No Go Mai Po

Yesterday I had a rare trip to Mai Po and took some nice pictures, a few of which I shall inflict on you. Or you could just visit my Flickr page!

Today, however, a Swallow in Yuen Long has caused MPNR to be closed for 21 days. Many people much better qualified than I have articulated why this is a daft thing to do. Local experts Dr. Martin WIlliams and Mike Kilburn have both written on the matter. I really struggle to understand the mentality of the bureaucrats, who have no understanding of what they are doing. Are they going to impose a "no go" zone around the site, where the swallow was found? What else is now closed apart from bureaucrats' minds? Oh well, dose the idiots up with Tamiflu quick in case there is an outbreak of commonsense. If you read the WWF announcement I think it is fair to conclude that it too believes the closure is bonkers and completely unnecessary but it has to defer to the government and AFCD (the C is silent on most occasions). Frankly I'd me much in favour of WWF HK coming out and telling the government what they think. If Ricky Martin can come out, so can WWF HK.

So my plans for today have been aborted and we may go to the garden centre instead. Lets hope that hasn't been closed.

At this time of year the tides at MPNR are good and yesterday the predicted 2.3m tide brought the birds close to the hides. In fact the tide was probably higher than that although I haven't checked the Observatory site to confirm it. So, that means gulls and waders or "peeps" as our friends across the Atlantic insist on calling them.

Gulls are arguably the most challenging birds to identify although some may argue for raptors, cisticolas or indeed waders. They come in many shapes and sizes, take varying years to mature and have different plumages depending on age and season. A quick glance at "Gulls" by Klaus Malling Olsen and Hans Larsson makes my eyes glaze over. I am used to dealing with Greeks but Vega gulls baffle me. Now the more educated amongst my readers will observe that Vega is not a Greek letter but stop nit-picking. I am reminded of my father telling me the very old joke: What's a Greek Urn? About 40 drachma a week! I suspect I was five at the time and found it amusing. Well very little was amusing in 1962 so why shouldn't I laugh?

But I digress. Mai Po was at its best yesterday. Apart from the light, which for most of the morning was dreary. There is a real buzz to sitting in the hide and hearing the crescendo of a swish overhead. The birds fly in to see whether the tide has gone out enough for them to feed on the mudflats and as they do their recce you hear the wonderful noise of tens if not hundreds of them flying at great speed. One may be silent. Hundreds are not. When the main flocks arrive there may be hundreds of thousands of them densely dancing over Deep Bay, sometimes put up by an encroaching raptor (the Ospreys were at it yesterday) or by the tide forcing them off their chosen feeding grounds.

Furthest out are the ducks, Shoveler, Wigeon, Garganey..... then deep threads of black and white Avocets. There are gulls and of course "old carrot nose" himself, the Caspian tern. Look at this bird, what an absolute beauty.




There was also a single Gull-billed tern. But it is the overall experience that you go for. I cannot understand how people can sit behind a camera for hours and not be inspired.











And as a bonus, my first ever effort to video anything using a DSLR, the Canon 7D.



So is there anything bad about MPNR? Well the amount of building going on around the reserve is pretty awful. The buffer zone seems to be shrinking all the time. Road works seem to be everywhere and I have this nightmare that someone will decide that the Tower Hide is excellent potential for conversion into a town house or a number of bijou flats. (I'd like to credit JH for the word "bijou"). So in the event that some jobsworth behind a desk somewhere decides that it is safe to be within 3km of a wild bird I do recommend that you visit the reserve. Of course, if you are local that means going on an organised group trip at times that guarantee you'll see pretty much nothing BUT you could take up birding, join WWF HK, The HK Birdwatching Society and apply for permits and the you too can see the greatest show on earth. But please leave room for me and my camera. Thank you.

The Scarlet pimpernel??

After a trip to the Middle East with the world's worst airline - 7.5 hours of screaming babies (yes, plural) non stop and non sleep to HK - thank you CP - I spent a lazy day pottering about at home and clicking away at whatever visited the garden. Et voila!!

Actually there was a sort of hard work element to this. I went out at 6.15am when it was barely light. I hoped to see some early activity as the birds started to forage for breakfast. The light however was poor and did not improve, unlike the previous day when by 6.45 the sun was beginning to trickle through the dawn. So I climbed up and down the hill, became drenched in sweat and all for no pictures. The noise was there and I realised that cicadas call not only at dusk but also at dawn. The black ones with yellow spots seem to be everywhere. I found one on the balcony later on. It was confused by the glass panels so I lifted it up and allowed it to fly vigorously away, a veritable turbo charged cicada. What a great name for a car! Do you drive a Prius? No, I drive the new Toyota Cicada!! Ah, I wondered what the stridulations were. I though they were the brakes rubbing.

After that I was tired so set up the camera on the balcony and spent the day garden-watching on and off. The neighbours are already used to it. The minivets have been to the garden before but never come close. They sit in a tree on the far side of the communal garden, beyond the pots and veggie patch. Without warning one of the male minivets flitted across and perched atop the tree right opposite the house and almost caught me unprepared. I changed the settings quickly and fired off some nice portraits, pausing only very briefly to make sure the exposure settings were appropriate. If you get it wrong you may never get the chance again. I did miss 3 Hwamei on the path. I had been inside the house and as I came out I silently cursed as 3 beautiful birds flew off to the top of the garden. I was 99% sure they were Hwamei and a check with the binoculars confirmed this. I took a 400mm lens to try and stalk them amongst the empty flower pots but they skittled away under the hedge and out of sight.

The sun was shining by then and the warmth seems to have been a catalyst for the increased activity. It is also approaching the breeding season and I photographed a Red-whiskered bulbul carrying stalks of dead grass for the nest. The swallows still seem to be going in and out of the garage but I can't see a sign of construction. Perhaps they are still prospecting or maybe our activity bothers them more than last year's by the then tenants, S & K.

To close, I can disclose that the spellchecker rejects (maybe quite fairly) "stridulations" and suggests "story telling". So make your own mind up but the minivets are for real and I can think of no bird that creates such an impact as the Scarlet minivet. The colour is so in your face, it just punches you on the nose, demanding that you admire it. Black and red may not be the colours du jour but they put most fashion designers in their place. If you've got it, flaunt it and as red is the colour of my home nation's rugby shirts and the mighty Llanelli were known as the Scarlets (9-3) I hereby deem that the team shall henceforth be known as the Welsh Minivets. Diolch yn fawr.

I'm sorry I'll read that again

With apologies to Angus Prune.