May 2023 - a good month for White-winged Terns (Chlidonias leucopterus)

 

All photos taken at Mai Po's boardwalk hides, May 2023

"Twitching" here and there.....

Brown-eared Bulbul - (Microcelis amaurotis) 

On Saturday, 22nd April we got the ferry to Po Toi Island, in the hope of seeing a "Hong Kong second record" Brown-eared Bulbul that had been reported a few days earlier.

It appeared briefly, but briefly was enough.   This species winters in east China, and this one has got a bit further south than most of the others.

Around on the hills of Po Toi, were a good few typical Po Toi migrant species....
 

Brambling - (Fringilla montefringilla)

Dollarbird - (Eurystomus orientalis)

Swinhoe's Minivet - (Pericrocotus cantonensis)

A boat trip to southern HK Waters followed on April 23rd.  

Boat Trips can be a bit of a lottery, but it turned out to be a good day. 

Brown Booby was a "HK Tick" for us, a complete surprise...

Brown Booby - (Sula leucogaster)

Aleutian Tern - (Onychoprion aleuticus)

Great Crested Tern - (Thalasseus bergii)

Black-tailed Gull - (Larus crassirostris)

Red-necked Phalarope - (Phalaropus lobatus)

Red-necked Phalarope - (Phalaropus lobatus) 

Sadly, plenty of rubbish in the water. But the phalarope seem attracted to flotsam in the waves.

Short-tailed Shearwaters - (Ardenna tenuirostris)

Short-tailed Shearwaters - (Ardenna tenuirostris)

On another boat trip on May 10th 2023, we found that the Red-necked Phalarope were in more advanced breeding plumage than the ones we had seen three weeks earlier.

Red-necked Phalarope - (Phalaropus lobatus)

Red-necked Phalarope - (Phalaropus lobatus)

And, today, off to Sai Kung for the second time for another rarity, Japanese Waxwing.....hanging around near some fruiting trees - but not the tree this barbet claimed possession of.

Great Barbet - (Megalaima virens)

Vagrant or escape ? Only time - or the HK Birdwatching Society Records Committee - will tell !

Japanese Waxwing - (Bombycilla japonica)

Spring Waders at Mai Po - end April - early May 2023

The precarious existence of waders is demonstrated in real-time by their numbers seeming to be down in Hong Kong compared to previous years.

Common Redshank - Tringa totanus

Terek Sandpiper, Broad-billed Sandpiper and Red-necked Stints

Gull-billed Tern and (mostly) Curlew Sandpipers

Red Knot (Calidris canutus)

Broad-billed Sandpiper (Calidris falcinellus)

Red-necked Stint (Calidris ruficollis)

Ruddy Turnstone (Arenaria interpres)

Curlew Sandpiper (Calidris ferruginea)

Mongolian Sand Plover (Charadrius mongolus)

Greater Sand Plover (Charadrius leschenaultii)

Asian Dowitcher (Limnodromus semipalmatus)

Still, it's an annual pleasure to view the waders in passage from the boardwalk hides at Mai Po.

Something never to be taken for granted !

Mid-April at the Mai Po Boardwalk hides

 Most of the usual suspects have been on view.....

Red-necked Stint (Calidris ruficollis)

Common Redshank - (Tringa totanus)

Mongolian Sand Plover - (Charadrius mongolus)

Great Knot - (Calidris tenuirostris)

Curlew Sandpiper - (Calidris ferruginea)

Chinese Pond Heron - (Ardeola bacchus)

Terek Sandpiper - (Xenus cinereus)

Plus a couple of surprise "fly-bys" on Friday 14th April

Black-legged Kittiwake

Lesser Frigatebird - (Fregata ariel)

Lesser Frigatebird - (Fregata ariel)

Just shows again that this is a month when anything can turn up.......

A "Twitch" for a Scoter in Deep Bay, Hong Kong - 9th April 2023

 

Velvet/Stejnegers/White-winged Scoter in flight, Deep Bay, HK 9th April 2023

Every month for the last thirty-or-so years a Waterfowl Count has been done in and around Mai Po Nature Reserve and Deep Bay, northwest Hong Kong. 

Because Deep Bay is a Ramsar Site, the Agriculture,Fisheries and Conservation Department has been tasked with monitoring bird numbers through the seasons.  The Waterfowl Count is co-ordinated by the Hong Kong Birdwatching Society and involves twenty or so counters who are assigned their own areas of responsibility - all the counting is done within a two-hour “window” and results tallied later.

All this concentrated attention - as well as providing a comprehensive numbers database - has turned up some rarities over the years and on last Sunday, April 9th, another rarity was sighted by Tom LI, who was counting birds from the pier at Tsim Bei Tsui.

A WhatsApp message appeared with a photo identified by Tom as a Velvet Scoter (Melanitta fusca).  I arrived at Tsim Bei Tsui car park -  overlooking Deep Bay - to find a dozen-or-so birders there already.

Velvet Scoter is the western cousin of Stejnegers Scoter (M stejnegeri), - on range, far more likely than Velvet, wintering in inshore waters around Japan and the Russian Far East.

There was some spirited debate about the birds identity, but backed up by some fine record photos by Tom himself, Peter Wong and others, eventually the consensus was that Velvet Scoter, the less likely species, was, in fact, the bird on view in Deep Bay.

There are two 1980s records of White-winged-type scoters in Deep Bay, and these have been accepted all along as "Stejnegers" Scoter.  Now Velvet Scoter, if verified by the Records Committee, will be a HK “First”.

My shot, taken from Sha Kiu, is above. I confess I didn't contribute to the ID debate with this one !

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Elsewhere in Deep Bay, some views from the Mai Po boardwalk hides.

Some wintering birds are leaving us now....

Pallas's Gull (Ichthyaetus ichthyaetus)

(centre right) Slaty-backed Gull (Larus schistisagus)

last Saunders Gull (Chroicocephalus saundersi) of the year ? - boardwalk April 4th

White Wagtail (Motacilla alba ocularis)

Stejnegers Stonechat (Saxicola stejnegeri)

Eastern Marsh Harrier (Circus spilonotus) with wader prey

Red-throated Pipit (Anthus cervinus)

In the last couple of weeks, nearly all the Great Cormorants have headed north, as have nearly all the gulls and duck.

With a few migrants around now, my pick of the waders so far is this Oriental Plover (Charadrius veredus) on Pond 17A of Mai Po Nature Reserve

Oriental Plover (Charadrius veredus)