The lunar new year has seen quite a drop in temperature, and that has brought more confiding birds. On a visit to Wu Kau Tang, we had great views of some common rosefinches.
Common Rosefinches - male and female
Other notable birds that I got were daurian redstart, besra and a very confiding speckled piculet.
Keeping on the topic of forest birds, the Rhodolea flowers are in full swing, and I have seen fork tailed sunbirds, swinhoe's white eyes, blue winged minlas and orange bellied leafbirds feeding on them. I also had a chestnut flanked white eye on them, though it was too fast for me to get a photo.
Fork tailed Sunbird - male
Blue Winged Minla
Orange Bellied Leafbird - male
Other birds in the area includes ashy drongo, olive backed pipit and blue whistling thrush.
Ashy Drongo
Olive Backed Pipit
Blue Whistling Thrush
On a visit to the Eco Garden at Tai Lam, this area has been pretty birdy lately, even until late into the day. Birds seen there includes a large flock of black and chestnut bulbuls, grey chinned and minivets, verditer and grey headed canary flycatchers.
Chestnut Bulbul
Grey Chinned Minivet - male
Grey-headed Canary Flycatcher
Near Lion's Nature Education Center, I have had luck with a relatively large flock of Hair crested drongos, which perched down at eye level for great photos (they rarely to that)!
Hair Crested Drongo
Other common birds in the surrounding area includes common tailorbird and masked laughingthrush.
Common Tailorbird
Masked Laughingthrush
There has been a rarity recently in the form of a escaped immature male purple sunbird in Kowloon Walled City Park, of which I managed to see it well with many other observers. During the short period time that I was there, I noticed that it was not at all afraid of people, and it's feathers looked a bit scruffy.
Purple Sunbird - immature male
I joined the youth big bird race on the 8th of February at Mai Po, where we got 3rd place, with 94 species in the space of 5 hours. One of our first birds that we got at the start of the race includes a white breasted waterhen, an interesting black faced spoonbill with 88K as the tag, red billed starling and amur stonechat.
White breasted Waterhen
Black faced Spoonbill - with leg tag 88K
Red Billed Starling
Out on the mudflat, we also got eastern marsh harrier, ospreys, black capped kingfisher, black headed and Saunders' gulls.
Ospreys
Black capped Kingfisher
Black headed Gull
Saunders' Gull - far off record shot
Oriental Storks have been a regular sight at deep bay for the last few winters, on this trip I was lucky enough to find a flock of over 25 were soaring on the thermals. A few of the individuals even flew down low for great views!
Oriental Storks
Other birds photographed includes daurian redstarts, common snipes, little ringed plovers, eurasian spoonbills, grey backed thrush and grey headed lapwings.
Daurian Redstart - male with no tail and ring
Common Snipe
Little Ringed Plover
Eurasian Spoonbill
Grey Headed Lapwing
There were some more birds around the reserve, some of which included cattle egret, black winged stilt, wood sandpiper, green sandpiper, common redshank and asian brown flycatcher.
Eastern Cattle Egret - with water buffalo
Black Winged Stilt
Wood Sandpiper
Green Sandpiper
Common Redshank
Asian Brown Flycatcher - record shot
Just before the race ended, we got black drongo, common kingfisher, long tailed shrike, black crowned night heron and chinese penduline tit.
Black Drongo
Common Kingfisher
Black Crowned Night Heron
Chinese Penduline Tit - record shot
Other non- bird animals that we saw in the race includes a burmese python and a turtle which I don't know the species name.
Turtle. sp
The best bird that I found recently was in my local patch, a hopwoodi ashy drongo. Hopwoodi is the rarest of the three ssp. which occurs in Hong Kong, with very few each year. I was lucky enough to get great views and photos of it.
Other than the hopwoodi ashy drongo, there were plenty of normal ones, my high count was 4 in different places.
Ashy Drongo
Other than that, there were lots of thrushes in the same area feeding on some fruiting trees. They were mainly grey backed and japanese, but there was also one brown headed thrush and blue whistling thrush.
Grey Backed Thrush
Other birds seen in the area includes white rumped shama, rufous tailed robin, blue rock thrush, black crowned night heron, chinese hwamei and greater necklaced laughingthrush.
White Rumped Shama
Rufous Tailed Robin
Blue Rock Thrush
Black Crowned Night Heron
Chinese Hwamei
Greater Necklaced Laughingthush
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