Quiet July - Local birds and a few Herps

With temperature soaring up to 38°C on one day last week, it really is not the best time to be out doors. However, I had a request for a half day bird tour during what was likely the hottest day of this summer. Despite the heat, I thought it was actually quite an enjoyable outing, with a few good resident species seen, plus a couple of nice summer visitors. Tai Po Kau is probably at its quietest during this month, as Chinese Barbets and Hainan Blue Flycatchers are now not singing anymore, making them tricky to find. Common birds like Silver-eared Mesia, Huet's Fulvettas and Black-throated Laughingthrush can still be seen and heard with relative ease.

Silver-eared Mesia

Huet's Fulvetta

Black-throated Laughingthrush

Mountain Bulbuls used to be a relatively rare bird in Hong Kong good many years ago, and Black Bulbuls used to just be an eruptive winter visitor to Hong Kong. Both of them now breeds in Hong Kong, with Mountain Bulbuls now very widespread and relatively common throughout. Breeding Black Bulbuls are still not a common sight, so seeing a few juveniles at Tai Po Kau was nice.

Mountain Bulbul

Black Bulbul - juvenile

Velvet-fronted Nuthatches are always a nice bird to see, we saw no less than 6 birds in a flock, a few of them I suspected as younger birds, although they already have red bills, but they were evidently following the 'parents' begging for food.

Velvet-fronted Nuthatch

Plain Flowerpeckers are now not very vocal, although I did manage to find a juvenile feeding. Pygmy Cupwings are never easy no matter the month, I was pleased to find this one singing by the footpath. While I only had a brief glimpse of a Bay Woodpecker, Speckled Piculets were more cooperative in general.

Plain Flowerpecker

Pygmy Cupwing

Speckled Piculet

Along the forest footpath a Branded Orange Awlet was seen, this is a rare butterfly species in Hong Kong. Whereas an Idionyx victor was found perched by the stream, a nice forest stream species that is uncommon in Hong Kong.

Branded Orange Awlet

Idionyx victor

Over at San Tin, several waders were seen on the drained pond, including a few Wood Sandpipers, a Green Sandpiper and Common Sandpipers, just to prove that even in mid-summer there are still a few birds around. Immature Barn Swallows were everywhere, a few perched nicely on the wire for photo. There were a lot of Yellow Bitterns flying around, but the best bird goes to a single female Cinnamon Bittern that flew into the reeds next to the road, I tried several times to flush it out but it simply did not budge! It wasn't until the third time of trying did it finally flew out for a nice inflight view.

Wood Sandpiper

Barn Swallow

Yellow Bittern

Cinnamon Bittern

Led a few different night tours lately, with good sightings of Reeve's Tokay Geckos at its usual spot. A nice looking Taiwan Kukri Snake and a Rufous Burrowing Snake was found on two separate evenings, both provided great opportunities to educate children and public about these fascinating creatures. Although I didn't get any chance to photograph these two beauties properly as I had to move on with the tour group, so only a few record shots were taken.

Reeve's Tokay Gecko

Taiwan Kukri Snake

Rufous Burrowing Snake

Closer to home, I did get a chance to photograph a lovely White-spotted Slug Snake, a very common species of snake in Hong Kong that is also one of the most docile.

White-spotted Slug Snake

Otherwise, nothing hugely exciting, except our locally common Garnot's Gecko, Brown Tree Frogs and Asiatic Painted Frogs.

Garnot's Gecko

Brown Tree Frog

Asiatic Painted Frog

Late Spring Pelagic & Wildlife

Just before the end of spring I got invited to be the guide for a pelagic trip to southern Hong Kong waters by the HKBWS, hard to say no to this wonderful opportunity to look for some pelagic species! We first started with a brief visit to one of the breeding tern colony, this island is just off Po Toi and a stronghold for Bridled Terns. It is now illegal to land on the island during the summer months when these terns return to breed, although occasionally we still see some people landing on the island and causing huge disturbance to the terns...We saw numerous Bridled Terns in courtship and a few resting on floating rubbish out at sea.

Bridled Tern colony

Bridled Tern

White-bellied Sea Eagles were back at their usual spot, Hong Kong is one of the stronghold for this species on the southern coast of China, as their eggs are collected elsewhere, apparently brings good luck or something? Still, we don't have that many breeding pairs in Hong Kong, therefore each pair that breeds here is essential to the population of the region.

White-bellied Sea Eagle

It was already well past the peak tern migration season, still we managed to find a few other species of migrating terns, including a few White-winged Terns, a few Common Terns and at least one Aleutian Tern in the distance. Flying Fish are often seen out at sea, and we saw plenty during our outing, although they are always a challenging subject to photograph!

White-winged Tern

Common and Aleutian Tern

Flying Fish

Fortunately, we had a few true pelagic birds during the trip, including two Short-tailed Shearwaters, they were quite far away but we enjoyed the brief encounter as it glides low over the surface. The best bird of the day was saved for last, on our return journey towards Aberdeen I noticed a large bird flying towards us from the distance, it had very long wings. I immediately called out "Friatebird!", and everyone scrambled for views, in the end this majestic juvenile Lesser Frigatebird simply flew straight towards our boat and right over our heads! 

Short-tailed Shearwater

Lesser Frigatebird -  juvenile

I haven't been out birding much, the hot weather really puts off any thoughts of going out during the day. While night time is still hot and humid, it is at least manageable without the sun constantly beating down on you. A short walk close to home produced a nice Collared Scops Owl, incidentally I didn't bring my telephoto lens with me, as i only had my 100mm macro with me, this was the best I managed of this rather confiding owl. I also had a brief view of a Brown Fish Owl flying over.

Collared Scops Owl

Catchwaters are known to be death traps for many smaller animals, snakes included. I found two snakes in the catchwater the other night, first a Many-banded Krait, which ended up slithering into a hole in the wall before I could get it out. The other a young Common Wolf Snake which had no chance climbing up those smooth concrete walls, I 'fished' it out and took a few photos before it slither off into the undergrowth.

Many-banded Krait

Common Wolf Snake

The wet weather lately means the frogs are happy, Asian Painted Frogs are of course calling away each night after the rain. Here a juvenile and an adult snuggled in a drain.

Asian Painted Frog

Other smaller Microhyla or Pygmy Frogs are also most active after the rain, these tiny frogs can be easily missed as many are smaller than large crickets. Here are a couple of Ornate Pygmy Frogs, their back patterns can vary greatly between different individuals.

Ornate Pygmy Frog

Brown Tree Frogs can be found in a wide range of habitat, from forest to farmland, they utilizes any stagnant pool of water for breeding, for example this water filled bucket, you can see the many tadpoles swimming around next to this adult.

Brown Tree Frog

Pleny of moths while out walking, such as this Common Hunter Moth, there were a lot of Asota around, including Asota heliconia and Asota theratra. Of course, you can never miss the huge Lyssa zampa, which often end up flying towards your torch.

Common Hunter Moth - Theretra clotho

Asota heliconia

Asota theratra

Lyssa zampa