Watercock Gallicrex cinerea 董雞
Category I. Scarce passage migrant, slightly more numerous in spring, and rare summer visitor; much declined. Occurs in vegetated freshwater wetlands.
IDENTIFICATION
Jun. 2017, Kinni Ho.
Male at 41-43 cm is larger than female. Dark charcoal grey above with slightly paler grey or brownish feather fringes, blackish below and distinctive red frontal shield above yellow bill.
May 2013, Michelle and Peter Wong.
The lack of full-grown frontal shield and distinct pale brownish fringes to the scapulars and tertials suggest this bird is in its second calendar-year.
Jun. 2009, Kinni Ho.
Female smaller than male at 31-36 cm, about size of Common Moorhen. Upperparts blackish with broad warm brown fringes, head rather plain and pale apart from dark crown and hind neck, bill and small shield yellowish.
Jun. 2017, Kinni Ho.
A more typical view is that of a bird in flight. On this female the large, trailing feet are obvious, as well as a relatively plain head and contrasting wing pattern with a white leading edge.
VOCALISATIONS
The song is a series of spaced fairly guttural ‘kow’ or ‘kok’ notes.
DISTRIBUTION & HABITAT PREFERENCE
Most records of this species are from vegetated freshwater wetland areas of the northwest New Territories, mainly Mai Po NR, the Lok Ma Chau MTRC Ecological Enhancement Area and Long Valley. Other records have occurred on Lantau, Po Toi and Chek Lap Kok airport islands, and at Tai Long Wan, Lam Tsuen, Luk Keng, Nam Chung, Shuen Wan, Shek Kong and Sai Kung. There are also records of disoriented and distressed migrants at urban and semi-urban sites on Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, including an immature that collided with Murray Building in Central on the night of 23 October 1970, the same night that two Slaty-breasted Rails met with the same fate.
OCCURRENCE
A passage migrant slightly more numerous in autumn and a rare summer visitor (Figure 1).
Up to 1999 the earliest spring record occurred on 31 March 1986, although April records were relatively rare. The earliest record since then has occurred on 8 May 2014, with main passage during the second half of the month; it appears that migrants are rare after 31 May. The enhancement of freshwater wetland habitat this century at Mai Po NR and the Lok Ma Chau MTRC Ecological Enhancement Area appears to have been a factor in the small number of summer records from 16 June to 3rd or possibly 20 July, the first since 1984.
Autumn migrants are certainly in evidence by the end of the first week of August, but peak passage occurs from the last week of September to the last week of October. The latest autumn record this century occurred on 18 November 2009.
From 1971 to 1997 there were nine winter records of Watercock between 26 December and 24 February. Since then, however, there have been none.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s Watercock bred at Tai Sang Wai where family parties were frequently seen and up to ten pairs were believed present. It may also have bred at Sha Po and Luk Keng in the early 1980s, and there were regular midsummer records at Mai Po until 1984. With the destruction of part of Tai Sang Wai to make way for the creation of Fairview Park residential estate, the breeding population was lost.
Vaughan and Jones (1913) reported Watercock to be a fairly common summer visitor with extreme dates of 19 April and 23 October. They went on to state that the species varied in numbers, ‘but at the end of April and the beginning of May (they) are sometimes exceedingly abundant’. Such a comment indicates the nature of the decline in abundance that seems to have occurred. Herklots (1953) recorded it once in November, while Dove and Goodhart (1955) had seven records in two years, all from 13 April to 4 October.
BEHAVIOUR, FORAGING & DIET
Despite its size often difficult to see in the densely vegetated wetlands it frequents as it is not prone to take flight when disturbed. It is to some extent crepuscular. It walks slowly, jerking its tail. It swims well, however, and will readily do so across open water. Has been recorded cropping seed heads of reeds and grasses, including Echinochloa sp.
BREEDING
Juveniles were reported on 6 August.
RANGE & SYSTEMATICS
Monotypic. Occurs from the Indian subcontinent through Indochina to China, the Korean peninsula and Ussuriland, and south through southeast Asia to much of Indonesia. Populations in China, east Asia, northern Indochina and northern India are migratory (Taylor and Kirwan 2020). In China a summer visitor to areas southeast of a line from Yunnan to southern Heilongjiang (Liu and Chen 2020).
CONSERVATION STATUS
IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend decreasing.
Figure 1.
Dove, R. S. and H. J. Goodhart (1955). Field observations from the Colony of Hong Kong. Ibis 97: 311-340.
Herklots, G. A. C. (1953). Hong Kong Birds. South China Morning Post, Hong Kong.
Vaughan, R. E. and K. H. Jones (1913). The birds of Hong Kong, Macao and the West River or Si Kiang in South-East China, with special reference to their nidification and seasonal movements. Ibis 1913: 17-76, 163-201, 351-384.
Liu, Y. and Y. H. Chen (2020). The CNG Field Guide to the Birds of China (in Chinese). Hunan Science and Technology Publication House, Changsha.
Taylor, B. and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Watercock (Gallicrex cinerea), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.waterc1.01
