Ma Wan in Summer, 2012
The call from the wild
(Date: 7th Aug 2012)
It was the calls of a Long-tailed shrike for the past several mornings that lured me to take a round trip along the fringe of Ma Wan Island, a one-day break from my Tai Chi drills which had been almost non-stop for the past three weeks. I started from the gate of Parklisland nearest the sloppy road that leads straight up to a service reservoir.
As I wasn't in a hrurry for any target bird -anyhow Long-tailed shrikes are not secretive and quite vociferous too- I stopped at a smallish Tin Hau Temple and copied down the rhymed pairs of words at the door, found a juvenile Chinese bulbul before I arrived at the service reservoir path.
I was at the moment also butterfly and dragonfly-watching. It was before I had picked up three species of butterflies and one dragonfly before the shrike flew up into view, accompanied with its indentifiable
call.
I left the sloppy path part of the island and walked towards Tin Liu Village and walked along the hill-fringe behind the service reservoir, with the purpose of finding a Blacked-eared kite that the kind of which frequent - an electic wire that runs lengthwise along that part of the the island - with one side almost overhanging above the sea. Soon a kite soared low within sight.
It was at the old pier with a small typhoon shelter that gave me a mild surprise. A total of four Night herons were found, three perching on the rafts of a fishfarm far outnumbered by a total of twenty little egrets on the other side of the rafts.
Suddenly, the hurried rapid calls of a Common kingfisher caught my attention - a species I am still uncertain it being a seasonal visitor or a resident. It did not show its appearance until I reuturned from a diverted walk of ten minutes, with its blue back showing well. No, it was not just a single kingfisher that was there. There was yet another, which had caught a little fish with its bill and found its perch on the top of scaffold that supported a dilapidated, deserted wood house.
I stopped when I did not find any Reef egrets that favour the shoals just a short distance from the modern ferry pier, with a modest list of fifteen species on my list.
S L Tai
[ Last edited by tsheunglai at 9/08/2012 18:39 ]