Winter birds arriving at Mai Po

 On a clear and cool morning at Mai Po Nature Reserve, I joined the (mostly senior) photographers in hide number one.

With the sun behind us and a lot of newly arrived winter visitor birds in front, there was plenty to look at.

Most notably, there were at least 24 Eurasian Spoonbills among the spoonbill flock of just over 100 birds; - the rest being Black-faced Spoonbills, normally by far our commonest spoonbill.

Eurasian Spoonbill (eight in this view, with Black-faced)

Eurasian Spoonbill

In fact, I’ve never seen more than five Eurasian Spoonbills at one time at Mai Po before… so I wonder if this influx was due to the dryness of Po Yang this autumn, where Eurasian far outnumbers Black-faced.

Black-faced Spoonbill

It will be interesting to see if any other Yangtse/Po Yang wintering waterbirds arrive here in the next month or so.

Other winter birds included duck, - here are Garganey, Eurasian Teal and Shoveler.

Olive-backed Pipits are newly-arrived, 

and this Spotted Eagle was my first of the season. 

(The Record high count for Eurasian Spoonbill was 30 on 14 March 1976)