I had the opportunity to do some birding in Hong Kong Just before Christmas. I haven’t seen many trip reports for Hong Kong in December, since most people try to arrange their visits to coincide with shorebird migration. However, my trip was an extension to a business trip to Taiwan, so the timing was not under my control.
The weather was pleasant each day – around 10C in the morning, getting up to 15-17C in the afternoons with no rain in sight. Perfect weather for birding. And for those wondering why I didn’t just go birding in Taiwan, I’ve been there numerous times on business where I tagged on some birding. The only opportunity for new birds would have been to go to the central mountains, and I hadn’t packed for snow. I had also considered a trip to SE Asia, but couldn’t get reasonably priced flights with all of the expats heading to Phuket for Christmas vacation. So Hong Kong it was.
In summary I had about 90 species seen well, with a few more heard only or BVD (better view desired). Of the 90, 16 were lifers. Not bad for three days in the off-season.
Day 1 – Saturday, Dec 19th, 2009
My flight from Taiwan landed in Hong Kong at about 9:30 AM. Clearing immigration took a while, but after that it was smooth sailing. I bought a three day tourist pass for the Airport Shuttle and the MTR for $300 at the airport, and I was checked in at my hotel in Yaumatei by about noon. Soon thereafter I was on my way to Kowloon Park, to look for a bird that I’ve missed there before – red-billed blue magpie.
I went up the stairs near the mosque and found a couple of oriental magpie-robins playing on the sidewalk. I’d see more. Further in, was a small flock that was mostly Japanese white-eyes, but had a common tailorbird mixed in. A little further on was a huge flock – the first of many red-whiskered and light-vented bulbuls. Both species are hard to miss in the park. I kept looking into the canopy for the magpies, but any large bird moving there seemed to be a spotted dove.
I walked from there to the open area with fountains and heard screeching. It turned out to be a pair of Alexandrine parakeets, one of which was sitting in a nest hole. Along with those two were a rose-ringed parakeet and a blue fronted amazon – clearly an escaped bird from the park’s aviary. From there I headed to some of the wooded areas at the north end of the park adding black-necked starling and a single masked laughingthrush (unusual since they’re almost always in small groups).
In the woods, I found another flock of small birds. Again they were mostly white-eyes, but I was also able to pick out a few phylloscopus warblers mixed in. Because they kept flitting around, It took me about an hour to figure out what I was seeing, but I eventually settled on Pallas’ Leaf warbler for one of them. The other I was less confident on, but concluded it was likely a yellow-browed warbler. While trying to figure out the warblers, I also saw fork-tailed sunbirds (a male and a female), a great tit, a perched black kite, and a female common koel curled up in a ball doing her best impression of an owl.
By about 3 PM, I’d pretty much seen everything I’d seen on a previous stop in Hong Kong except my target bird. I was on my way back out of the park, when I got to the stairs leading down to the duck pond. As I did, two red-billed blue magpies flew into a bare tree beside the pond. Unfortunately, before I could get down the stairs for a closer view, they were gone. What a shame. But at least I finally had my target.
Since I’d now seen most everything Kowloon Park had to offer, I decided to head down to the promenade at the tip of Kowloon to watch the activity in the harbor and watch the lights come up on Hong Kong Island. As usual, there were quite a few black kites flying around the harbor along with the occasional fly-by little egret. Eurasian tree sparrows flitted around looking for scraps from the tourists. As it got dark, a flock of 30 or so great cormorants flew by in a V and as I got up to leave for dinner, a black-crowned night heron also flew through.
Not a bad day, but a tougher day was in store the next day. So I had a quick dinner at a small stand in the Temple Street night market, and called it an early night.
Day 2 – Sunday, Dec 20th, 2009
The plan today was to hook up with the Hong Kong Birdwatching Society trip to Fung Yuen and Sha Lo Tung in the New Territories. I took the train out to Tai Po Market MTR Station and while waiting for everything to get organized I started talking with Jackie, who was originally from Hong Kong, but now lives in Australia. She wasn’t a birder, but was accompanying a birder friend, Phillip, on the outing. Once the group got organized at 8 AM, I paid a $30 non-member fee to participate in the outing, and after a group picture we all headed off by taxi to the trail head at Fung Yuen.
Now while I was waiting at the station, the group leader asked if I’d have any problems climbing stairs since the hike would begin with a long climb. I answered “No problem,” but little did I know. Boy, did I start to worry when we got there. I could see railings leading straight up the mountainside. If that was where we were heading, it was doubtful that I’d be able to make it all the way up.
There was a small patch of woods at the bottom where we had a few Pallas’ leaf warblers and the obligatory red-whiskered bulbuls. The leader also pointed out the call of a rufous-capped babbler, but we never saw one.
But then the stairs started and we began to climb…and climb. As it turns out, the trail climbs 200 meters in only about 500 meters of length (no switchbacks). The group pushed steadily up the stairs, but I was having serious trouble. And there were very few birds to see. I had a couple of distant large-billed crows and a besra that flew by, calling as it did. I was the only one who saw it because by then the group was long gone.
Jackie, bless her heart, stayed with me, as did another woman, both of them encouraging me upward, but I was dying. So after over a half hour of climbing (with a lot of rest stops), I gave up and decided to turn around. I had gone only a few steps down when Jackie called me back. Her friend had come back for her and to tell her there were no more stairs! The trail met up with a road and the grade was shallower, though still climbing. On the way, we found a nice female daurian redstart feeding in the middle of the road.
Finally the road crested the ridge and began to descend. We had few birds on the way down, most notably a male fork-tailed sunbird, but not much else besides bulbuls. Eventually the road ended at a small parking area with a shelter, where a dirt road started. We confirmed with the people sitting at the shelter there that the birding group headed down the path, so we continued onward.
The road/trail went through some open brushy areas. The path was fairly level, but because of numerous hikers, we didn’t turn up too many birds. Eventually, the road ended at the little hamlet of Sha Lo Tong. Once again a stop for directions and we were off to Hok Tau Reservoir. I stopped briefly for a bush-warbler that wouldn’t reveal itself, but the other three pushed on. I caught up to them as the trail entered a nice wooded area.
The trail continued for about 2 kilometers, but by now I could tell that the others were more interested in making progress, rather than looking for birds. As we came within sight of the reservoir, we came within cell phone range, and got a phone call from the rest of the group. It turns out they weren’t heading for the reservoir. They had taken a fork about a half kilometer back – we had passed them. They were planning on hiking back the way they’d come, and would go back to the original trailhead. Rather than deal with the hills, our foursome decided to push on to the reservoir and then catch a public mini-bus from near there to the train station.
After a rest at the reservoir, we started down the road to town. I had a soaring common buzzard that I tried to get the group onto. And once we hit Hok Tai Wai Town, we found the birdiest stretch of the whole morning. We turned up plain prinia, a pair of common tailorbirds, a flock of masked laughingthrushes, crested myna, black-collared starling, and an LBJ that I’d eventually get ID’ed as olive-backed pipit.
We arrived at the mini-bus stand to find an empty taxi, so we piled in and headed back to Tai Po Market Station. We arrived at about 1 PM. Surprisingly, we met up with some of the group. They’d seen a few species that we hadn’t (greater necklaced laughingthrush, verditer flycatcher), but all in all, they had a fairly quiet day. I said goodbye to Jackie and Phillip, then headed to the mall next door for a late lunch, and then caught the train back to my hotel in Kowloon.
I finished the day with a late afternoon nap and another quick meal at the night market. That night, I spoke to my guide for the next day and he assured me we would not have any climbs like I’d had that morning. That pleased me to no end.
Day 3 – Monday, Dec 21st, 2009
Today I was going birding with Mike Kilburn, a professional birding guide who was born in and lives in Hong Kong. His local patch is in the Lam Tsuen Valley. He’s also on the board of WWF Hong Kong so has access to Mai Po on short notice. We met at 7:30 at the Tai Wo MTR station and jumped in a taxi to Lam Tsuen.
Our first stop was a small Feng Shui Wood on the edge of the valley. Mike knew this as a spot for greenish warbler, and although we didn’t find that, we did turn up a beautiful pair of scarlet minivets, a scarlet-backed flowerpecker, a great tit, a Pallas’ leaf-warbler (Mike said it was a really good year for them) plus the obligatory white-eyes. We also heard some kind of thrush, but couldn’t coax it out.
We headed down into the valley, where Mike pointed out the call of a dusky warbler which eventually flew to the edge of a ditch where we got good looks. We also saw a Eurasian magpie, the first of many olive-backed pipits, a white-breasted waterhen slinking into the brush, and a perched up stonechat. Mike said that the arrival of the stonechats always signals the beginning of winter in Hong Kong to him.
We headed to a patch with some trees, with Mike pointing out the calls of lots of buntings along the way. But every time one would get up and fly it would go well out of sight. The trees held a couple of hair-crested drongos, identifiable by their upturned tails, an oriental turtle dove, and a flock of masked laughingthrushes. While trying to get a closer look at the drongos, a lesser coucal flew off. Finally a couple buntings flew into a bare tree beside us. These were identifiable by their mini-crests as little buntings but the light wasn’t right for a good look.
Further down the valley we walked through some flower farms turning up both grey and white wagtails, several more pipits, a Chinese-pond heron, and lots of invisible buntings. On the edge of the fields, we found a Japanese bush-warbler, which Mike described as ”a rufous cap and a supercilium.” He heard a Siberian rubythroat, and found it hidden deep in a bamboo patch, but I couldn’t get onto it. We tried for that bird for quite a while, but despite our pishing, it stayed hidden. While working the bamboo, I also had a brief glimpse of an Asian stubtail, but not one that I’d call countable.
After another try for the rubythroat, we moved on to a wetter area, where we found yellow-bellied prinias. While trying to get a better look at some phylloscopus warblers and buntings, we had a couple collared crows fly up through the valley, which Mike noted was an unusual sighting for his patch. The crows drew our attention to a white-throated kingfisher on a distant telephone pole. We went back to the warblers and identified them as a Pallas’ leaf and a yellow-browed warbler, but once again, we never could identify the buntings.
As we were leaving that spot, we heard the call of a golden-headed cisticola. A long search came up empty, so we headed away…and another called. We tried another angle and eventually one sat up for us, and soon we had four or five fly off and perch on some distant brush. After that, Mike pointed out a resident blue rock thrush on a distant house and we saw a large swirling flock of nutmeg mannikins nearby. We also saw a crested goshawk flying towards the wooded mountainsides.
We bushwhacked into a side area on the edge of the valley where a friend of Mike’s had earlier found a couple of goodies. We didn’t find those, but we did turn up an Asian brown flycatcher and a small flock of black-throated laughingthrushes, and had a brief look at a red-flanked bluetail. We also heard a streak-breasted scimitar-babbler and a velvet fronted nuthatch. We couldn’t get a look at the babbler, and didn’t chase after the nuthatch (it’s a non-countable introduced species). Coming back out of that side area, we had another bluetail. This one perched up on an open branch.
From there, we ended up at a group of houses where we had a brief look at a common blackbird (the large subspecies which some have split as Chinese blackbird) and a small flock of sooty-headed bulbuls. At this point, we had the option of continuing down the valley or going for a change of habitat. I opted for the habitat change. So we headed to Mike’s home so he could pick up his scope. On the way, we turned up some white-rumped munias, more little buntings, a black-faced bunting, and a couple black-collared starlings. We stopped for lunch at an excellent dim sum restaurant near Mike’s home, and from there we were in a taxi on our way to Mai Po Reserve.