24 Oct 2014

Birds - many with wet feet

Yes, I know I'll have to be more imaginative in my choice of attention-grabbing blog post titles.


Anyway, a "mixed bag" from the past couple of weeks. Here's one from Shek Kong Water Catchment...

Dark-sided Flycatcher - Muscicapa sibirica
At the "scrape" at Mai Po, exotic Harriers proved elusive for me, but this male and juvenile Painted Snipe provided something to look at.

Greater Painted-Snipe - Rostratula benghalensis

Black-faced Spoonbills have really started to come back to Deep Bay in the last few days, November is actually the month of Hong Kong's high counts of these.

Black-faced Spoonbill - Platalea minor

Near Mai Po's "Tower Hide", an Asian Brown Flycatcher -

Asian Brown Flycatcher - Muscicapa dauurica

And from the "Tower Hide" itself, another species now building up in numbers;

Great Cormorant - Phalacrocorax carbo

A few of the "usual suspects" in my favorite drain, taken from a portable  "Tragopan V3" hide….

Common Snipe - Gallinago gallinago

Wood Sandpiper - Tringa glareola

Marsh Sandpiper - Tringa stagnatilis


Back out at Mai Po's boardwalk hides -

Black-tailed Godwit - Limosa limosa (melanuroides)


Common Greenshank - Tringa nebularia
Finally, another group of birds returning for Hong Kong's winter. "Large White-headed Gulls" give me identification headaches, but someone suggested that I just call all the 1st and 2nd-winter birds "Brown Gulls".

Chances are, this is a Heuglins Gull (now held by the I.O.C. to be a race of Lesser Black-backed Gull), because most of our LWHGs are this type.  But I'm not sure.


Heuglin's Gull - Larus fuscus (heuglini) ??
Ho hum.  Looks like I've got all winter to re-acquaint myself with the gulls.

12 comments:

  1. An interesting post. The light was lovely on some of the birds at Mai Po. I'm glad to hear that someone else struggles with Gulls!

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    1. Thanks for the comment, yes … generally I'm trying to ignore gulls.

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  2. So Sooty Flycatchers do in fact exist. I've given up hope of ever seeing/photographing one.

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    1. Stu, - I'm worried that I might have mis-identified Grey-streaked Flycatcher, so perhaps "Sootys" don't exist after all !

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  3. A good selection John even without exotic harriers. I wish I could join you but I am exotic dog sitting.

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  4. Andrew, - Have a good weekend with Lulu !

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  5. Some really great photos like always. I especially like the snipe photos. If I saw a Dark-sided Flycatcher I would probably pass it off as an Asian Brown and never know the difference. I love the title of this post as well.

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    1. Thanks, John - actually I'm often confusing Dark-sided with Grey-streaked "variable and confusing" says Mark Brazil in "Birds of East Asia"

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  6. Great images as usual. We seldom get gulls here in Malaysia and those winter/juvenile plumages are a real pain in the neck.

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    1. Malaysia has few gulls ? I think I'll move down there….

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