because I live on the opposite side of Hong Kong, the other reason being no person without a permit can drive into southern Lantau, which makes getting there more difficult than it should be. Usually, we need to head to Tung Chung and catch a bus to reach just one of the many birding hotspots, therefore it is difficult to travel multiple stops on a single day without getting bogged down by public transport. Therefore, when an opportunity arrises that a friend got a car with a permit to go into southern Lantau, it was worth spending a day there! We met up at Sunny Bay and got into his car and headed towards Shui Hau. Shui Hau been getting more attention of late due to a presence of a Fairy Pitta there a week ago, we knew it was already gone by the time of our visit, but our morning there started fairly well, with a female Yellow-rumped Flycatcher plus a few very confiding Asian Brown Flycatchers.

Yellow-rumped Flycatcher

Asian Brown Flycatcher

With so many Water Buffalos, this naturally attracts a lot of Cattle Egrets, this is a common sight in south Lantau. The grass attracted quite a few Eastern Yellow Wagtails, and I was very pleased to find a Citrine Wagtail there as well, this juvenile got the classic looking C-shaped ear covert. 

Eastern Cattle Egret

Citrine Wagtail

To my complete surprise, a Forest Wagtail jumped out of nowhere and was feeding next to the Citrine Wagtail! It was very strange to see these two species together, as they usually inhabits very different habitats! The Forest Wagtail did not give good views however and disappeared very soon.

Forest Wagtail

After a relatively productive morning at Shui Hau we moved on towards Pui O, on the field we spotted a good numbers of 'Swintail' Snipes, but when two of them took flight their fanned tail revealed themselves to be Swinhoe's Snipes! I wasn't quick enough with my camera, but Ko who already got his camera ready managed to snap a few photos before they landed, confirming them as Swinhoe's Snipes.

Swinhoe's Snipe

Swinhoe's Snipe (photo credit to Ko)

Black Drongos were everywhere, one perched nicely and infront of a nice background for a good photo. Asian Brown Flycatchers were in no short supplies, and we saw a few more of those, one of them was very friendly and allowed close views.

Black Drongo

Asian Brown Flycatcher

But talking about friendly, nothing quite beat this over the top friendly Sanderling, feeding along the beach without a care in the world. it is always a pleasure to see these long distance migrants up close, getting the camera as close to the ground as possible ensures a nice background, we had a nice little photo session with this charming little bird before moving onto other birds at Pui O. We didn't connect with the Black-capped Kingfisher, but I did see a Black-naped Oriole. 

Sanderling - a very confiding individual

The mangroves at Pui O was covered in Fiddler's Crab, we saw two species, the pale but larger Austruca lactea and the smaller but very colourful Paraleptuca splendida.

Austruca lactea

Paraleptuca splendida

It was already mid-day when we got to Shap Long, and bird activity started to slow. We did add a distance Brown Shrike at the reservoir. Closer to the village we were surrounded by over a hundred Large-billed Crow, probably the largest congregation of Large-billed Crows I have seen in Hong Kong, I estimated at least 120 crows together, but actual count maybe even more. The best bird at Shap Long was an Eurasian Wryneck, but it was not cooperative and remained well hidden.

Brown Shrike

Large-billed Crow - one of the largest congregation I've seen in Hong Kong

Finally, we moved on towards Ngong Ping, where we were greeted by a pair of Eurasian Hobbies. But, our main target there was actually a Yellow-browed Bunting that was found earlier the day, luckily for us, the bird stayed and gave excellent views, no doubt one of my best encounter of this species to date!

Eurasian Hobby

Yellow-browed Bunting

On our way back to the car we added a single Dollarbird perched on a dead tree, plus a Dark-sided Flycatcher. And that concluded our rather productive full day birding at southern Lantau, although our species count was not that impressive, we managed some very good species and even some good photos to take home with us! Lantau is certainly a much under birded area in Hong Kong, and with more birders willing to spend time here, I am sure a lot more rarities will be reported here in the near future.

Dollarbird

Dark-sided Flycatcher

I was invited by Canon Hong Kong to co-lead a forest bird photography workshop with James Kwok, we decided to head to Shek Kong Catchment for our outing, and it proved to be a good choice, as it provided plenty of photography opportunities of several forest species, the best being a flock of Asian Emerald Doves! We started with three on the same branch, later we saw at least 6 individuals coming and going, both adults and juveniles were seen.

Common Emerald Dove - adult

Common Emerald Dove - juvenile

Unfortunately we didn't get to experience any large bird waves with the group, but other birds of interest includes a single Plaintive Cuckoo, plus good numbers of Arctic Warblers, which always provide a good challenge for any bird photographer.

Plaintive Cuckoo

Arctic Warbler

Both Dark-sided and Asian Brown Flycatchers were seen, although they weren't particularly close, everyone got good views of them. I also saw a Yellow-rumped Flycatcher near the reservoir, but it was too quick for anyone else to see it.

Dark-sided Flycatcher

Asian Brown Flycatcher

Tai Lam Revisited

The area of Tai Lam Country Park had received much attention since the Brown Wood Owl sightings, I returned again to try for other birds with fairly good results. I had at least three Eurasian Woodcocks along the trail in the morning, one of which stayed still long enough for a record shot. I see them often every winter but never seem to be able to grab a photo, this is actually my first photo ever!

Eurasian Woodcock - record shot

Speckled Piculets are now heard fairly regularly in more mature forests in Hong Kong, but due to their small size they can be tricky to track down in a bird wave. I was fortunate enough to get this bird coming low down for some photos. They are brilliant little birds and a very good addition to our Hong Kong forest!

Speckled Piculet - a wonderful encounter

The Sulphur-breasted Warbler was still present, along with Eastern Crowned Warbler, Goodson's Leaf Warblers, numerous Yellow-browed and a few Pallas's Leaf Warblers. Getting good photos of the Sulphur-breasted Warbler is extremely tricky, I had a few respectable record shots...

Sulphur-breasted Warbler

A single White-bellied Epornis made an appearance. We used to call them White-bellied Yuhina, but it was an obvious mistake, as their solitary behaviour itself is very un-yuhina like. They are now rightfully placed in the family Vireonidae, alongside with the Shrike-babblers they make up the interesting group of old world Vireos.

White-bellied Epornis

There were at least two Japanese Paradise Flycatchers in the bird wave, one an adult female with a complete tail, the other I am guessing a juvenile, with a very short tail that is still growing out. This species is currently in decline, likely due to habitat loss in it's wintering range, including the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Sumatra.

Japanese Paradise Flycatcher

A very shy female Black-naped Monarch also made an appearance briefly, they often fan their tail out like Fantails. There were also no short supply of Grey-chinned Minivets, many were feeding low down and provided excellent views.

Black-naped Monarch - female

Grey-chinned Minivet - male

My dad haven't seen the Brown Wood Owls, so I went back with him in early morning. We got there just before dawn, and managed to see the owl before it roosted. It is truly a magnificent bird and I hope their population will continue to grow in Hong Kong. The subspecies ticehursti in Hong Kong might soon become part of Mountain Wood Owl, a proposed split with Brown Wood Owl leptogrammica described in Borneo, they differs in vocalisation, size and preferred habitat.

Brown Wood Owl - as majestic as always

Birds elsewhere, I was leading a HKBWS group at Wetland Park, it was a fairly productive outing with numerous Black-faced Spoonbills, Red-necked Phalarope, Pied Kingfisher, Red Collared Dove and numerous ducks and waders...There was also an interesting looking Snipe which caught my eye. It was much larger than the Common Snipe feeding next to it and looked fairly big-headed. It was also quite pale of the face, which had Latham's crossed my mind...although after careful look when I got home it is revealed that it's tail is too short and bill probably not long enough for Latham's. In the end it is most likely to be a Swinhoe's Snipe due to it's much larger size, although field identification remains inconclusive. It is certainly a good thing to look out for any Latham's Snipes heading the wrong way during migration though.

"Swinhoe's" Snipe - most likely