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Ho Chung 蠔涌

Ho Chung 蠔涌

I have posted separately a picture of what I suspect is Oriental pratincole taken at Ho Chung this morning. There were also some Black-faced buntings and one possible Japanese yellow bunting - the bird showed two very strong distinct white wing bars, a white eye-ring and chestnutish wings. It was almost lemon yellow underneath. It had 2 clear white outer tail feathers. I only saw it briefly twice in the cultivated area of the valley where it stayed down in the vegetation most of the time but popped up briefly on to bean sticks a couple of times. The eye was the striking difference from the Black-faced buntings. Other birds seen were:

Chinese pond heron; Little egret; Cattle egret [2]; Black kite;  Crested serpent eagle;  Crested goshawk [4];  White-breasted waterhen; Spotted dove; Large hawk cuckoo; Koel; Plaintive cuckoo (heard); Lesser coucal [2]; Common kingfisher; Barn swallow [common]; Grey wagtail; Chinese, red-whiskered and Sooty-headed bulbul; Chestnut bulbul [heard]. Magpie robin; Plain prinia; Common tailorbird; Streak-breasted scimitar babler [1. New species at Ho Chung for me]; Hair-crested drongo [7+]; Blue magpie; Black-collared starling; Crested myna; Black-faced bunting [4];

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I agree Ho Chung isn't really a hot spot but it has its moments. Today I saw Brown shrike and Hwamei together at the same time as I could hear 3 dfferent cuckoos incuding Chestnut-winged. I was actually house hunting at the time. My wife thought my interest in the house was solely due to the birds. She was probably right. Sadly lots of areas are being given over to development and the village houses in Tai Lam Wu are going for HK$11m+, one even for HK$22m. The world has indeed gone mad.

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I would also like better directions (pm is fine please) altho I'm unlikely to get a chance to look for a while as I'm off to London on business on Wednesday :-(

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