wgeoff

Transition Week - April to May

Also Festival Week - my least favourite week in the year. A very brief week for me on Po Toi, only staying on Thursday night, still lots of people around.

Where are all the seabirds this year? In eight hours seawatching, I only managed five birds, single Black-tailed Gull, Whiskered Tern and Aleutian Tern and two White-winged Terns, plus 70 Red-necked Phalarope. I've not seen any skuas/jaegers this year at all, and no Short-tailed Shearwaters this week, although they can be quite erratic in their appearance. I hope the HKBWS boat trip has more luck.

What could be seen over the water were large numbers of migrant non-seabirds - waders, egrets and landbirds - many Brown Shrikes, Yellow Wagtails and a single flock of 23 Pechora Pipits. From the Ferry coming back on Friday, we saw two Brown Shrikes and an Arctic Warbler flying past low over the water, then came to a wall of Black Kites hunting anything moving over the sea. As we passed, we saw them catch two birds, probably Brown Shrikes - no chance when being attacked by four Black Kites at the same time. The perils of being a migrant bird.

Waders are difficult for me, I see so few, and flying fast over water and behind waves means you don't get any long views. Here what I think is three Pacific Golden Plover and also a group of five, two very small - presumably Red-necked Stints, and three larger, one of which should be identifiable from dark primary tips and breast contrasting with whitish underparts - but what is it?



Lots of Brown Shrikes on the island, I counted 46 on Thursday but I'm sure there were many more. 99% are lucionensis with grey heads, but one near the upper school with a dark head and clear whitish supercilium is, I guess, nominate cristatus



I saw a hepatic Cuckoo near the restaurant, I think this is the hepatic Oriental Cuckoo from early April still around. It has been mentioned to me a few times during April by others. Also a single late Grey-faced Buzzard, several Chinese Goshawks, Swinhoe's Minivet, Black-capped Kingfisher, Dollarbird, Arctic Warbler (see Arctic Warbler sp? elsewhere), Narcissus Flycatcher and Black-naped Oriole plus this very wet looking Common Magpie, reported last weekend and the first I have seen for a long time on Po Toi



Good luck to the HKBWS boat trip today

[ Last edited by wgeoff at 4/05/2013 06:05 ]

wgeoff

At last, a good day for seabirds, on Thursday.

Between 6am and 10am I had five Short-tailed Shearwaters and nine species of tern, Whiskered, White-winged, Gull-billed, Common, Black-naped, Aleutian, Bridled, Little and 52 Greater Crested, a record count I think.
What turned this on, after five poor weeks? - probably the change to light SE winds with good visibility after almost permanent strong E or NE winds with heavy mist through most of April and early May.

Here three of the shearwaters and three of the Greater Crested Terns



On land, quiet.
A single Yellow Bittern, let's hope the first of many, a latest ever Grey-faced Buzzard on Tuesday (with many flight feathers missing, probably the reason for it's lateness), several photogenic Chinese Goshawks to keep the punters happy, the first Oriental Turtle Dove of spring, a Dollarbird, a Pale Martin, still many Brown Shrikes, a late Dusky Warbler, Arctic Warblers, Grey-streaked Flycatcher (this has been a poor year on Po Toi for the species, unlike elsewhere it seems), a single male Chestnut Bunting all week and, most rare, a single Tree Sparrow, another spring migrant with few records this year.



This has been a poor second half to spring so far. I'm hoping the rain forecast for Saturday will bring in some late migrants, usually bitterns in early May, the last chance for Fairy Pitta and Malayan Night Heron (on Po Toi at least).

And with light winds forecast for Sunday, maybe a better day for seabirds from the HKBWS boat - good luck

[ Last edited by wgeoff at 10/05/2013 06:37 ]

wgeoff

Thanks Paul

wgeoff

This week I focused almost entirely on looking for seabirds, partly because there was nothing much on land and partly because this is often the peak week for Short-tailed Shearwaters, as this graph of my past records from 2006-2012 shows

  

Watching for seabirds is called 'seawatching', which is exactly what it is - 99% of your time is watching the sea and 1% watching birds.
But the 1% can be very exhilarating. Unfortunately, it wasn't such a good week for Short-tailed Shearwaters, only seven seen in a total of 16 hours spent 'watching the sea'.
Here some photos




The last two photos here were taken with a new toy I'm experimenting with - a Canon PowerShot SX50, an small, lighweight camera with an amazing 50x optical zoom.
The problem with it is - finding the bird in the viewfinder! At 50x mag, the area covered by the viewfinder is very small and a moving seabird is no easy target. But as you can see, when you find it, the results are quite good compared to my heavy 10x magnification Canon 300x1.4 lens camera. I believe Sony make a similar lightweight 50x camera which may be even better than the PowerShot.

Also seen, a large flock of over 250 terns which started wheeling around high up and then flew away low across the sea but at long range



I called them Common/Aleutian Terns but I'm pretty sure that most, if not all, were Aleutian.

Also in the week, a few Red-necked Phalarope, an Arctic Skua and eleven Greater Crested Terns as well as many, mostly local, Bridled and Black-naped Terns. Here the skua and a Greater Crested, also taken with the PowerShot



And, to keep me from going completely insane from boredom, a large pod of 50-100 dolphins which came down the channel quite a way off shore



Not quite sure what species they are but obviously not Finless or Chinese White

On land, a few Yellow Bitterns and a single Pale Martin, as well as the very late Pallas's Leaf Warbler photographed so well by Herman



I'll try again next week for shearwaters and maybe some bitterns, but that may be my last trip as I'm not available the last week in May

[ Last edited by wgeoff at 18/05/2013 20:59 ]

wgeoff

Thanks for these comments.

I think Dave is right - these are Spinner Dolphins - the third photo shows a very long, thin and twisted body. Also the large number of animals together would fit, according to the texts I have read they frequently associate in large groups.

I hadn't even heard of Spinner Dolphins before Dave mentioned it so I had to look this all up on the Internet.

wgeoff

My last week to stay on Po Toi, I have other committments next week.

I was hoping to go out with a bang, but not this sort of bang. Wednesday was one of the longest and most severe storms I have ever witnessed.

From 6am to 12noon, thunder and lighning were crashing around us almost continuously. At around 11am, a brilliant flash followed immediately by a huge bang blew out all the electicity on our side of the bay. It took an hour later that day to recover power.
It didn't stop raining from 6am until 6pm, rivers of rainwater coming down the hillsides cut trenches in the beach, almost removing the foundations of the restaurant



and afterwards, a strange milky sky with a pale rainbow, followed by zillions on flying ants attracted to any light, wings falling off and the wingless ants dropping down into my dinner - all those in the middle of the plate have disappeared somewhere, I understand they are very nutritious



Birdwatching was impossible that day, but just after the lightning stopped at about 1pm, a stunning male Pheasant-tailed Jacana flew into the harbour, flew around twice and disappeared off. I didn't have my camera, so here is one from 18 May 2010



I could birdwatch on Tuesday and Thursday but very few new birds to be seen. No bitterns, no shearwaters.
Just a newly-fledged Blue Rock Thrush and a family party of Plain Prinias.



A very poor second half to spring. I may do a review next week.

And that's it - my time to stay overnight on Po Toi is over, after seven good years.
I may go for days, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and if I do, I will report here. But not overnight. Of course, I will miss the full days, early mornings especially, but not the nights - I'm finding the overnight part very tiring now.
Time to hand over to a younger man - where is Brendan?

[ Last edited by wgeoff at 24/05/2013 07:22 ]

wgeoff

Thanks for all these comments which are very much appreciated.

Although I won't be staying overnight on Po Toi again on a regular basis, I guess I will still go on the Tuesday and Thursday ferries and will continue to report any sightings. I haven't yet decided for sure but, as Dylan suggests, I will probably find the temptation too great.

So some people may not even notice a difference. But for me, it's a big difference.

PS I've calculated that I've spent over HK$10,000 myself on ferry charges since I started. But not all to Tsui Wah - they only started in about 2009.

[ Last edited by wgeoff at 26/05/2013 10:42 ]