Mai Po and Deep Bay Ramsar Area - "Winter Visitors"

In December and January Deep Bay's daytime high tides rarely come close to the birdwatching hides. 

So, due to the usual distance of the tidelines, the best of our winter visitors can go largely unseen, or at least, seen distantly.  

Due to some quirk of the weather, last Monday's tide (Dec 10th) was significantly higher than predicted, and the birds passed the "Birdwatching Society" hide in hazy sunshine.

Here are some of them:- 

"Eastern" Black-tailed Godwit - Limosa melanuroides

Nordmann's Greenshank  - Tringa guttifer (two in the lower photo, right and rear)

Dunlin - Calidris alpina

Common Greenshank - Tringa nebularia

Marsh Sandpiper - Tringa stagnatilis

And "shuffling the wader pack" were: -

Eastern Buzzard - Buteo japonicus

Osprey - Pandion haliaetus

Back to the waders...

Eurasian Curlew - Numenius arquata  (dropping in on some godwits)

"Eastern" Black-tailed Godwit - Limosa melanuroides

Saunders's Gull - Saundersilarus saundersii

As the tide went out, a surprise visitor to the tideline dropped in - Mai Po's one and only resident (since July 2012) Oriental Stork.

Oriental Stork - Ciconia boyciana

Including a distant Black-faced Spoonbill, the Stork and Nordmann's Greenshank made it  three "Endangered" species for the morning.

(Edited and added) And as Martin Williams reminds me, - Saunders's Gull is "Vulnerable".

Beats a Monday morning in the office !