MAI PO SPRING

Caspian Tern in flight, Deep Bay, March 29 2017

Out in Deep Bay, the end of March is a productive time for birds. The tides are good and there is a mix of remaining winter visitors (albeit in much reduced numbers for most species) and arriving passage shorebirds. I went out to the northern hide early on March 29th. The mud was still exposed hundreds of metres out in the bay and most of the birds were distant specks. However, the green mat of algae in front of the hide seems to attract a few waders even when the tide is low, and Black-faced Spoonbills were feeding on crabs and mudskippers in the nearby creek. 

I had gone out to photograph the birds and it was a productive session. The tide came in slowly and drove birds towards the hide before eventually covering all of the mud in the bay. The following are a few of the images I managed to take on that morning.

Great Cormorant

Grey Heron

Intermediate Egret

Chinese Pond Heron in almost complete breeding plumage

Black-faced Spoonbills

Female Northern Shoveler

And a few waders:

Grey Plover with leg-flags

To study their migration, waders at various location on the East Asian-Australasian Flyway are caught and fitted with leg-flags. White over yellow, as on this  Grey Plover, indicate that the bird was flagged in Hong Kong. The alphanumerical U5 means that this bird can be identified individually when seen again in Hong Kong and  elsewhere.

Most birds with flags seen on the Deep Bay mud flats show this colour combination, as would be expected. However, there have already been reports this spring of a Curlew Sandpiper and a Greater Sand Plover with  single orange leg flags, indicating their wintering range is probably in Victoria, Australia (where they were originally caught and flagged) . There have also been reports of Red-necked Stints with blue over yellow leg flags which were shows they were flagged  on migration in Bohai Bay, China.

Greater Sand Plover

Kentish Plover

Common Sandpiper

Curlew Sandpiper coming into breeding plumage

Red-necked Stint coming into breeding plumage