A DAY'S GUIDED BIRDING

Eastern Imperial Eagle

One of the rewards of being a birding guide is that each day is different. On January 27th I’d taken out a couple from Australia. As the high tide was at Mai Po in the morning, I’d picked them up from Kam Sheung Road station and we’d headed for the wetland reserve with a brief stop at Kam Tin River en route. The day was clear and very warm and we had a fairly leisurely time. We walked out to Deep Bay for the tide, then back onto the reserve and around the scrape, finishing  at Long Valley in the afternoon. Because of the time of the tide, we didn’t do any forest birding but still came up with a total of 88 species, including Black-faced Spoonbill, Saunders’s Gull, Eastern Imperial and Greater Spotted Eagles, and the wintering Siberian Crane on the scrape. At Long Valley, the highlights were Greater Painted-snipe and Eastern Water Rail. 

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Orange-bellied Leafbird

Japanese White-eye

Grey-backed Thrush

Fork-tailed Sunbird

January 28th was different. The weather was cooler, with some light rain in the afternoon which meant that conditions were less pleasant but the birds were more active. I took out a retired American couple who were visiting Hong Kong after a tourist trip to Vietnam and Cambodia.  As it was the first day of Chinese New Year, no foreign visitor permits were available at Mai Po, so the wetland reserve was not an option. Therefore, I met the couple at University station at 7.00 a.m. and we drove the short distance to Tai Po Kau. We visited Tai Po Kau Park first.

This park is just along the road towards Sha Tin past the entrance to the forest reserve and is often productive for birds. In recent weeks, it had been more productive than usual because of a large ficus tree producing copious fruit at the far end of the small park. A lot of the fruit had now gone – and Great Barbets were no longer coming down to feed – but the remaining synconia  were still attracting numerous Red-whiskered Bulbuls and Japanese White-eyes. We spent some time scanning the tree and were rewarded with good views of Hair-crested and Ashy Drongos, Blue-winged Minlas, Velvet-fronted Nuthatch, and the colourful Scarlet and Grey-chinned Minivets. Just past the fruiting tree, where the park becomes less landscaped, we found several thrushes turning over dead leaves. These thrushes were less shy than usual, and we managed to get  good views of Grey-backed Thrush and a single female Japanese Thrush.
 
Other resident forest species we found were a male Orange-bellied  Leafbird feeding on Rhodoleia flowers and a Yellow-cheeked Tit singing.
 
We drove back to the forest reserve entrance and walked up the access road to the forest, and then as far as the second picnic area. An Eastern Buzzard – an unusual bird for this location –  was  perched on a pole in the old orchard area.  A male Fork-tailed Sunbird gave good views as it fed on Rhodoleia flowers near the washroom and a bird-wave near the dam gave us Pallas’s Leaf Warbler and excellent views of Chestnut and Mountain Bulbuls. We walked up to the entrance to the Outdoor Study Centre where the coral trees were in flower attracting more Fork-tailed Sunbirds. A distant Asian Barred Owlet called for several minutes.

 Heading back down to the car park, we saw Grey-headed Canary Flycatcher and Silver-eared Mesia in a small bird wave and had a Crested Serpent Eagle calling as it soared high over the forest.

Alhough we heard Pygmy Wren Babbler, Asian Stubtail, Mountain Tailorbird and Rufous-capped Babbler, we failed to see them. This was a little disappointing, but on the whole, our visit was successful – more productive than it can sometimes be, as forest birding in Hong Kong is often hit-and-miss. 

Eastern Water Rail

Greater Painted-snipe

From Tai Po Kau, we drove to Long Valley, arriving in the middle of the day. Fortunately, the area was quiet - the first day of CNY is one where people are preoccupied with family celebrations and the countryside is far less busy that it usually is at the weekend or on public holidays. Here, the weather turned cloudy and rainy. As on the previous day, I found Greater Painted-snipe and Eastern Water Rail in  the same places, and the usual open country birds – Sooty-headed Bulbul, Red-throated Pipit, and Eastern Yellow Wagtail - were more in evidence than they had been yesterday.
 
Which left the remainder of the afternoon. I had been considering going to San Tin, but decided to opt for Mai Po access road and the Kam Tin River along  Pok Wai South Road. The access road and the area between the Mai Po office and the AFCD reception usually hold a number of common species and my hope was that we might pick up a flyover Black-faced Spoonbill. Luckily, that proved to be the case and my clients managed to connect with Mai Po’s flagship bird. We were also fortunate to see a small party of Chinese Grosbeaks feeding on Chinaberry berries near the AFCD office.

Spotted Redshank

And so to Kam Tin River before I dropped  my clients off at Kam Sheung Road station. This is not an area I know very well, but I had visited on the previous day with my Australian clients on the way to Mai Po. That had been on a rising tide where the riverside mud was being covered by the tide. Now I was aiming for the falling tide and calculated that there would be some exposed mud at the time of our visit. This turned out to be the case and from the road beside the river, we were fortunate enough to  see a single Black-faced Spoonbill and four Grey-headed Lapwings. Other water birds were in evidence, including ducks and tringa sandpipers – Marsh Sandpiper, Spotted Redshank and Common Greenshank. A nearby flowering Red Cotton Tree held at least three White-shouldered Starlings – a bird which is regular in the northwest New Territories in summer but very scarce in winter.
 
We finished the day with a total of 102 species.
 
 
Note that all photographs are from my archives as I don’t carry my camera when guiding.
All images are © David Diskin.

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