#300

Chinese Pond Heron

A crap photo but quite a scarce bird in north Japan and the 300th species I’ve seen in Hokkaido.

A Chinese Pond Heron west of town today. It flew off and disappeared into the trees before I could get a decent shot.

Not much else around: lots of Osprey fishing off the coast, a couple of stray Great Scaup, flocks of Japanese Green Pigeon etc.

Large numbers of Black-tailed Gulls were hunting flying ants everywhere.

Black-tailed Gull

The 3rd day in Hong Kong

Black-winged Stilt

On the 3rd day in Hong Kong another locally based birder, Yann, kindly showed me some other sites in Hong Kong: Long Valley and Kai Po Tau. I saw many new birds, particularly in the latter site, but didn’t get many photos. Among the new birds I saw were Dusky Warbler, Long-tailed Shrike, Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker, Hainan Flycatcher, Verditer Flycatcher, Scarlet Minivet, Yellow-cheeked Tit and Black-winged Cuckoo Shrike.

There were a lot of unfamilar birds and bird calls and it was reassuring to find easy to identify species such as the above Stilt and the Chinese Pond Herons which were everywhere.

Chinese Pond Heron

Chinese Pond Heron

Chinese Pond Heron

My first full day in Hong Kong was dark and wet. I was picked up by John Holmes, a resident Hong Kong birder who kindly showed me around Mai Po and evirons.

Mai Po is a famous wetland site and had been high on my wish list for many many years. I knew it was going to be a good day when even the aceess road with its fishponds had some wonderful birds such as lots of Chinese Pond Herons. A common bird in Hong Kong but still pretty exciting for a novice like me.


Chinese Pond Heron

A shame it was so dark and I only had my shorter lens.

There were many interesting birds around: House Swift, Azure-winged Magpie, White-Shouldered Starling, Grey and Eastern Yellow Wagtail, Wood Sandpiper, Oriental Pratincole, Asian Koel, Greater Coucal, White-breasted Waterhen, Common Tailorbird, Collared Dove, Pied Kingfisher, Yellow Bittern, Collared Crow, Chinese Bulbul, Yellow-bellied and Plain Prinia, Dusky and Yellow-browed Warbler (both hear only), Little Grebe, Barn Swallow, Masked Laughing Thrush, Common and Crested Mynah, other common birds which i’d also seen at Kowloon Park and other stuff I’ve probably forgotten. And all this before we’d even entered the mangroves…………