Hong Kong, Tai Po Kau Nature Reserve
25 December 2004

Tai Po Kau is Hong Kong’s largest and best site for forest birding. An easily-accessed valley between relatively steep hills the Reserve is split into a number of well-signed nature-trails and circuits - eg the Tai Po Kau Nature Trail (left), Red Walk and the Yellow Walks at lower levels, and the higher - and generally less rewarding - Brown Walk further up.

A couple of small picnic-sites - easily found by following the notice-boards - can be worth visiting as the more open habitat and bare understory can often be good for wintering Olive-backed Pipits and Tristram’s Buntings, and - in spring and autumn - flycatchers.

Local time: GMT +8
Approx noon temp: 22C
Weather: Dry with relatively low humidity, but dull and overcast.

Christmas Day in Tai Po Kau (TPK)…

Looking at some seriously hungover people on the subway off HK island to the KCR , I’d half-hoped that I would be the only person at TPK Nature Reserve, but I should know not to under-estimate the energy of the Chinese or their need to escape the city: I get there shortly after dawn and there’s already a steady procession of hikers striding up the steep paths into the “Reserve proper” from the main road…oh well, such is life…

It’s accessibility does mean of course that along the main paths you will never be alone: and as Cantonese is apparently “the language that can not be whispered”, you’ll rarely be out of earshot of the visitors. Quite why people here feel the need to yell at one another is beyond me - are they subconsciously afraid of startling bears or tigers, or are just used to shouting over the roar of HK’s terrible traffic? - but you can take it from me that a) sarcastically asking them to speak up because there’s a deaf man in Macau who can’t quite hear what they’re saying, or b) pulling disgusted faces like a snotty, disgruntled Caucasian birder who wants SILENCE really has no effect…still, it was worth a try, and no doubt I’ll think it worth trying again next time I’m here…

Anyway, you can always hope that whatever bird they flush will fly towards you first, before disappearing into thick cover for the next few hours…

It’s a shame that TPK is disturbed like this, because the birding can be really good - and today was actually definitely better than I remember from a few years back when I last went. Signs put up by the Parks Authority state that as the forest is regenerating and maturing more birds are being found here: that’s part of the explanation - it’s also likely that as primary forest in mainland China is destroyed more birds are ranging further to find new habitat and coming into the New Territories almost “by accident”, or species that are normally found in secondary or woodland edge habitats are expanding across southern China into areas they previously found unsuitable. It’s also possibly true that some populations here derive from escapes or deliberate releases - though again the picture isn’t completely clear, with one birder years ago telling me that virtually everything from Velvet-fronted Nuthatches to Striated Yuhinas - both of which are well-established residents now - were escapes from the notorious bird-markets that used to operate in Kowloon, and that basically you just couldn’t trust anything to be genuine (which always seemed to me, to be frank, just an example of the refusal of old-school HK residents to allow the Chinese into “their” islands)…

Whatever, the forest has a good mix of winter visitors - particularly phylloscs for example (I saw at least ten Pallas’s Leaf Warblers and a handful of Yellow-broweds - and what was most likely a White-tailed Leaf, but the views were too brief to be certain) - and a pretty good range of typical secondary woodland residents. Like any forest anywhere in the world, TPK can seem absolutely deserted one minute and alive the next as you stumble on a mixed feeding-flock, when all Hell seems to break loose and birds come hurtling at you through the trees.

The first such flock I came across consisted mainly of Chestnut Bulbuls (once uncommon here they starting breeding recently and are pretty much unmissable now) and Silver-eared Mesias - which are one of those species that look as if they were painted by children, all dabs of colour and unlikely bright flourishes, and then named by taxonomists who were so dazzled by their bold use of “silver-eared” that they couldn’t sort themselves out to come up with something more descriptive than “mesia”…

The second flock - down by the main picnic-site - was a tumultuous whirl of more Chestnut Bulbuls, Chestnut-fronted Babblers (another species that has increased dramatically in TPK), Oriental White-eyes, Striated Yuhinas, Blue-winged Minlas, Great and Yellow-cheeked Tits (truly stunning birds), Pallas’s Warblers, and ones or twos of Velvet-fronted Nuthatch, Red-whiskered Bulbul, and Grey-headed Canary Flycatcher: not a bad Christmas present!

The hour or two of deathly silence (apart from the human noise of course) between these flocks was spent peering into the undergrowth or up into the canopy - mainly at leaves, or twigs shaped like really rare vagrants - and occasionally disturbing the odd Asian Stubtail, Grey-backed Thrush or Tristram’s Bunting which disappeared into the gloomy depths ahead of me.

It wasn’t unfortunately spent taking masses of photographs: the sun never quite managed to burn through the cloud, haze and smog that had settled over HK - and consequently photography in the forest was pretty much impossible…there were some quite dark places, and then some really dark places…

I only mention this a) because there are obviously no photos to back up this report, and b) because it was really frustrating when I found the third and final flock of the morning. Every single forest bird in HK was in this one flock. Every individual perched out in the open for minutes on end….well, no they weren’t and no they didn’t, but it did seem to be a wonderful amalgam of the two previous flocks, and they did give the sort of views that on a bright sunny day would have had me feverishly focussing and clicking…a typically wonderful and at the same time bewildering birding experience as a hundred or so birds whirled through the trees (just how does a bird hurtle through a net of branches without bashing itself senseless?), that added a couple of White-rumped Munias to the list and two Hwamei - great stuff…

Fortunately this flock arrived before the lunchtime/post-hangover rush, and with the gloomy skies getting darker…well, time to get a few hours sleep back at the hotel, before catching a ferry for Christmas Dinner with Martin and Maya Williams on one of HK’s smaller islands…

Ah, the glamorous and non-stop life of the international birder!

Trip List:
(English and scientific names mainly from Field Guide to the Birds of South-east Asia, Robson 2000:)
Spotted Dove Streptopelia chinensis, 3; Black Kite Milvus migrans; 2; Large-billed Crow Corvus macrorhynchus, 1; Scarlet Minivet Pericrotus flammens, 10; Grey-backed Thrush Turdus hortulorum, 2; Grey-headed Canary Flycatcher Culicicapa ceylonensis, 2; Velvet-fronted Nuthatch Sitta frontalis, 3; Great Tit Parus major, +; Yellow-cheeked Tit Parus spilonotus, 3; Red-whiskered Bulbul Pycnonotus focosus, 3; Light-vented Bulbul Pycnonotus sinensis, 1; Chestnut Bulbul Hemixos castanonotus, 20+; Common Tailorbird Orthotomus sutorius, 1; Asian Stubtail Urosphena squameiceps, 3; Pallas’s Leaf Warbler Phylloscopus proregulus, 10+; Yellow-browed Warbler P. inornatus; Eastern Crowned Warbler P. coronatus - 3 (NB Martin Williams feels that mid-winter is unlikely for this taxon, and that they were probably Blyth’s Leaf Warblers - I feel otherwise, but I don’t bird HK very often and he does!); Oriental White-eye Zosterops palpebrosus, 10+; Hwamei Garrulax canorus, 2; Rufous-capped Babbler Stachyris ruficeps, 10+; Blue-winged Minla Minla cyanouroptera; 2 - 3; Silver-eared Mesia Leiothrix argentauris, c) 20; Striated Yuhina Yuhina castaniceps, 5 - 6; Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker Dicaeum cruentatum, 1; Fork-tailed Sunbird Aethopyga christinae, 5 - 6; White-rumped Munia Lonchura striata, 2; Tristram’s Bunting Emberiza tristrami, 3