With only a few days remaining for the year after we returned from Singapore, I decided to try for the Slaty backed Forktail frequenting picnic area 7 in Shing Mun to boost my year list. Along the access road, there was a stream where a grey wagtail has been frequenting.
Grey Wagtail
Further down the track, I encountered a fairly large bird wave, which were mainly swinhoe's white eyes, though there were others such as white bellied erpornis, pallas' leaf warbler, grey headed canary flycatcher and chestnut flanked white eye, though the latter I was unable to get a photo of.
White bellied Erpornis
Pallas' Leaf Warbler
Grey - headed Canary Flycatcher
Finally, I arrived at picnic area 7, on the adjacent stream there were already a few birders there waiting for the forktail to show. After a while of waiting, the bird showed. Though not a HK tick, it was year tick, which was great to boost my HK year list for the last few day of 2024.
Slaty - backed Forktail
On our way back, we got white rumped shama, blue winged minla and chestnut bulbul, which showed beautifully.
White - rumped Shama
Blue - winged Minla
Chestnut Bulbul - flew down low for a fruiting bush
At the end of the year, I totaled 302 birds seen in HK. This was a large improvement from 2023, where I only got 282 birds. I felt I did fairly well overall in 2024, with most of the rarities ticked.
Over to 2025, me and my dad headed out birding on Jan 1st, any bird on this day would be a new one for the year. Our first stop was Long Valley, where we saw a pair of Alexandrine Parakeet feeding of sugarcanes.
Alexandrine Parakeet
Other common birds in the nature park includes black winged stilt, little ringed plover, Amur stonechat, red throated pipit and scaly breasted munia.
Little Ringed Plover
Amur Stonechat - male
Red Throated Pipit
The buntings still stays on, though not as plentiful as in October and November, there was still quite a variety, which included chestnut eared, little, red headed and yellow breasted bunting, the latter which I only saw.
Chestnut Eared Bunting
Little Bunting
Red - headed bunting - identified with less streaking on crown
Other birds found there includes olive backed pipit, black winged kite, wood sandpiper, common snipe, zitting cisticola, besra and crested goshawk.
Olive Backed Pipit
Black Winged Kite
Wood Sanpiper
Zitting Cisticola
Besra and Crested Goshawk
During winter, Greater Painted Snipes usually gather in flocks of 5 or above. I was lucky enough to encounter around 20 individuals on our visit. As we left, we also got a white rumped and Eurasian munia.
Greater Painted Snipe - male (top) and female (female)
White Rumped Munia
There has been a few rarities at San Tin of late, most notably a Siberian House Martin, Ferruginous Duck x Baer's Pochard hybrid and the long-staying Eared Grebe.
Siberian House Martin - juvenile
Ferruginous Duck x Baer's Pochard hybrid
Mixed in with the house martin there was a few eastern red rumped swallows and a pair of oriental storks soared overhead. Pied kingfishers, red billed starlings and long tailed shrike were also seen well.
Eastern Red Rumped Swallow
Oriental Stork
Red Billed Starling
Long Tailed Shrike
On a short stop at Lai Chi Kok Park, where a pair of ornate sunbirds have been seen lately. The first bird that I found was a beautiful male gray backed thrush.
Gray Backed Thrush - male
Other birds that I found includes brown shrike, blue whistling shrike, rufous tailed robin and Chinese blackbird, which showed pretty well.
Brown Shrike
Blue Whistling Thrush
Rufous Tailed Robin
Chinese Blackbird
Finally, I got the ornate sunbirds, which I found both the male and the female on the same tree. Although I have just seen loads of them in Singapore recently, it still felt just as special.
Over at Tai Po Kau, things were generally the same, with all of the Rhodolea trees in bloom. This of course attracted multiple Oranage bellied leafbirds, but I only managed a record shot of one high up.
Ornage Bellied Leafbird - female
Other birds seen on the hike includes mountain bulbul, silver eared mesia and indochinese yuhinas.
Indochinese Yuhina
Black capped kingfisher has been a target for me since I properly started birding during COVID, and so I decided to make a trip to Nam Chung to finally bag this bogey bird. Once we reached the supposed location, we couldn't find it, instead, we got distant views of a few great crested grebes.
Great Crested Grebe - distant views
We didn't really know the place where the kingfisher had been showing, so we just kind of just walked around to see if we could see it. As we were walking, we encountered a large bird wave, mainly consisting of white eyes, though in the middle of it I was able to pick out a male verditer flycatcher in beautiful early morning sunlight!
Verditer Flycatcher - male
Suddenly, I saw a few other birders waiting by the mudflats for the black capped kingfisher. I decided to wait with them, and after about 10 minutes, a dark blue kingfisher flew out from the mangroves. And what bird it was! The black capped kingfisher perched up of one of the metal boxes for a few seconds, before picking a crab and flying back into the cover. Later on, I also got distant views of it out in the open.
Black Capped Kingfisher - common kingfisher in background
The cherry on top was a flock of around 40 chinese grosbeaks, also with a possible japanese grosbeak mixed inside too! There were also a few olive backed pipits too.
Chinese Grosbeak - male (top) and female (bottom)
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