Mai Po Spring - Little Tern

Most of the Terns around Deep Bay at the moment are Gull-billed, with a few Caspian and the odd Whiskered Tern.

So it was good when Jemi spotted this one, not a monster rarity here, but a handsome beast, anyway.


Little Tern

Mai Po Spring - Spoon-billed Sandpiper

Mai Po has a new Boardwalk hide, further out into Deep Bay than the older ones. The effect of this is that lower tides can still result in good viewing conditions, as was the case today.

We sifted through A LOT of Red-necked Stints to come up with this.....


Spoon-billed Sandpiper

Spring at Mai Po - old boardwalk hides 14th April 2008

Eventually, the tide came right up to the "old" hides in late afternoon, and some good waders were on show



Pacific Golden Plover (above)



Nordmann's Greenshank (above)

Spring at Mai Po - new boardwalk hide 14th april 2008

Lots of waders in breeding plumage around, here are a few pics....

Asian Dowitcher - above ("Asiatic" sounds more exotic, though)


Red-necked Stint (above)


Another Red-necked Stint - above


Greater Sand Plover- above

All taken from Mai Po's new boardwalk hide, on a lowish tide. It would have been impossible to get any photos from the older hides in these conditions....

Greater Sand Plover chasing Grey-tailed Tattler

Back from breezy yunnan Province

Back last week from the wilds of Yunnan Province, where we saw almost 300 bird species. If we were better birders, perhaps we'd have seen more...

Some of the pics we took are still on the laptop.... so here's a chance to trot out a couple of pics from our 2006 trip !

I especially like the fag ends behind the Maroon-backed Accentor. Human rubbish attracts birds...