wgeoff

First Week in May

A new thread for a new month.

This may be my shortest ever week on Po Toi. I arrived at 12.30 yesterday and quickly learned from Aaron and Mei Ling that there was nothing to be seen on land. So I headed for sea-watching. After four hours also with nothing, I watched the Ferry leave from my sea-watching point. At least I’m alone, I thought – I didn’t realize how true that was.

I slowly made my way back to the village – no street lights, strange, it’s rather late for the generator to start. As I rounded the corner by Mr Ng’s house, the whole harbour was dark except for the restaurant. When I got there, I learnt – the generator had caught fire on start-up. Hearing the news, everyone had left on the last ferry, except those few in the restaurant. I really was alone, and the prospect of two nights without lights, air-conditioner or even fans loomed – not a nice thought. I’ve stayed on Po Toi before without the generator but that was in November when the nights were cool and I was properly prepared with headlights and lamps.

Fortunately it was a public holiday and the restaurant boat was still in the harbour, so I quickly booked a place on their boat, leaving at 8.30pm. I went back to my place in the darkness. I tried cooking a meal – chaos, tripping over unseen things on the floor, unable to find anything once you had put it down. I gladly returned at 8.30, and was eventually home by 10.30, 12 hours after I left.

I asked my wife, who lived in rural China as a child – ‘how do you live without electricity?’ She simply said ‘When you’ve never had it, you don’t notice’.   

I expect them to fix the generator by the weekend (this is PCCW, not the Government) so I will return on Sunday for a few days.

wgeoff

I went back to Po Toi on Thursday - I wanted to see what happened with the change in weather forecast for Thursday night. The generator wasn’t fixed (it seems a new generator is needed), I intended to sleep out in the cool night breeze but I forgot – mosquitoes don’t need generators, they can find you in the dark with their eyes closed. Painful lesson. By 2am, it was cool enough to go inside and get some sleep.

As it happened, the weather change didn’t come until Friday night but when it did, everything cooled down and sleeping inside was fine.

So, was it worth the pain? – yes, of course, even seeing nothing is important if you are keeping records. Actually not quite nothing. On the land, a Black Bulbul on Thursday, possibly an escape although Avifauna has records up to 3 June.



A Black Bittern was migrating off-shore on Friday and the change in weather brought a fall of 35 Brown Shrikes on Saturday but not much else. A single Schrenck’s Bittern, a Lanceolated Warbler but only two Grey-streaked Flycatchers and no Arctic-type Warblers!

Brown Shrikes were coming in off the sea on Saturday morning, some made it but some didn’t




At sea, a single Short-tailed Shearwater very early on Friday morning and not much else



The next two weeks should be the peak period for the shearwaters, maybe up to 15 a day around next weekend. Let's hope.

PS Mr Tai, I've sent you an email

[ Last edited by wgeoff at 13/05/2012 16:07 ]

wgeoff

I believe this is the first official spring record of Dark-sided (Siberian) Flycatcher in Hong Kong since 1994.

wgeoff

Thanks Annika and Antero, I think we will come back to this issue shortly.

I'm finding it extremely difficult going to Po Toi at the moment. Without the generator, which now seems several weeks away from replacement, staying overnight is very tiring. I'm only going because I want to count Short-tailed Shearwaters and small bitterns.
So, what's the score this week

Short-tailed Shearwaters - five althogether on Friday and Saturday up to mid-day, Brendan had another five later on Saturday and let's hope for more today and next week. Only one came close enough for a half-decent photograph



For bitterns, with Home Affairs Department busy digging up the lagoon, only the lower columbarium remains to see them - but I had at least two Schrenck's Bitterns and one Yellow Bittern there. Plus this Cinnamon Bittern freshly arrived on the South Peninsular




Also seen this week, Chinese Goshawk, Brown Hawk Owl, some large flocks of swifts and swallows including more than 50 Pacific Swifts and at least one Red-rumped Swallow, a Pale Martin in off the sea, a new fall of Brown Shrikes with more than 30 around the area but not much else.

I think next week will be my last to stay on Po Toi this spring, a very disappointing spring all round. I'm hoping for good numbers of Short-tailed Shearwaters to make it a bit exciting, but the way this spring has gone, I guess I'm likely to be disappointed.

[ Last edited by wgeoff at 13/05/2012 16:37 ]

wgeoff

Thanks Fai jai, a good record

wgeoff

A good week this week, at least by the standards of this spring.

Tuesday was quiet but birds started arriving with the overnight rain on Tuesday night and more during Wednesday.

First were two Himalayan Swiftlets which flew in off the sea at my seawatching station very early in the morning. Mid-May is a regular date for this species, with previous records in 2008 and 2009.



They stayed on the island all day, usually around the Sisters Cafe, and then left early on Thursday morning as I was sea-watching, heading for the north of the Dangan Islands.

Also coming in during the day, a single Blue-tailed Bee-eater, a Golden-fronted Leafbird, unfortunately an obvious escape, and a very late Little Bunting



The Bee-eater also left early next morning, heading for north Dangan.

Small herons and bitterns were present all week, mostly in the lower columbarium valley or on the fishponds in the harbour - two each of Schrenck's Bitterns, Yellow Bitterns and Striated Herons. The Schrenck's were very secretive but I managed photos of the other two



At sea, nothing much to show for 10 hours sea-watching (apart from the migrants above). A few late terns, Aleutian, Common and Gull-billed but no Short-tailed Shearwaters which was a big disappointment.

There may be some small bitterns on the island this weekend, with today's rain. They promise to fix the generator on Saturday.

wgeoff

Regarding the Bridled Terns. 64 is a high number to see from Po Toi but I would still expect them to be local breeders from eastern coastal areas, since they were flying south.

Bridled and Black-naped Terns seem to have different feeding strategies. Bridled Terns are often seen during mid-summer off Po Toi, flying south and then returning north later, in groups of up to 10. It appears they have feeding grounds to the south of Lamma Island and will travel quite long distances to feed there. Black-naped Terns appear to feed within a short distance of their breeding grounds - I noticed this particularly when they were breeding on the rock near to Po Toi.

wgeoff

I did not go to Po Toi this week – I had other things to do and I thought there would be nothing much there given the forecast of hot sunny weather. As it turned out, the wind was much stronger easterly than I expected so maybe I missed some seabirds but not landbirds.

I have been thinking about why spring and particularly April this year has been so poor. How poor can be seen from this chart showing how many spring migrant species I have seen cumulatively over each spring since 2007.  



As you can see, spring 2012 started fairly normally up to the end of March but then fell away and I am now 20 to 30 species below previous levels.

Some particular species which are missing (for me) which I would normally expect to see in spring are Swinhoe’s Egret, Malayan Night Heron, Japanese Sparrowhawk, White-breasted Waterhen, Ruddy Turnstone, Common Snipe, Red Turtle Dove, Oriental and Plaintive Cuckoo, Koel, Black-capped Kingfisher, Eurasian Hoopoe, Pechora Pipit, Common Stonechat, Eyebrowed Thrush, Eastern Crowned Warbler, Mugimaki, Red-breasted and Japanese Paradise Flycatcher, Tristram’s, Yellow-browed, Yellow-breasted, Chestnut and Japanese Yellow Bunting and Purple-backed Starling. I appreciate that some of these have been seen on Po Toi this spring, but mostly only a single bird which is why I have missed it. Also, there have been no major or even small falls of Chinese Goshawk or Grey-faced Buzzard which come in April when they occur. I’ve just had two small falls of Brown Shrike in May.

So what could be the reason? The species are quite a mixed lot, Philippine and SE Asia winterers, not much clue there. There was lots of rain which is usually good for seeing migrants. I always look at the weather, particularly in spring, and I think the clue is here in this description of April 2012 given by HKO

"With the prevalence of the warm maritime airstream for most of the time except the early part of the month, April 2012 was warmer than usual… Affected by frequent passages of troughs of low pressure across the South China coast, there were also several heavy rain episodes in the month"

So, it was unusually warm with a mostly southerly airstream. There was lots of rain, but rain from depressions not cold fronts. In fact, there was not a single cold front in April 2012, which is why the month was warmer than usual.
This chart shows the number of Cold Fronts, Depressions and Typhoons in April since 2006.



There is quite a good correlation between the number of April Cold Fronts and April Species Numbers in the first chart – 2007 and 2010 were good years for April species numbers and had the most cold fronts, similarly 2011 and 2012 were poor years for April species numbers and had the least cold fronts. So it seems the number of cold fronts in April is important.

Previously I had considered cold fronts and depressions equal in their migrant effect, but clearly it is cold fronts (with rain) which are more important in April, probably because the winds with cold fronts are more northerly, so having more effect. But by May, cold fronts have mostly gone and it is depressions in May which bring in the late migrants, including small bitterns.

Don’t forget – this is not an exact science. Some cold fronts don’t cause migrants to arrive and some depressions in April are very effective (like the one just before Easter this year which gave us a good Easter). But cold fronts with rain in April are usually the most effective systems to bring us migrants, and this year we just didn’t have any.

Is the lack of cold fronts in 2011 and 2012 a chance occurrence or a result of old Nino again or a trend? – only time will tell. I’m still waiting for as good a spring on Po Toi as 2006 and 2007 – and that’s not just an old man being nostalgic about the past.

[ Last edited by wgeoff at 25/05/2012 08:05 ]

wgeoff

The British Trust for Ornithology has been tracking the movements of five Eurasian Cuckoos from UK to Africa and back again over the last year. You can follow their movements by clicking on their blogs on the following website

http://www.bto.org/science/migra ... ies/cuckoo-tracking

Of the five, all survived the winter in Africa but only two have made it back to UK, the other three are presumed to have died on the way back, one in Spain, one in North Africa and the other in West Africa.

This kind of survival rate indicates how perilous life is for a migrating bird and why preserving stop-off points like Po Toi is so important.

[ Last edited by wgeoff at 25/05/2012 06:02 ]

wgeoff

Each week more than 100 individuals read this blog on Po Toi. If you’ve enjoyed reading these reports, there is now something you can do to help preserve Po Toi - for this and future generations of bird lovers.

You are probably aware that the Government is reviewing the status of Po Toi following the illegal construction of a columbarium in the valley past the sisters café. HKBWS has made a submission supporting Po Toi as a Country Park and Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) to protect the main migrant bird areas. The Company which built the columbarium has also made a submission supporting its use as a columbarium.

At the moment, the columbarium company has managed to get more supporters than HKBWS! so we need your support for the HKBWS submission. The numbers of supporters is an important consideration for the Government.

We need you to show your support for Po Toi and the migrant birds. It’s easy to do and it doesn’t take more than five minutes.

The steps you need to take are

1. go to this website

http://www.info.gov.hk/tpb/en/plan_making/draft_plan.html

and you will see the following picture



2. Find ‘Po Toi Islands’ and click on ‘Make Comments’

3. Enter the website by typing the Text shown and clicking ‘I Agree’ and ‘Next’

4. On the next page shown, enter your name and email or postal address. Your addresses will remain confidential. Then, in the ‘Details of Comments’ section, enter

‘TPB/R/DPA/IPTI/1-4’ in the left column Representation Number and

‘I support Hong Kong Bird Watching Society's representation (TPB/R/DPA/IPTI/1-4)’ in the right column Details of Comments.

You can do it by Copying and Pasting the above
Then click ‘Submit”

5. The website will ask for your confirmation. Click ‘I Confirm’

That’s all you have to do. Please do it and help us protect Po Toi.
We need your support.

Thanks.

[ Last edited by wgeoff at 29/05/2012 06:49 ]

wgeoff

Thanks Manson. I hope everyone can follow Manson's example and we can get protection for Po Toi

wgeoff

Thanks to everyone. Let's keep it going - 100 supporters would be a powerful voice

wgeoff

Thanks to all those who have already sent in their support for the HKBWS submission on Po Toi. There's still time for any others, please take the time if you support Po Toi.

This week I focussed almost entirely on seabirds, following Brendan's success last weekend, and it proved worthwhile. Although there were long periods of boredom when listening to the BBC News on the radio was all I could do, the buzz when I saw what was obviously a new bird for me was fantastic.

As soon as I saw what I thought was a small dark shearwater coming the wrong way (all migrant seabirds in spring fly from the direction of Lamma Island, this one was going in exactly the opposite direction), I knew I had something good even though I didn't know what it was. Some panic set in as I tried to find the bird through my camera viewfinder, fortunately it looked so black it was quite easy to spot and I just kept firing away hoping the focus and everything else was working. And it was, these modern cameras and lenses are just superb for a technical dumbo like me. And here it is, a Swinhoe's Storm-petrel



It took less than one minute to fly past but I was on a high for a long time after, even though I couldn't tell from my camera display exactly what it was. These are the moments that make all the time spent watching an empty sea worthwhile.

For more photos and a discussion on this bird, go here

http://www.hkbws.org.hk/BBS/viewthread.php?tid=16569

There were still three Short-tailed Shearwaters to see, the latest date I've ever had for the species



plus Aleutian and Great Crested Terns, and on land one Schrenck's Bittern, five Yellow Bitterns and an unexpected Savanna Nightjar.

This will be my last week on Po Toi this spring, as I have things to do mid-week in June. Not a great spring, but a great finish.

[ Last edited by wgeoff at 1/06/2012 18:19 ]