Birds, bugs etc

Parum colligata

2011-04-22T20:07:00.001+08:00

Parum colligata, a photo by 57Andrew on Flickr.

Test

An occasional post

2010-12-12T15:44:00.011+08:00

It is Christmas Eve and I am at home. It is warm enough to sit outside on the terrace and drink coffee, read books, play with the iPad etc. Mrs. Ha is making gingerbread men and all is well with the world. The plan is for 2011 to be my last in full time work. I will be in my 55th year by the time I pack in so enough is enough. I am quite nervous as the outlook for investing for income is quite daunting and I don't want to start eating into my capital right away. I hope I can bite the bullet and get by.

The idea of freedom to do what I want for a while is so attractive. I am increasingly addicted to the Leica although sometimes I find myself frustrated by it. I keep reading more and more about photography. Both the creative side and the technical side. I am thinking through what I really need to do differently to tale better images. Its not about quantity it is about quality. The key word seems to be anticipation. I was reading how Cartier Bresson used to find the setting and then wait for the moment when something happened to trigger the moment he wanted. He could visualize what he wanted and sometimes varied his position by only a few millimeters to get a quite different impact each time. He was said to dance with his camera, he was so light on his feet, trying to create the image he knew he wanted. the expression "the decisive moment" is now for ever bound to HCB but it simply means picking the moment amongst many that encapsulates what it was he wanted to convey.

Whether you call it street photography, documentary photography or reportage it matters little to me. I go out to try and take a better picture than I took last time. If you are photographing people the question is to engage or not to engage. Should you "sneak" the photo or ask. I do both I'm afraid.

This was posed:

This was not

I shot this, as you can probably tell, without using the viewfinder. The lens is at waist height - I am sitting next to the man - and I guessed focus and exposure to take a candid portrait. Its nothing to write home about but I thought it was a nice example of how you can literally "shoot from the hip".

I took some photos in the local park. A lady learning tai chi from her master. I asked if I could take photos and they were quite content. I sat quietly on the bench and tried to get what I wanted. The 50mm was a bit too little but as they moved closer and filled more of the frame the shots improved. The master motioned me to shoot from the other side so I did although I didn't want to. The light was all wrong. When he took a break I moved back round again.

I am converting most of my shots to B&W now and wouldn't mind going back to film for a while. What really troubles me is that when I post images in critique fora they get little reaction. There are occasional exceptions but generally not much by way of feedback. The question therefore is what makes an image stand out enough to get a reaction, positive or negative. I have learned that they need a focal point but many photos - not just mine - are trashed for being too derivative. What does that mean? Copying the style of someone else? I guess developing your own style is hard but distinguishes you from the rest. I am a long way from there yet. Here is another one I like:

What I do enjoy is the creative process of taking a digital image and working on it on the mac with Lightroom 3, Photoshop CS4 and / or Silver Efex Pro to produce a different effect, replicating digitally the grain, tones and textures of black and white film.

In the coming weeks, my focus, if you will pardon the pun, will be on seeing better the image in the viewfinder. The Leica allows you to see what is outside the picture so you can tell when someone is about to enter the actual frame. You have context as you compose. I need to be more aware of the frame lines and think about what is in and what is outside the image boundary. HCB didn't crop his images and the sense was that he moved to make the full frame meaningful rather than cropping after the event to remove extraneous subject matter. This is far from as easy as it sounds and reflects his ability to visualize and choose the perfect or decisive moment to expose the film (or sensor as it is today).

To finish, here is another of my favourite recent snaps. This is the generation gap.....

Happy holidays everyone.

A brief return

2010-10-02T14:06:00.007+08:00

The autumn is returning. The super-hot temperatures are cooling and it is clear that birds are moving although I haven't seen much around the garden yet. So I have been continuing to practice with the rangefinder and have developed a keen interest in black and white imaging. I have spent some time with a pro, Craig Norris, who has given me some Photoshop tuition and is critiquing my work occasionally. I am learning to improve my composition, to make sure I have a focal point to the picture and to vary my height and angle of shooting.

All this has become something of a minor obsession and I spend a lot of time looking at the Leica Forum. It never ceases to amaze me what people post expecting (presumably) positive comments. On the other hand others doubtless think the same about my efforts and indeed Craig and I have already disagreed on images. Quite healthy too. But there are some amazingly talented people who post but I stay clear of the techno-nerds.

Moths have been few recently. They don't seem to fly much in the very hot weather but this little chap did appear recently.

This goes under the name of "anticrates sp." and is as yet undescribed to science.

Yesterday about 350 Great egrets flew past, possibly heading for the Philippines. This was a chance evening sighting but after the passage of Chinese Goshawks earlier in the year perhaps I am on a migration route! I also found a crested serpent eagle in the garden a while back.

This species calls regularly here and is seen occasionally very high in the sky but on this occasion perched just across from the house.

As we go into the best time of the year the constant interruption and harassment that is work begins to get to me. I need a physical and emotional spring clean and jumping on another plane (as I will do later tonight) is not what I need. Striving for better photos is also very draining but in a different way. I once did some psychometric tests to determine whether I was a Type A or B. On the scale of 1-100 I was around 98% towards the A end of the spectrum so I commit totally to a project and push myself hard to improve each time. I love the challenge of the rangefinder and playing with a piece of software called Silver Efex Pro that I use for converting from colour to black & white.

I am sure this is Off Topic but here are a couple of my efforts:

Of course if you are a Facebook Friend or Flickr follower of mine then all this stuff is repetitive nonsense, for which I apologize.

I still have a hankering to write too but until I hang up my banking boots that isn't going to happen. I have wonderful ideas for this blog but either never get round to writing or my mind goes blank when I sit down to type. In reality I just want to be out there taking pictures, whether it is natural history with the DSLR or arty-farty stuff with the rangefinder. So whatever your interest, if you are still out there, here is my last offering for the time being.

Thanks.

Blog off.

2010-07-05T21:00:00.002+08:00

I was surprised how long it has been since I last posted anything. Even that was just a cut and paste job. I am currently at a crossroads. My work is all consuming and my interest in it is all disappearing. Sadly I am unable to "coast" and so I continue to work like a ............... trojan. My outings with the camera are becoming rarer. Also the Leica distracts me. I love it but it is not a wildlife camera. Rangefinders simply are not the best tool for the job. But for reportage or street photography, scenics and the like, it is probably unbeatable in DSLR terms. Medium format of course would win but I can't afford a Hasselblad. Hot weather may be good for bugs but it is not good for me and 35 degrees Celsius isn't going to get me out ite and abite as Prince Charles would say. So I am going to hibernate the blog. It may reawaken some day, Rip van Winkle like (a wonderful playmaker in the mould of Neeskens) and if my plans come to pass maybe I can devote more time to it in H2 2011. But for the time being, toodle jolly PIP!

Quote from David duChemin

2010-05-30T11:28:00.000+08:00

Working really hard to get an image only makes it a hard-earned image, not a compelling one. Shooting someone you dearly love makes it a photograph of someone you dearly love, not one that is necessarily well exposed, well composed, or otherwise emotive to anyone but you. Shooting a poor image of an exotic place or a man with a turban doesn’t make it a good photograph, just a lousy shot of a guy with a turban. Using a long lens and getting really, really close to a duck doesn’t make it a good photograph of a duck, just a really, really close one. What makes a good photograph is judged by other criteria entirely.

I like the "duck" bit!

Anger management for beginners

2010-05-29T17:15:00.003+08:00

It's been a funny old sort of week. A most unpleasant contretemps in the City Plaza car park in TKS started it off on a bad foot. Two local thugs threatened me and started shouting "White shit" after I asked one of them to "fie dee" after he had tried at least 3 times to park his Jag in a space big enough for a London bus (some poetic license perhaps). I have his car number so if anyone knows how to track the trash down I'd like to introduce him to some friends of mine in blue. The so-called "security" guards in the car park feigned interest but claimed the CCTV camera, which was pointing directly at the spot showed "nothing suspicious'. Three cheers for this gloriously non-racist society. My wife, who is god bless her, Chinese, suggested I call them yellow dogs but I am very fond of Golden retrievers and I felt this would be unkind to the GRs.

A couple of days off on Thursday and Friday. The same wife, for I am monogamous - one can after all have too much of a good thing - suggested I should rename "holiday" as "working from home"-day. I see her point. Still, it gave me a chance to potter a little, run the moth trap for a few hours each night, take some more photos with the Leica, take some difficult decisions about pensions and spend more quality time with Lulu. I needed some rest after barely sleeping for several night after the CP incident due to a mixture of shock and outrage that morons like this are allowed to walk free in civil society. His plate starts MD so I guess the M stands for Moron. D is probably for Dick-head.

I confess I am struggling with the Leica. Having only a 50mm lens (in itself costing roughly the GDP of one of the smaller PIIGS) I have to see things differently. I have immersed myself in all sorts of sites and books, reading about Cartier Bresson, Magnum and looking at some of the classic work of iconic photographers. I am captivated by black and white and thoroughly recommend Michael Freeman's Complete Guide to B&W Digital Photography, which I picked up in Waterstones on London Wall 10 days ago. I am also building a fair number of links to sites that give me comfort that being "crap" is but a milestone on the march of progress towards being "slightly less crap". Sort of an experienced crap photographer.

I'd like to recommend two other works. Many people know Satyajit Das as the author of Traders, Guns and Money. However he has also written a wonderful eco-traveller book called In Search of the Pangolin. I have read this twice. Firstly before I had met Das and again after having met him for breakfast in The Mandarin Oriental. Having done many similar trips I can confirm many of his experiences are familiar. The Amazon trailer says:

A pangolin is an obscure species of scaly anteater. Prehistoric in appearance, it is about the size of a cat with a long tail, and is covered in large yellowish-brown scales. "In Search of the Pangolin" is a unique potted travel narrative focused on eco-tourism, from the point of view of two eco-tourists, as they search for the beast over a period of 15 years. The book combines wicked humour with passionate and often poignant insights into the natural world and the culture, games and deception of conservation. The book's central focus is to provide insights into the world of eco-travel and eco-travellers. Outlining the grand spectacles and magnificence of the natural world that the traveller seeks out, and exploring the promise of eco-travel (furthering conservation and environmental awareness), the book also addresses the shallow reality (eco-travel is in fact another form of consumption and harms the world that it is seeking to preserve).

This really understates it and it is one of my favourite reads. And Das didn't pay me to say that!

And then another of my all-time must read authors, Simon Barnes. An amazing writer on both sport and natural history he has a growing list of wonderful works behind him. My favourite remains "Flying in the Face of Nature: Year in Minsmere Bird Reserve". However I think any person with a reasonable interest in natural history and especially those with a passion for it will emerge from "My Natural History" a happier person. I seem to have missed out on the diversion into recreational drugs that Barnes admits to but otherwise I did find myself feeling oddly in harmony with much of what he wrote. He is one of the people I would like to have round to dinner - maybe with Das at the same time. If Charlotte Uhlenbroek were free to join us I am sure it would be a wonderful evening.

If I may return to the Leica for a moment, I find myself looking at the images and wondering if it really merits its reputation. It is hard to put your finger on but there is a certain difference from the typical DSLR output. The colour seems to be purer, the images sharper without any processing, they have a sense of light and harmony that I don't sense in others. The images seem to float rather than be static. And they do convert wonderfully to black and white. It is probably a personal deception, trying to convince myself that somehow just handling the Leica will rub off some of that CB magic, the defining moment will find me (or I it) each time I sally forth on my strolls into Sai Kung. I read somewhere that Cartier Bresson claimed that he often walked 30-40km a day when working a location. I guess I walk about 3-4km. Maybe if I walked ten times as far my photos would be ten times better. But perhaps not.

By close of play Monday I will have taken a significant step on the road to retirement, moving my pensions in to a QROPS and hoping I can make better investment decisions than the existing bunch of trustees. Giving up a defined benefit pension seems mildly crazy but you only die once and I am now the age at which my paternal grandfather died and my father passed on at 65 so somehow I don't feel I'm giving up a lot. If I get to 70 I'll be turning metaphorical cartwheels in my wheelchair. Some days I feel I'll do well to make it through to sunrise. As my dear old Dad used to say, "see you in the morning..... if I'm spared". And of course, on October 22nd 1986, he wasn't. I fell out with religion that day and have never looked back since.

So there we are, not much on birds and bugs but a few metaphysical musings and some books to read. Today I was cheered up by discovering something called the Gutenburg Project, which allows you to download out of copyright books for free and I immediately downloaded some P G Wodehouse. If a younger reader passes by and thinks "who he?" just google for PGW quotes and discover such gems as:

"As for Gussie Finknottle, many an experienced undertaker would have been deceived by his appearance and started embalming on sight."

I also discovered that the swallows in the garage have young and in the hedge opposite a newly fledged Tree sparrow was being stuffed to the gunwales with caterpillars by a loving parent. Hey ho. The Yellow dogs can bark but they can't take the joys of the world away from us.

Your devoted scribe

White Shit.

2010-05-21T10:52:00.004+08:00

On Sai Kung sea front yesterday most of the restaurants had these horseshoe crabs on "display". They really are amazing looking things. I believe they are Tachypleus tridentatus.

People were fascinated by them and I have to say they remind me of a childhood game called "Magic Robot". Who remembers this?

I had gone down to see if there were any terns still about but I drew blank. I did however see a Black-crowned night heron, the first I have seen here. The light was just amazing - crystal clear. Today, back to normal - very hazy. All I have seen this morning, apart from some butterflies in the garden, is a flock of 30+ egrets flying in the distance. The sun was glinting off them and it was like a moving pattern of frost on the windows. They circled for ages without landing before disappearing out of sight. They cant be far away.

One of our garden plants has been stripped back to the stalks and stems by caterpillars. This seems to annoy Mrs. Ha and the good old gardener has immediately offered to nuke the lot of them. Sensibly I was consulted before death and destruction was let loose on the poor things so they are still there, munching contentedly on what is left. This is clearly their only larval food plant in the garden as all other plants are untouched. I sense the word "organic" is not in the local dictionary.

The pollution in Hong Kong seems to be getting worse rather than better. Yours truly has been diagnosed as asthmatic and it is all down, it seems, to inhaling the local air. I have no choice as far as I know. Not breathing can have dangerous side effects so I have decided that in my next incarnation I shall come back as a horseshoe crab and if anybody asks me a question I shall swing my tail and point to the answer. Just like the magic robot. Happy days.

Terns

2010-05-15T16:31:00.005+08:00

Each Spring terns are regular off the piers in Sai Kung. How long they will stay this time I can't say but they certainly attract photographers and this morning I noticed a few dipping and skimming amongst the moored boats. I went home to get a 400mm lens and then returned to try and capture some of the Whiskereds and White-winged. The light was, as usual, pretty grey and I was dialing in at least +1 in exposure compensation. Not many came as close as I needed but I took a few shots that although not good are bloggable. These are beautiful birds to watch an d easy to photograph once they come within a reasonable distance (i.e to fill half the frame) . Most people ignore them and probably don't even notice them. One chatty American tourist had seen the White-bellied sea eagles from Yeung Chau but hadn't seen the contrasting brilliance of the White-winged terns. I don't have a decent shot of one in breeding plumage but some in non-breeding plumage are passable. I suspect they will hang around for a while and if I have time I shall try again tomorrow.

Wong Chuk Yeung revisited and birds in flight

2010-05-02T17:52:00.006+08:00

Some readers may be aware that there is an election imminent in a remote, developing kingdom called "The United". And so my top image is the door to Number Ten, dedicated to nobody in particular.

Yesterday was my birthday (please send cake) and in the morning Mrs. Ha and I did a long ramble up the hill and on to Wong Chuk Yeung. Hazy on the way up and clearer on the way back the road was busy with walkers, dogs on (and off) leads, runners, mountain-bikers and the occasional motor vehicle. Everybody it seemed wanted a Saturday morning constitutional. The village itself hasn't changed much. I had already learned that the site is under option to a developer (very sad) but I was also told that as long as the last remaining resident doesn't sell up there is little chance of impending clearance.

There is a great deal of broken glass and both dogs and people need to tread carefully. The lizards were out yesterday, basking in the warmth of the May Day sun. I hope they avoided the shards. One letterbox remained with a hopeful bill (I suspect) from CLP stuffed into it. There is no escape. The other word of warning is that mobile phones may not work so as this is quite remote do take care.

I am not sure what the root in the (brandy?) bottle is and I found it slightly odd that such a thing would be left. Likewise the sole rubber shoe. Why would a single shoe be abandoned in this way. It is quite obvious that this is a beautiful location. I have not walked beyond the village but a neighbour tells me there is a marshy area that buzzes with dragonflies. Something else to explore. I can well see why people would want to bring the village back to life and I suppose it depends exactly what is intended. Small dwellings matching the height and footprint of the old ones would be fine. But expanding the village would mean more traffic on a very narrow road. I can see that the next step would be road widening and then perhaps a filling station for petrol, a 7-11 or a Park'n'Shop, a restaurant or two, and why not a "war games" area, where toy soldiers can pretend to act out the horrors of war - give them one of Don McCullin's books to read along with every ticket. Rumour has it they are already "invading" Yeung Chau at night and have driven away the breeding White-bellied sea eagles. Personally I'd put the lot of them on Lap Sap Chau.

I also mentioned birds in flight - a more demure version of Pigs in Space.

It is the season to be breeding and the birds are actively nest building. The swallows are building their mud-cup in our garage on top of the security light. Each evening when I park the car they are already roosting and give me never an "evenin' all" as I trigger the lights, unload the day's junk and stagger exhausted up to the front gate, maybe checking the mailbox on the way. They are very tolerant, far more so than I. The shots were all taken from the comfort of my home, where I can sit with a cup of coffee and the 400mm lens, patiently waiting for the next fly past. Swallows, by the way, are tricky. They don't fly in a straight line, they are small and they are more difficult to train than a dog. Shouting "heel" has so far had little effect. Strangely it does little for our Pomeranian either. So there we are. Enough for one afternoon. Goodnight campers.

We're all gloomed

2010-04-18T15:00:00.007+08:00

Hong Kong seems to have been living in grey and white for months. No blue sky days to lift the gloom. I have done trips to Dubai and Korea this week. The former was 35 degrees Celsius and the latter zero degrees. Seoul had its coldest April day for 45 or 100 years, depending on your informant. All I know is that I arrived in good health and left with a chest cough and sore throat.

I was looking forward to unpacking my new camera when I arrived home. The sense of anticipation was not especially high as the new version is not dramatically different from the old one but does perform better in certain key areas such as auto focus, noise levels etc. What I had not bargained for was a second new camera courtesy of Mrs. Ha, bless her cotton socks.

She decided that I needed a new Leica as my old one is now a mere 51 years old and takes that strange old stuff called film. Well whoever it was who allegedly said of I am a Camera, "Me no Leica", I am sorry, me Leica very much. A brand spanking new black M9 with a stunning F0.95 Noctilux lens was waiting to be trialed. So this weekend the Canon has been much neglected and the Leica has been in constant use. And what better conditions can you ask for to test a low light speciality lens than Hong Kong Gloom.

For those who are not already asleep at more camera-porn the M9 is a digital rangefinder. It has no autofocus and in sum it is dramatically simpler than a multi menu, multi custom function modern Nikon or Canon DSLR. It also takes amazing pictures. The clarity and crispness is probably unparalleled and it has a full frame sensor with no crop factor. It also weighs a fraction of the amount of a pro DSLR and as I am using a 50mm lens, albeit quite a hefty one, this is a fraction of what I normally sling over my shoulder on a tripod. As this is supposed to be about birds and / or bugs here is an example of a shot taken with the new toy at F1.4, ISO 200, 1/1500 sec. The sharpness and colour are astounding.

By the way, this is a captive bird and not on the Hong Kong official list. It was seen outside Harrods.

The next shot shows the colour rendition and brightness in poor light.

And finally, to keep vaguely on the nature theme, our dog.

But the real bonuses this weekend were finding a Little bunting in the communal garden and seeing a flock of 64 Chinese goshawks migrating over the house. They were very, very high so this shot with the new Canon and a mere 400mm lens is no more than a record shot.

I suspect these birds were from Po Toi, where a major influx had been sighted by Geoff Welch earlier this week or they may just have been a smaller, later flock. Either way, it was sheer coincidence that I happened to be outside at the time and spotted, first, one, then two, then three then the big flock coming together over Shan Liu.

And if you can't tell one bunting from another, this is the Little bunting.

So even when the skies are grey we can still put on a happy face.

A grand night out or "It would be rude not to..."

2010-04-10T20:51:00.004+08:00

The Three Men were not in a boat but in a dark wooded area somewhere in the hills behind Sai Kung. We started chez moi, where Mrs. Ha provided pumpkin soup and beef stroganoff sloshed down with green tea. The cool box was filled with fruit, water, some fizzy poison-ishy stuff and dare I say, beer. When I returned home at 1am everything was untouched. Except the beer.

We drove up to a clearing where we set up the lights and we waited. The weather was on the cool side of pleasantly warm. Or if you prefer, the warm side of pleasantly cool. It was dry over one trap and mizzly over the other. They were barely 50m apart. There was very little wind. In fact this was ideal moth weather. Around us the Brainfever bird called incessantly. Collared scops owls hooted and R swore he heard a Slaty-breasted rail. We were so remote that in the 5-6 hours we were on site not a car passed and not a soul walked past us. The only people likely to have done so were the boys in blue to be honest.

We had our regulation dull coloured clothing on except for M who had escaped from Stalag Luft Mandarin O and deserted his wife for the evening. Good man! The pale blue sweater was a great disguise.

And it attracted moths too.

Now I have to point out that R & M are rather expert with the leps, whilst I am a bumbling amateur. But be that as it may, we all set about the traps with equal gusto and the cameras were produced to keep digital records of the evening's catch. Occasionally, just occasionally, a particularly fine specimen would solicit a different reaction. The option existed not just to photograph the beasts but also to give them a more tangible chance of fame. Out would come a small plastic tube or pot and well, "it would be rude not to....."

Here are just a few of the close to 200 species seen yesterday evening.

I think it is fair to say that squeamishness and moths don't go hand in hand. They do tend to get in your hair, on your limbs, down your shirt, up your trouser leg and as poor old Colin Plant in VC 20 once discovered, they can dance a fine tarantella on your ear drum. How many men can boast of having been hospitalized by a Flame Shoulder? The trick is to make sure that all of the moths have been removed before you crawl into bed with your spouse in the early hours of the morning. I can testify from past experience that beetles are no more welcome in our marital bed than moths and I have NO idea how it got there!!

We ambled from trap to trap for about 5 hours, barely noticing the dampness of the air increasing. Some may have called it drizzle but we were too absorbed in doing a final check for exciting species. And the glorious thing about moths is that the small ones can be every bit as challenging and indeed beautiful as the big brutes. We had only one break and that was for R & M to savour the beer that reaches the moths other beers cannot reach. Somewhere R has a photo of a moth trying to sip a little for itself. I haven't seen the photo yet but I think the intruder was Plutodes flavescens.

Finally we did decide to pack down. The evening was over, camaraderie had reigned supreme, fine moths had been sampled, though net in the gourmetic sense, and all went home happy.......... with the exception of those lucky specimens, whose proud families may return one day to see their fallen relatives preserved for posterity.

If you think moth-ing is potentially for you (and you should, by jove) keep an eye out for National Moth Night. I am serious. There will be public sessions open even to the lowest of the riff-raff (that includes me) and you might even have time for a beer.

Cheers!

Moths are dull looking brown things - NOT

2010-04-08T21:51:00.002+08:00

I am still checking whether this is Argina astrea or A. argus but whichever, it is a cracking moth! Enjoy.

Bonus bird

2010-04-03T20:48:00.003+08:00

Amateurish Photography

2010-04-02T20:38:00.006+08:00

Anybody who has followed my intermittent blogging may recall that my first camera was a Brownie Cresta 3. I used this for a while before being given my father's old Leica M3. From the ridiculous to the sublime! I moved through Canon SLRs to DSLRs and that is what I generally use today. I had a very brief dream of being a photo-journalist but the Career's Officer at school persuaded me that university was a good route to go and by the time I graduated I had drifted out of photography with any real intent. I have often dabbled but never seriously. I have recently begun to think about the world after work and taken my photography a little more seriously in the sense that I self-critique more. I delete more aggressively those images that are mediocre. I think more about light, exposure, composition and of course content. It is my sole creative outlet. My father was musical. He played piano well and as a boy was broadcast on the old Third Programme as his voice was compared to that of Ernest Lough. He loved the human voice and was a huge admirer of Kathleen Ferrier. I don't recall what sparked his interest in photography but he taught me to process my own black and white films and the bathroom served as a darkroom.

The book that started me thinking about photography differently was National Geographic - The Photographs. The haunting eyes of The Afghan Girl, captured for immortality by Steve McCurry, really gripped me. I still dream of taking such an iconic image. Look at Steve McCurry's blog to see just what a fine artist he is. But that was years ago and against all advice I tried to photograph birds instead. I had started birdwatching semi-seriously in the early 1990s as an antidote to The City. A professional bird photographer told me early on that you can't be a bird watcher and a bird photographer. Either or but not both. They are not compatible. I have spent 10 years trying to prove him wrong.

This week I spent a delightful morning at Mai Po (see previous post) and was then invited to join J&J to look for a nocturnal bird, Savanna nightjar. This was preceded by a potter around Long Valley and some tantalising views of Painted snipe, a bird I see regularly but which refuses point blank to strut its stuff in the open for me. So I end up with what I call "bird-in-habitat" shots and for which others have a different word. Birdwatching can take you to some odd places and so it was that we sought out the nightjar at what J assured me was the old grenade range. Happily this is a fairly off-the-beaten-track sort of place so little chance of young Johnny stepping on unexploded ordnance. Did I hear his mother whisper "shame"? As the light faded the calls started, described in the book as "a single piercing 'chweep' at short intervals". And then the first bird rose up. The silhouette of a nightjar is highly distinctive, like a flying anchor, almost falcon like. They are enchanting to watch but trying to get an autofocus to work in fading light is tricky and eventually (and too late) I switched to manual. Looking through the viewfinder of a camera you lose track rather of all that is happening but I guess there were 5 or six birds. They circled around and then moved away, hunting for their evening breakfast. Their whole performance lasted barely 10 minutes and I took 5 photographs. Two missed the bird completely, one was too small in the frame and the other two, though sharper were still in need of a decent crop to produce reasonable sized pictures. As J kindly said, "not bad for a first attempt". I think that is known as being damned with faint praise but he was right.

It is always more than somewhat depressing to review the images on the laptop when I get home. Invariably I find most of them destined for the trash basket. Some I hang on to in the hope that over time they will look better but without fail they look worse. DELETE! And so I need to do something different. Benjamin Franklin said, it is alleged, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." Already I have a couple of great suggestions from web-gurus.

The one I like best is from David duChemin at Pixelated Image.

It says: Stop buying new gear. That's it.

He does then continue and demand that instead you go out and take more pictures. Simple isn't it. Spending money or spending time practising. Hmmmm. Why did I just order that new Canon 1D mkIV body?

I have bought a couple of his $5 e-Books (does that count as buying gear?) and they are full of good ideas but the message I particularly liked is:

"Waiting is also a much under-rated photographic skill. Be patient, watch what happens, and be ready when it does. Don’t settle for good when waiting a few minutes might give you something truly revealing or great."

This is all about Cartier-Bresson's "decisive moment". In simple terms one moment is better than another and the difference may be a fraction of a second. In bird photography this is especially true. The turn of a head and the contact is lost, the catchlight in the eye is gone, the light has changed and on occasions, the bird flown. Portraits are nice, action shots are better. Action shots with a story to tell are better still. Sitting in a hide at Mai Po I often struggle with the conflict between singling out a bird and waiting for it to do something interesting or looking at the landscape and trying to catch the action as it happens. If I go for the latter I often find the bird I had, literally, been focussing on has gone. Such are the dilemmas of the photographer's life.

I am also learning about how much more Photoshop can do. Processing is an art in itself. But that's another blog. I'm off to take a load of images.

IMAGES TO CRITIQUE.......

Gloomy Day in Sai Kung

Savanna nightjar

Yellow-bellied prinia

Female Painted snipe

No Go Mai Po

2010-03-31T08:29:00.007+08:00

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??

2010-03-20T17:15:00.006+08:00

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

2010-03-13T18:12:00.002+08:00

With apologies to Angus Prune.

Twitter

2010-02-27T19:21:00.004+08:00

As I understand it Twitter is some form of short messaging service to the yoof of today. I have never actually seen a Twitter and today I was reminded that the old forms of twitter are almost certainly better than the new. I refer to the captivating sound of the swallow or as we are encouraged to call dear old hirundo rustica today, Barn swallow. After a week in dreary London, where I saw snow for the first time in years, I returned last night to a rather warm and humid Hong Kong.

(At this point the blog was interrupted for over a week).

The twitterer seems to be taking up residence. The top photo was taken outside our house on the terrace whereas the second was taken inside the garage. There will now be a family "discussion" about whether Barney stays or is evicted PDQ. Its been a wildlife-y sort of week. Wednesday we had a snake alarm. Only the maid saw the snake and she threw stones at it. She was roundly scolded. When I arrived home from work, late as usual, I went out into the garden with a torch but could find no trace. I am not even convinced it was a snake rather than a lizard but I live in hope.

Then the next day I was in a meeting and received an sms - "A swallow is in the kitchen sitting on the range hood". I can deal with things like that. There are 2 options: leave it there or wait for it to fly through the open patio doors. Option 3, cook it, was not voted on.

The garden is looking good. Butterflies are visiting the plants and the lawn is beginning to look like a lawn. I have another daunting week ahead with a day trip to London on Monday. Don't ask why..... but I fly HK-London-Singapore in 40 hours and back to HK Thursday night. Sorry this is brief but tempus fugit. In fact I was sitting next to a gentleman of advancing years at dinner yesterday evening and he told me that his weeks now fly by in a day and his months in a week. A year is but a blink of an eye. I feel the same. There is no benefit wishing our lives away but time seems to do it for us. We had the "how much longer will you carry on working like this?" discussion again last night and I guess the answer is as long as the body hangs in there. It is, I must say, twitter moments that make it all worthwhile.

This is what the 800mm lens is for!

2010-02-20T12:12:00.007+08:00

An obliging accipiter trivirgatus sitting on a telegraph pole close to our home in Sai Kung. The sky is grey and horrible but the bird is just dandy. We saw 4 raptors in half an hour - Black kite, a pair of Crested serpent eagles calling and a White-bellied sea-eagle. The fourth of course was the gos'.

And hallelujah, the temperature rose into double digits today.

The goshawk was something of a spirit lifter after failing to find the RBF again and then virtually missing an eyeball fly past by a White-bellied sea eagle. I was photographing the scenery (??) and peering through my G9 when my wife not so quietly drew my attention to the approaching eagle. As invariably happens at times like that I discovered all the settings were wrong on the lens and the tripod was falling forwards. By the time I grabbed it, stabilized it and switched to AI servo the eagle was metaphorically giving me the V sign and disappearing into the distance. In fact if you look very carefully you can see the WBSE looking over its shoulder and laughing.

We did find a RBF higher up on the MacLehose Trail but this was a very nervous bird. It wouldn't let us approach within 25m. Similarly a female Daurian redstart. A flighty little thing, played fast and loose and always just out of reach. Story of my life. So by the time we were almost home I was fairly miserable to say the least. Then the Crusty Gos did its stuff and we all lived happily ever after. What a fine bird.

Siren call of the Luscinia cyanurus

2010-02-18T17:12:00.007+08:00

After days of dripping dreariness the weather improved enough for me to walk up the hill today. Barely bright enough to see a bird let alone photograph one I was pleased to find a reasonably confiding Red-flanked bluetail. It is almost certainly the same bird I see each time as it is consistently in the same location. As the winter has drawn on it seems to have become less flighty. The hill is favoured by dog walkers and possibly the RFB is now so accustomed to them that it barely deigns to hop a few feet away as someone approaches.

I had with me the 100-400mm zoom on a 7D body and I thought this would get me some semblance of decent size in the frame. And then, just as I was zooming out, the ****** thing locked. Wouldn't zoom in or out. Thank you Canon! I was stuck at precisely 220mm. And there it stayed. So the images you see above are huge crops and shot at ISO800 as the 7D starts to get yucky above that. My exif data tells me they were shot after 4pm.

About 30 mins later I set off from home again lugging the 800mm f5.6 on a tripod. As I did so I knew what would happen. Carrying this gear up a very steep hill left me gasping for breath or beer, either could do if I weren't teetotal, after barely 5 minutes. And by then there was no light and no bird. People passing by looked at me in bewilderment, as well they might.

The RFB is however a lovely bird and this is probably a female. It called several times. The call is described as a "coarse whistle". That sounds about right to me. It stayed close to the ground most of the time, picking at whatever it could find, occasionally hopping up onto low branches or rocks. The Latin name is going to be problematic as the HK List has this as Tarsiger cyanurus but Brazil (Birds of East Asia) has it firmly in the robin bucket. I don't suppose the bird (or indeed I) really cares. Taxonomy tends to leave me mildly chilly although I do know people who get all of a quiver when they discover they have an armchair tick or perhaps have lost a tick through some taxonomist somewhere splitting or lumping "species". Some people claim 16 different sorts of Chiffchaff I believe but to me Chiffchaff is fine as long as it is not a Willow warbler. I suspect I shall have my bins confiscated for that. If I had unlimited time I might feel differently. But I don't. And I shall be back at work before you can say "phylogenetic species concept" and in the words of my ex-brother "life's too short to stuff a mushroom".

Goodnight children everywhere. Tune in again to Listen with Moth-er.

Here comes the rain again....

2010-02-07T15:02:00.003+08:00

No Annie Lennox here and indeed nobody at all. Its not much of a day really. Pouring with rain, Mrs. Ha out, Wales losing to some team or other yesterday and only Hereford rescuing the situation. I can hardly see through the windows but a Hair-crested drongo did pass briefly by in the garden opposite.

The moths are beginning to perk up. A lot of them are micros (for micro read "small" although that is a generalization that does not always hold good). They are poorly recorded in Hong Kong. Some lepidopterists specialize in micros and one, Mark S is contributing to the magnum opus on HK Moths. Unfortunately (for us) he is no longer resident here so his work has become more sporadic and poor Roger K bears the brunt. Poorly recorded also means many are unidentified. There are few reference guides so it all becomes a bit of a lottery. They can however be quite extraordinarily beautiful, even if in some extreme cases you need a microscope to see the colours and patterns.

The pictures are a bit small but the top one is a tortrix moth, very elaborately patterned with the clear geometric marks where the wings meet. Maybe they look to a bird like bird droppings against the main background of the forewing and so get left in peace. The other two are phycitinae, but as to species, I have no idea.

The bottom one is a B&W shot from the top floor of the house. Low hanging clouds draped carelessly over the hills leaving only the islands in the sea clearly visible.

Only the dog seems unbothered by the dankness of the weekend. She stays deep in her basket, snaffling a biscuit occasionally, hoping when I pass that I shall smuggle a venison chew into her mouth. I have no idea whether they are actually venison. Somehow I hope not. The main thing is Lulu likes them and we won't disillusion her. She is too young to be told that venison chews, like Santa, may just be less than the real thing.

Only 7 days to the lunar new year. I ought to be driving back and forth to Mai Po to see big gulls (Big gulls don't cry, as one song famously doesn't have it). But the energy isn't there so I get my gull fix vicariously looking at the amazing photos on HKWildlife.net. This year garden birds and the local patch are enough. All I want is a dry period to explore again.

𝄞 The first Koel 𝄞

2010-02-06T16:52:00.003+08:00

Walking through Sai Kung town today en route to the quaintly called "Honeymoon Dessert" I heard the Koel. It is something of a memory prod that we are starting on a new Spring as I have not heard one in recent months. I hope we don't get one as our morning wake up call or even a Welsh Koel that sings Ar Hyd a Nos.

All quiet on the Eastern Front

2010-01-31T19:22:00.007+08:00

Sunday January 31st

An uneventful weekend after a draining week at work. I walked down Lung Mei Tsuen Road on Saturday and through Ngau Liu, Lung Mei , across the Sai Kung River and down to the main road in Sai Kung itself. As I walked out the Verditer flycatcher showed briefly (and again today) but still it has not come across the communal garden close enough to provide good photographic opportunities. It seems to like the company of bulbuls as I have only once seen it alone. Suddenly Fork-tailed drongos have appeared and a Siberian stonechat near Jade Villa was a bonus. A flash of dark orange made me start but I could not follow the bird. Today a female Daurian redstart was nearby. Could that have been it? Small private "gardens" were resplendent with orange trees for the Chinese New Year and lower down some blossom was being tied ready for sale.

I had not expected to see Red-billed starlings near the road but a small group of 4 or 5 were up in the trees. The "river" is a bit of a generous tag as it is little more than a stream but may provide some dragonflies later in the year. It was devoid on anything today. There were butterflies on the wing but nothing settled.

The moth numbers have just started to pick up and the temperature today rose to a rather unexpected 26 C. The species count was into double figures and any hawkmoth is welcome. Hippotion rosetta is a smallish hawkmoth but attractive all the same. There were two near the trap and luckily the gecko was some way away on the sun terrace. Mrs Ha. claims to have seen a frog and I am assuming she means an amphibian not a visitor from la belle France. I am all agog about the frog. Ha ha! By the way the other moth is Dasychira inclusa.

Finally a trip to the nursery resulted in two small orange trees, a large branch of blossom for the "crane" vase and a smaller planted blossom display. We were given two free pot plants for spending so much! I think the epithet 'free' may have been misleading. This is the first year we haven't bought from the fair in Victoria Park but I still expect to make the pilgrimage when it opens. Roll on the next weekend when, Kuan Yin willing, the skies will be blue and the breeze balmy.

Post script:

The frog is a toad. Bufo melanostictus to be precise.

My desire has been Kindled

2010-01-30T11:37:00.002+08:00

If you are a bookworm like me the idea of reading off a gadget must seem pretty horrendous. However I travel a lot and carrying books around is just more weight in the luggage. Frequently I have several tucked away. At dinner the other evening PS showed me his Kindle and I must admit I thought it was excellent so I went home and ordered one from Amazon USA. It arrived in a matter of days. I bought a leather cover for it and the whole lot including postage was about US$300. It was already registered and when I switched it on it showed as "Andrew's Kindle". A nice touch. It comes with a dreadful two flat-pin USA plug so you need an adaptor if you live in the civilized world.

It is wi fi and I managed to download a couple of books quite easily. No cables needed. It is pretty intuitive and sits easily in the hand. I bough the smaller version but you can purchase one in A4 size if you wish. I changed the font size to make it easier for my old eyes - you can't do that with a book. You could use a magnifying glass but thats a bit awkward. You can make notes on it and place bookmarks but I have not yet managed to tear a page by mistake. It is quite light and Amazon has resisted the temptation to make it too showy. Very understated. It is not in colour but I normally read in black and white.

Any shortcomings? Well its not an iPad as one of my colleagues pointed out. But he's a gadget freak and just MUST HAVE every new boy's toy that comes out. And its a lot cheaper than the iPad - about half the price. It may not have every book you want - paper won't go out of fashion, of that I am sure. But for travelling I think 1000 books is plenty. If you really get to fill it up you can delete the book but it remains stored on Amazon's server for you to download again later if you wish. They even store your notes and bookmarks. I suppose its a bit like paying to use an online library.

So this is an 8/10 product for me. It loses a bit because I have already failed to find a few books for download that I wanted and of course it's not paper. But that's about it. It does, as they say, what it says on the tin. Very neat.

Cold fliers

2010-01-24T16:32:00.005+08:00

Not much time to bird between business trips but we did have a Dusky warbler on the back lawn on Friday afternoon and this morning a distant Osprey in poor light. This bird seems to be a regular passer-by. The White-bellied sea eagle also flew past but not close enough to get a decent image. Bearing in mind how far away the Osprey was and how small in the frame I am amazed it is even vaguely useable! And if you don't know which is the warbler and which is the Osprey, you are reading the wrong blog.

Despite the cold weather there were also a couple of moths on the wing. Lacera procellosa is a rather cryptically coloured moth that rests with wings held upright, butterfly style. Ophiusa disjungens is a large moth that reminds me vaguely of Large Yellow Underwing, an abundant moth in England, where I used to trap (in VC 20, Herts). The only other moth last night was a micro, Diamond-back moth or Plutella xylostella, which Dr. Roger Kendrick describes as "widespread and common". He might have added "jumpy" as I could not get it to settle long enough to photograph! If you can't tell which of the above images are birds and which moths, then you are even more off target than I imagined.

As a complete aside, I ordered a Kindle yesterday. Two people in 3 days have raved about them and I have seen them in action. I may report back in due course. I shall be intrigued to see how many natural history books are available.

Fishing

2010-01-17T20:15:00.003+08:00

Click for larger image.

Don't you just lurv black and white?

Little and Large

2010-01-17T17:56:00.004+08:00

Sitting at my Macbook half an hour or so ago I suddenly noticed a White-bellied sea eagle heading towards the house. I grabbed the new 7D camera and ran onto the roof to take the picture above. For the uninitiated, the eagle is the black and white jobby. OK the light was going but actually I underexposed it and the image is noisy. I also noticed visible vignetting with the 100-400mm lens. All in all a very disappointing shot.

The next moment the blackbird appeared and I had to run downstairs. This time the camera to hand was the 1DmkIII with the 400mm f4 DO lens. A slight improvement even shot at 800 ISO. You get what you pay for. This blackbird is interesting as there is a suggestion of an extension to the yellow eye ring behind the eye, vaguely reminiscent of Hwamei. The underparts also look faintly barred. Odd.

Finally, another Scaly-breasted munia. This one is impersonating a Pitta. No chance of fooling anyone, not even me but a real poser, coming so close I could have trodden on it and definitely too close to focus.

The other decent bird and "new for the patch" was an Osprey. I was sitting on the sun terrace passing the time of day when my bins picked out a distant blob on a rock. My immediate reaction was "another loafing kite". But wait, this has a white top to the blob. Can only be an osprey! Fifteen minutes later it took off and flew towards me and sure enough it was Blobus albinocapo or Pandion haliaetus to its friends. What a real treat to be able to see these raptors whilst drinking coffee. It almost makes up for the fact that I shall be away for 8 of the next 10 days. NOT happy.

Wong Chuk Yeung

2010-01-16T18:37:00.005+08:00

Last time I said I would walk to Wong Chuk Yeung on my next outing. Being a man of my word, I did so this morning and took Mrs. Ha with me. In fact she led the charge.

The walk itself was disappointing on the bird front but we had some nice scenery to look at and chatted to a number of passing strangers. As Mrs. Ha observed, they were all gweilos and Chinese wouldn't engage in such casual chit chat with strangers. But we did and I find it enjoyable and rarely come across anybody, gweilo or otherwise who doesn't respond to a cheery good morning or jo san. Dog walkers, I observe, are particularly chatty and most people are vaguely interested when I explain I am birdwatching and even show them a picture or two. The Daurian redstart, the only "decent" bird today, is always good to engage people as it is colourful (male only I am afraid) and they instantly see its aesthetic appeal, even if their eyes glaze over if I start to go into detail. Little brown jobs do not as a rule impress non-birders. Much to Mrs. Ha's relief we saw no mammals (pet dogs excepted) and no reptiles.

WCY is not quite deserted as there is one sole resident, who walks three dogs each day. The rest however, as you see from the pictures, is pretty derelict and nothing to write home about. I wonder why it is deserted. If my reader knows, do tell. Maybe it is the Hong Kong equivalent of Fatehpur Sikri. I have visited the Indian site and I have to confess it is marginally more imposing than WCY. If you can't be faffed to follow the link, Fatehpur Sikri was a stunning Mughal city abandoned because it basically ran out of water.

Nevertheless we were surprised to find what appeared to be recent washing lying out to dry. A pair of shoes was also on display. Look carefully in one photo you can see crockery. I suspect Goldilocks isn't living here and the congee bowls are empty. Perhaps, Mrs. Ha speculated, there are IIs around. Hmmm. Perhaps seems the mot very juste. Reviewing this I have now realised that I did not upload the crockery picture so look in vain but it was indeed there. Honestly.

Leaving WCY we followed a trail through what was described by a friendly guide as a bamboo forest. It really is a quite enchanting short walk and takes you back to the main road and the climb back to the fire lookout. Birds were thin on the ground. We heard little, saw less. But after 3 hours we arrived home, hungry and satisfied with an invigorating walk. And I hope next time there will be a richer avifauna to enjoy.

Wong Chuk Yeung

2010-01-09T14:25:00.006+08:00

I climbed the hill behind the house this morning and got as far as the sign on the MacLehose Trail that says Wong Chuk Yeung. I didn't go into the village itself. That is the next adventure. But just beyond the post there were birds galore. At least 5 Tristram's buntings, a Streak-breasted scimitar babbler, 2 Rufous-capped babblers, a Chestnut bulbul flock and a small flock of minivets,one of which I photographed and turned out to be Grey-chinned (above) rather than Scarlet as expected. I was quite surprised by the number of people around, some on mountain bikes but mostly dog walking or "power-walking". It all looked far too energetic for me. As I said before, woodland birding is darned hard work. You hear calls, squeaks, rattling noises from floor to canopy. Challenge one is to see anything. Generally all you are looking for is movement. A twig or leaf twitching that suggests other than the breeze. Then once you have located the bird, getting a half decent view to identify it. It moves in and out of sight, scuffling amongst the leaf litter or hopping from branch to fallen branch or maybe lost amongst the foliage above your head. Sometimes they cross the ride. The Laughingthrushes and Hwamei do that quite a bit and you get fleeting glimpses in the open. The Tristram's buntings did so as well today. To get a photograph requires luck and patience. I appear not to be blessed with either. Remember the old saying:

Patience is a virtue
Possess it if you can
Seldom found in women
Never found in man

This was a lucky site and I doubt if it is jumping with birds all the time. Indeed after 45 minutes silence reigned. Feeding flocks are good if you find them and anything can tag along.

On the walk down I saw the end of a snake disappear into the grass. Maybe 8" of olive green tail about as thick as a finger - so nothing too nasty and certainly, like most snakes,more anxious not to be seen than to pose for the camera. But a useful warning that warm days bring out sleepy snakes, some are venomous and it is best to watch where you put your feet.

Back home now and feet up in the feeble sun but a lot better,I dare say, than wintry Britain. A bonus in a Verditer flycatcher on a distant tree and a close up Scaly-breasted munia (top). Happy days.

Special bonus posting - a "Wol"

2010-01-03T19:19:00.001+08:00

I was actually looking for porcupines but this owl flew in. I tried to hold the torch in one hand and press the shutter with the other. When I actually got the two in synch it looked away then flew. Such is life.

And no, I didn't see the porcupine tonight :-(

Another day, another tick or two

2010-01-03T17:29:00.002+08:00

All these are what photographers call "record shots". They are what they say they are - records to prove you saw something. The top one is a real unexpected bonus as I haven't seen one in ages. This is Pomatorhinus ruficollis or the Rufous-necked or Streak-breasted scimitar babbler. The field guide says it "probably overlooked". It is a category C species i.e. originally of captive origin. The Avifauna says distribution appears to be linked to dense closed-canopy scrubland and perhaps to a lesser extent, forest. It is local in Sai Kung. I was very pleased to find 3 or 4 of them in the bushes about 4-8' off the ground.

The next is the Hwamei and finally the Greater Necklaced Laughingthrush - this was one of a flock of about 8 or 9 birds that crossed the road a couple of times. This is also a category C species. Also not uncommon but a welcome "tick" to the new local patch list.

These shots are very noisy (grainy) shot at ISO 3200 with the 1D mk III and hopefully soon to be replaced by the mk IV if reviews continue to be good.

Out with Romany

2010-01-02T18:48:00.002+08:00

Or how Rag lost Tag and Bobtail.

We are imprinted in early childhood. I read the Romany books (still have a couple) and watched (with mother of course) Rag, Tag and Bobtail. This evening in steady rain I went out with a torch looking for owls. Of course, sporting a pair of spectacles makes it tricky as the rain obscures the vision as you scan the higher tree branches. So that drew a blank but crossing the road behind me was a large shadowy creature that I expected to be a small boar. On closer examination it turned out to be a rather large Rag, Hystrix hodgesoni or the Chinese porcupine [see Hill & Phillipps: Hong Kong Animals]. The tome says it is 60-90cm in length and weighs 7-14kg. Well it certainly looked good for a top end of that to me but maybe it is like the fish that got away. They always look bigger when they escape.

Anyway, barely 4 days in to the new home and already things are looking good. So despite the fact that Rag slunk rapidly but sedately into the trees out of sight I was able to go home with a warm glow, owl-less in Sai Kung but up one porcupine. Wonderful.

We're in

2009-12-31T21:51:00.004+08:00

Well after what can only be described as a few days where the stress levels went off the scale we finally got in. Yesterday the rain cleared and I went for a walk up the hill. A nice selection of goodies. A Barking deer was foraging just off the main road - I had been told they were present but did not expect to see one first time out. Unfortunately it was too deep in the trees to take any photographs and it soon sensed my presence and crashed away. Then a smart, freshly painted Pallas's leaf warbler, Phylloscopus proregulus, followed by a female Red-flanked bluetail, Tarsiger cyanurus. This bird appears to be settled in this location as I have seen it here before. A Dusky warbler, Phylloscopus fuscatus, took me by surprise, although I don't know why. Its habitat is described in Viney, Phillipps and Lam as bushes, reeds, mangroves and open country but not woodland.

The bird shown above is the Black-throated laughingthrush, Garrulax chinensis. The light was going quickly when I took these and I was lucky I was using the 40D with an on-body flash (the pro model 1D mk III does not possess such a luxury). I pushed the ISO up to 800 then 1600 and got a couple of usable shots.

A few swifts flew overhead, very high. I always associate these with summer but these must be resident. The very short tail fork suggests these were House swifts, Apus nipalensis. A Large-billed crow, Corvus macrorhyncus, buzzed me a few times, unusually low overhead. As I descended I saw little more but today in the garden opposite I saw what I at first thought was going to be the common blackbird again, Turdus merula. A splash of flank colour immediately corrected this impression and the lightly speckled throat and pale underparts with a brown back made this a Pale thrush, Turdus pallidus. Aren't the latin names wonderful - what you see is what you get most of the time.

A couple of other species are obviously common here - Black-collared starling, Sturnus nigricollis, and Yellow-bellied prinia, Prinia flaviventris. Just listen for the cat like mewing.

The other photo I posted because I like it. No other reason. So the walk soothed the nerves a little and temporarily only. I seem to move house every 5 years. I aim to make it at least 10 this time. I can't take the strain. Technology is great. I am sitting on the terrace using my new Macbook Pro with WiFi but getting all the stuff to work has been challenging to say the least. The words "plug and play" ought to be banned under the Sale of Goods Act. No such thing. Two more days then back to work and so far no holiday despite being off for 15 days. All I wanted for Christmas was a smooth move (was the Sade?) but Santa missed me off the list. Bah. Humbug!

Happy new year to anybody who can be fagged to read this.

And here's one I prepared earlier...

2009-12-24T21:26:00.003+08:00

Val Singleton and Chris Trace could never have produced anything as good as this. It is a Perixera decretarioides and it wended its way to Clearwater Bay last night.

Birds galore

2009-12-23T15:45:00.004+08:00

The stress of the preparations for the move are beginning to show but each day I spend time at the house waiting for the next delivery / installation chaps (never a chap-ess in sight) to arrive and scan the garden in hope. The list is short but encouraging. Today a Crested goshawk flew past at close quarters (where is the camera when you need it?). A Fork-tailed sunbird was just across the path and a repeat of Monday's Olive-backed pipit flew over. Most pleasing was a Hwamei which is relatively common but I hadn't seen one on my current patch. At the new house one was hopping around on a scrubby tangle of branches in the communal garden. The usual suspects are present and Mrs.Ha found a Tree sparrow inside the dining room yesterday. The new turf had gone down, the doors were open, wall to wall, and Passer montanus clearly felt it was worth exploring. The raptor list is growing as I have also heard Crested serpent eagle calling. When we move in I shall be listening carefully for owls. Whether the plants will bring in any "extra" birds I don't know but at least now we have a bit of variety and colour. Our gardener (doesn't that sound posh!) told us the tree we bought as a Ham Siu is in fact a Ham siu grafted on to a Pak laan or laam trunk, the latter being a much faster grower so the nurseries turn them over much more quickly. I don't know if this is true but I have no reason to doubt it. Cunning eh!

As a tribute to the workers of HK so far all the sifu have been excellent. Only the rather shabby performance of NOW TV has let the side down. Despite having a name, rank and serial number they flatly denied knowledge of the order and appointment. Tusk, tusk.

The preparations continue and the birds bring relief.

Post script: Christmas Eve. I am a prophet. I did a late morning walk up the hill this morning whilst waiting for yet another delayed delivery and heard a hullabaloo in the canopy. Hmm, I thought. Sounds like small birds mobbing a bird of prey - and lo and behold, no wise men but a small owl sitting in the shade on a branch. I didn't get a good view as it flew as soon as it saw me but it was either a Collared scops owl or more likely from the shape of the head an Asian barred owlet. When we are settled I shall have to walk up at dusk and listen for the call.

Also 2 more Hwamei and 2 Bunting sp, possibly Tristram's. It was one of those days when you hear masses and see little. Old saying - you bird watch mainly with your ears!

And just to round the day off, a late afternoon (female) Blackbird in the garden across the path from the house.

A Shrike little poser

2009-12-16T19:07:00.002+08:00

Let's go spy a kite

2009-12-13T15:50:00.003+08:00

Black kites fly around our house every day but rarely perch. Where the shrike perched earlier, later the kite took up its lookout position. All 3 pics taken with an 800mm f5.6 lens and a 1.4x TC on a Canon 1D mkIII body. Enjoy.

Snapshot

2009-12-13T12:39:00.006+08:00

Almost desperation shots here. They were taken from our patio and the closer of the two has burned the white throat, spoiling what otherwise would have been a nice portrait. The second is a distant shot cropped quite a lot. Very ordinary. Long-tailed shrike is a common but attractive bird and you can compare it with the Brown shrike from Sai Kung.

I am soooo tired. Woke up this morning and felt decidedly light headed so despite the gorgeous weather I decided to stay home. Four weeks of almost non stop travel across multiple timezones has left my body pumelled with exhaustion. Friday I start my block leave for 2 weeks and the move to Sai Kung will take place at the end of the break. The old adage is that the 3 most stressful things in life are bereavement, divorce and moving house. Well I have no experience of the middle one but I agree with the two others. This time though Mrs. Ha has truly done everything and all I have done is sign cheques. I am desperate to get into the new house and start recording the birds and moths from a new site. It is strange when you go house hunting and you have to explain to the agent that you need somewhere to run a moth trap. A 125w MV lamp is pretty bright so you need to be able to run it without disturbing the neighbours. I am lucky. The new house gives me opportunities front and back of the house. We went in yesterday, looked around and the builders are on time and budget. They are probably unique. Ask privately if you want to know who they are! The garden gets done this week too so we went out into the depths of the New Territories, got lost but eventually found the nursery we were looking for.

A very wide area stuffed full of goodies and we ended up buying a tree and a load of plants. The tree is called Ham siu fa or smiling flower (Michelia figo). It is common in HK. Most of the plants were untagged so I don't know the names but we certainly picked up what I recognize as marigolds. I have a feeling the gardner is going to tell me they won't grow in our garden but what the heck, its my garden and I'll plant if I want to as Lesley Gore famously didn't sing.

All I need to do now is survive four more days at work. Wish me luck. And by the way, Christmas is cancelled due to packing duties.

A selection of goodies from Mai Po.

2009-11-30T20:02:00.001+08:00

Temminck's stint

2009-11-30T16:04:00.001+08:00

Temminck's stint
Originally uploaded by 57Andrew

This is a delightful bird, photographed at Mai Po this morning.

They scuttle around on the mudflats, rarely coming very close to the hides. Occasionally they move away from the vegetation and pause briefly in the sun. This one has been probing for inverts in the slime and has a rather grubby bill.The yellowish green legs are distinctive but often hard to see because of the coating of mud.

The Brown Shrike at Sai Kung

2009-11-28T17:09:00.000+08:00

Bombay

2009-11-26T12:03:00.003+08:00

It is November 26th. I am in Bombay / Mumbai. Staying at the Trident adjacent the Oberoi. 12 months ago today was the terrorist attack. A real sense of reflection and sadness here. Had lunch in the Taj on Monday - still not fully restored and refurbed. Likewise the Oberoi. Not a day for silly puns.

And the North wind shall blow

2009-11-17T13:34:00.004+08:00

Well of course it is mid November but still, a cold weather warning (it is a bitterly warm 13 deg C) so soon after a hot weather warning is something of a shock. So much so that it is very much a case of winter draws on. This is a rare early opportunity for the locals to besport themselves in their winter gladrags.

With a rare morning free I decided to wander further up the road behind the new house. Mid-morning is rarely birdy and so it proved today. I had excellent views of Scarlet-backed flowerpecker, a Grey wagtail was in the middle of the road and a White wagtail flew over the house. Best bird was a female or immature Red-flanked bluetail. If that turned up in Bishop's Stortford it would cause something of a twitch as would the next bird, sadly only heard, a Siberian rubythroat. A couple of late Barn swallows flew over.

After the initial steep section the road is quite easy. I followed the Maclehose trail a short distance to the Wong Chuk Yeung fire look out - a most unimposing edifice - and occasionally there are breaks in the vegetation and the viewer is rewarded with sweeping views around the area,all the way out to High Island reservoir. I have quickly worked out which islands are this side of the golfing paradise of Kau Sai Chau, the main ones being Kiu Tsui Chau, Pak Sha Chau, Tai Tsan Chau and its smaller sister Siu Tsan Chau and finally Cham Tau Chau.

Other than the ubiquitous kites there were no raptors to be seen this morning. However at the current house I yesterday saw one of the Sai Kung White-bellied sea-eagles hurtling around the Bayside Beach area. With a strong North-East monsoon blowing the birds are having a whale of a time (do whales have a bird of a time?) and there is pure adrenalin seemingly driving some of the spectacular wheels and dives.

Photography isn't really a great option at present. As the weather girls tell us, the UV reading is forecast to be about 3 today. That means grey skies and poor light. Bum is the word. Not "Grease".

If you have even the remotest interest in Hong Kong's birds I commend to you the works of Geoffrey Herklots. His book, Hong Kong Birds has some lovely plates (as illustrated) and is just generally a good browse. Ditto "The Hong Kong Countryside". You can pick up reasonable copies of these for under a tenner (GBP) at somewhere like www.abebooks.co.uk or you can buy a copy in very good condition with a dust jacket for rather more. I tend to use Picture This (Galleria or Princes Building) when I want copies to give as gifts. Chris Bailey will always have a decent copy in stock in my experience, even if not on display.

The New View

2009-11-08T21:34:00.003+08:00

So this is it..... the view we will wake up to each day when we finally move in :-)

The little island on the right, almost hidden behind the boat, is rather cutely called lap sap chau!

In the beginning was the the word. And the word was Deilephila elpenor

2009-11-08T11:20:00.002+08:00

Ok, so it is actually two words. Why are they so important to me? This is why.

This is what started my interest in moths. I found the picture amongst the slides I had scanned recently. It is the very first time I had any desire to find out "what is that caterpillar?". Like all children we used to find caterpillars on the vegetables in the garden - yellow and black stripey ones were common as I recall - but that was it. They were caterpillars. This was a monster. I asked a few bird people and they referred me to Colin Plant, the moth recorder for VC 20, Herts. He stimulated my interest further and I bought a Heath trap.

He explained this was the Elephant Hawkmoth and that its larval foodplant was usually rosebay willowherb (Epilobium angustifolium). So I had discovered another new term - larval foodplant or LFP. And a caterpillar is a larva! I also discovered that the moth itself is called an imago, i.e. the adult form of the insect. Wow. This was better than the biology lessons we used to endure. Those consisted of looking at bulls eyes or cutting up frogs into little bits. I dropped biology like a stone as soon as I had the chance to choose my O'levels and ended up doing French, German, Latin & later Russian with barely a science to be seen. I was only marginally more interested in biology than I was in woodwork, at which I was, not to put too fine a point on it, crap. This shamed my father, who was a qualified engineer and could do everything from build our first TV to make his own HiFi from the bits supplied by a firm called Heathkit (I think), to service the car (a rather aged Wolsey 1500, "504 ATX" she was called, to build or repair just about everything around the house. Ah, but he couldn't conjugate Latin verbs and he didn't know which 9 prepositions in German only ever take the accusative case (FUDGEBOW). Which of us do you think has got more use out of our skills over the years?

So that was it. The heffalump hawkmoth started me "into" moths. About 10 years ago now. Wonderful things. Next year when Roger Kendrick runs HK's National Moth Night I highly recommend you go along and see just what might be lurking in the undergrowth near you.

The new list

2009-11-02T22:28:00.003+08:00

The new house has already produced some fantastic treats. Yesterday pm 3 adult White-bellied sea eagles flew overhead. Two were rolling and almost touching talons - presumably a breeding pair. All three were calling with a loud honking noise, rather like geese. They were overhead for maybe ten minutes before flying off inland. These are big birds that fly with their wings in a V and they are very distinctive. I saw them at about 17.30 so if you are on the front at Sai Kung as dusk approaches keep your eyes open.

In the bushes in the communal garden just across the private road I saw a fresh plumaged Dusky warbler, a Yellow-browed warbler as well as the usual suspects such as Chinese bulbul, Tailorbird, Japanese white-eye............ and just up the road a Black-throated laughing-thrush was a good tick. I didn't have my camera gear with me but I shall have to take it next time. All I need now is some birds in the back garden.

Update 7th November

the first true garden bird was, not surprisingly, Magpie robin. 3 Grey herons fooled me very briefly into thinking the WBSEs were back. Instead they wheeled around, stately as galleons, and landed on a wooded patch below the house. I guess they will roost there. One adult WBSE did appear but didn't come close, flying over instead towards Tai Mong Tsai Road and then back towards Sai Kung. Red-whiskered bulbul added itself to the list. Finally a Common buzzard was a nice addition,hovering imperiously over the trees. NB: kites very rarely hover but I have seen them do so after a fashion this is not a clincher. I heard Scarlet-backed flowerpecker but could not see it.

Update from Sai Kung

2009-10-31T20:23:00.004+08:00

Well, we have got the keys to the new house. Mrs.Ha has met the contractors and we have a very clear idea of what is going to be done. And no idea what it will all cost. When will we move in? Hopefully by Christmas. A very short walk this afternoon convinced me that patience will reward me with birds, butterflies and dragonflies. Probably some different moths too.

I promised I would report back on the scanning of the slides. Very mixed. Some are frankly awful. Some not to bad.

Three of the shots above are scans and one is a recent digital image straight from the camera. Can you pick the odd one out? Clue, location may help! I am at a loss why the standard is so variable. It could be the processing as I picked a batch of decent images to try first. I may get some redone elsewhere as a control. If they don't work then I may invest in my own scanner.

I have spent so much time travelling recently I am doing little photography I'm afraid. Cathay have just made my life worse as my usual flight to Bahrain (direct) now goes indirect via Riyadh adding almost 4 hours to my travel time. As an added bonus when I got back on Friday pm they were late and had nobody to operate the air bridge. Luckily I discovered Emirates has a better option so just when they are desperate for revenue CP will be losing a fair chunk of mine. They seem to be deteriorating fast in just about every department. The food is uniformly inedible - I now travel with a supply of cereal bars instead. The coffin seats are a disgrace to modern design and if one more member of the crew thanks me for my custom I shall be tempted to tell them a few home truths.

The really bad news came the week before in Dubai when I was called at 6am by AmEx (who in fairness thought it was 10am and I was in HK) to thank me for my business. I can only assume Mrs. Ha has been on the loose with her supplementary. Oh my! Oh golly gosh! If I were not permanently off the juice I'd have to have another sherry, Bishop.

BTW, captions are invited for the bottom picture, which educated chaps and chapesses will have ID'd as a Nazca booby. Ooh er, as Fumie would say, I'm sure.

Toodle pip.

Autumnal heat

2009-10-17T13:58:00.002+08:00

Even though I knew I was too tired I struggled out of bed this morning and drove to Long Valley. I just needed some bird time and whether it was at LV or Mai Po didn't really matter. I was hoping for a cool morning and clear air. No such luck as once again the temperature headed over 30 degrees Celsius. Carrying the big lens I can manage 2 or 3 hours and then I have to stop. So nothing too exciting today but a cryptic snipe sat tight against the edge of a shallow pool. Usually they take off like a rocket as you approach but not always. If you are slow and quiet and maybe use a bush to break up your outline you can sometimes get close up shots.

The bird below is a Wood sandpiper.I used to get quite excited in Britain when I found a Wood sand' but here they are common enough. This one ignored the panicked departures of its fellows and stood in the middle of a pond in soft morning light, seemingly basking up the warmth and ignoring the tripod and lens pointed directly at it. It is a simple portrait but quite pleasing. I love the marquetry effect of the feathers. They are not as dainty as the Marsh sandpipers but just as stunning in good light.

Finally another simple portrait - of a cattle egret this time. In breeding plumage they sport a warm tobacco colour and I don't know why but I prefer them to the Little egrets. They are slightly bulkier and have a sort of cocky strut that I like. The Little is more refined and a bit of a popinjay with its filaments blowing in a light breeze. The Cattle might be more of a street fighter, oblivious to the Marquis of Queensbury rules. The yellow bill is bulkier, ideal for jabbing someone in the chest. "Now just listen to me.....".

I ended up in a far corner of the valley and lost my bearings slightly but struggled back to the car and gulped down several slugs of water before pootling home for a mid-morning bowl of shredded wheat.Luxury.

Mellow yellow

2009-10-10T19:17:00.001+08:00

I'm just mad about Saffron.
A-Saffron's mad about me.
I'm-a just mad about Saffron.
She's just mad about me.

They call me Mellow Yellow,
Quite rightly.
They call me Mellow Yellow,
Quite rightly.
They call me Mellow Yellow.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be

2009-10-03T22:26:00.005+08:00

As we start to think about moving house I have been wrestling with the fact that I have literally thousands of slides. Unlike jpegs they take up a lot of space and unlike jpegs they are still there when your hard drive crashes. I decided therefore to get out the lightbox and start to do a review of what to keep and what to throw.

Problem 1 was not being able to find the lightbox. So off we toddled and bought a new one. Ooooh. I like Velvia. Is digital really as good as slides? (Discuss). Of course I threw away hundreds of pounds worth of rubbish pictures and digital allows me to buy a flash card and shoot over and over again. Nevertheless I have a sense that my "feel" for exposure was better in the old days and the light seemed clearer and warmer in the pre-digital era. That is either global warming or me getting old or neither.

The slides have brought back wonderful memories and I can remember virtually all of the shots, where I was, whom I was with and what the day was like. And of course now I want a load of them scanned so I can display them on the web. Such presumption! Why should anyone want to look at my pictures? I don't care. I want to see what Photoshop can do versus Velvia.

I suspect it will take months to plough through all of them. This is not a chore but a treasure hunt coupled with a trip down memory lane. I can hear the drone of the Coronation Street theme in the background and picture Ena, Minnie and Martha in the snug as I also look also at some of my father's old slides. Some are almost 50 years old and a kind of heirloom. Great Aunt Kate on the stone beach somewhere in Cardigan, probably Llanrhystud........ straight out of Leica Magazine?

I have been trying to work out how to get the slides scanned. Lots of people offered advice. Buying my own scanner is probably economic but definitely slow. Going to a well known outlet..... quicker and reliable, hopefully. But then Mrs. Ha took me to a small shop in Gilman's Bazaar. Firstly, I had never heard of Gilman's Bazaar. Secondly, it is a very small shop and doesn't seem to sell much if you simply look at the shelves. This is a shop with second hand cameras in the window and lots of rolls of , yes, Velvia, behind the counter. They even had a Leica M3 in the window. No high piles of Canon, Nikon, Olympus, etc but when I enquired, they disappeared into the back and produced a Canon 7D, hot off the production line. So somewhere they probably stock everything. Where, I asked, would they send slides to be scanned? Here, they said. Convert them into 6mb jpegs for HK$10 each. That is the going rate. At this point Mrs. Ha was multiplying the cost of one scan by the number of slides I have and thinking this was more expensive that a trip to Cartier. I promised I would be selective. And so the adventure with the lightbox began. When I get back from Singapore I will go back to Gilman's Bazaar and give them 50 to scan and we shall see what miracles they can work.

You have been warned. You may get to see Great Aunt Kate, on the beach in her world war one army great coat trying to keep out the bitingly cold wind of a Welsh summer. "Laughed? I nearly bought a round " as they say in the Valleys.

The long hot summer of 09

2009-09-17T15:17:00.004+08:00

Well it is about 33 C here today and it felt it this morning when Holmes and Hardacre trooped off to Long Valley to search for the elusive............ well anything really. Skittish. That was the word of the day. Well it wasn't Martin H's word when he discovered H2-Oh! had seen and got pics of Pallas's Gropper, when he had failed to lure the little blighter in. But yes, it was well nigh impossible to get within 100m of the egrets, waders, snipe etc before they flew away. JH saw a Grey-headed lapwing and AH didn't- too busy peering down the viewfinder. There was an obliging Fan-tailed wobbler and we saw a pair of Painted snipe. The PS is one of those unusual birds where the sexual dimorphism results in the female of the species being gaudier than the male. Anyway, any day when you see PS can't be all bad, now can it?

The 2 Hs were beginning to suffer from the heat by mid-morning. As they rambled they rambled. I distinctly recall mentioning The Curse on the House of Moriarty (The Hampstead Building Society). Intermittent downpours were a welcoming cooler but only served to make us steam more afterwards. JH was pointing out a flock of munias (yawn) when an LBJ took up the rear. It was the said Pallas's grasshopper warbler and it skulked a while as the flock moved on and then took off on its own. AH took some "record shots" - that is photographer-speak for shots that don't turn out as well as you hoped but these were genuine record shots. JH insisted that I credit him for standing behind me. And he did a fine job of it. Thank you JH. I am sure there will be better in Yunnan. After that the excitement died down and we decided that the heat was going to win. I rambled on about sponsoring Liverpool next year and JH admitted to being a closet 'Pool fan as a lad, when Shanks bestrode the globe like a colossus. Football is not a matter of life and death, he said. It's much more important than that. This is my 2nd favourite footie quote after Best's response to the question, where did all the money go George? "I spent most of it on women, booze and fast cars and the rest I wasted." I of course never supported anybody but Hereford aka The Mighty Bulls, with just a tiny passion for Leeds. I think I sobbed when Sunderland beat them in the cup final. Well we did make it back to the cars with JH rambling again about how our waggies were really Amur Wagtails. Extraordinary what you learn when you are out with an educated birder. And just in case you are interested this is the PGW.

Typhoon tea

2009-09-15T16:10:00.003+08:00

Plans to go abirding have been derailed by the latest typhoon - Typhoon Washout. One of the compensations is to see how the kites cascade and swirl in the wind, like some form of corkscrew roller coaster. Anybody who believes they don't do this for the sheer hell of it should just watch a while and be converted. We had a noisy and sleepless night as the wind crashed against our windows and the rain rattled down, with the occasional lightning but no thunder as I could tell. Our house faces NNE and the typhoons tend to come from the NE so we get pretty much the full brunt.

These were the skies this afternoon as we went down to T3. Shortly afterwards the heavens opened again but briefly. I tried one as taken and one in B&W, courtesy of photoshop.

Lazarus

2009-09-13T18:55:00.005+08:00

I thought I was dead but actually I was just brain dead from work. Life has been in totally the wrong rhthym. But I do still have a camera and I do very occasionally take photos. In Blue Peter fashion, here's one I prepared earlier

This is a male Hierodula patellifera. It is a Praying mantis and it was captured by my lens as recently as last night. Quite a strange chap. He just kept walking round in circles and seemed fascinated by the flashgun's pre flash. Looked at it every time so when the actual flash went he was staring right down the barrel of the lens.

Here is another rather flashy visitor.

Hypsopygia mauritialis is a Pyralid moth. Not uncommon.

In a few months time we - Mrs Ha., Lulu and I will move to a new home in Sai Kung and I can start recording what occurs around the new abode. We even have a microscopic garden, in which I can play. Lulu? Ah,let me introduce Lulu:

Like all good hounds this 3lb ball of Pomeranian fluff is deciding whether to bite the mat or Mrs. Ha's bum. She made a good choice.

I may post again sometime in 2009.

Kenya continued

2009-03-08T11:52:00.007+08:00

Every safari has its highlights and lowlights. For me there were a few real highlights. The group of Montagu’s harriers on the ground at Samburu was quite exceptional. We spotted one, then two and finally we found 5 sitting amongst the wispy grass. There were 3 females and 2 males. With the sunlight softening and falling they looked quite beautiful and as they allowed us to approach reasonably close and flew barely 50m when we crossed the invisible line of tolerance, I suspect they were on migration and simply too tired to care. I have seen Monties before. My first was in Spain about 15 years ago and I had even seen an occasional bird in the UK but never at such close quarters. If you look at the images at the bottom of the previous post you can see just how good they look with the yellow eye gleaming. The male is a particularly smart bird and I have an image of one flying away from us.

There is a real chance of confusion for the inexperienced birdwatcher. Male Montagu’s and Pallid harriers are easily confused if you don’t get a good view of the wing markings. The shape of the black marking on the outer primaries / secondaries is less extensive on the Pallid and comes to a point. The Montagu’s has a black bar on the inner secondaries and underneath has beautiful chestnut streaking. The Pallid is a clean bird, often described as ethereal. It does have a ghostly pallor as it quarters across the grassland. My photo above shows the shape of the Montagu’s black wing tip markings and the secondary bar.

Females are more cryptic and my previous post showed a female Montagu's. Here are 2 female Pallids (or actually the same bird in different poses). Look very carefully at the facial markings.

Particularly noteworthy is the pale necklace that shows from above the ear coverts to the neck.

Just to reassure you that Kenya has bugs and indeed larger beasts, here are 2 more pictures from the trip. The moth is Bunaeopsis oubie of the family Saturniidae and the other is a cat.

On the road with Mrs. Ha in Kenya or MAMOBA!!

2009-03-03T17:50:00.010+08:00

I had heard the expression “Miles and miles of bloody Africa” before but did not know that it came from Hemingway. Given in my Google searches as “MMBA”, I prefer “Mamoba”. It has more of a Kiswahili ring about it. This certainly captures the spirit of the vast, open, grassland landscapes of the Mara but to me it encapsulates also the clouds of thick, clogging dust, the corrugated roads that make your spine feel like it has a road-drill vibrating inside it and the swirling, pebble-glass haze of heat that distorts your vision. We visited Samburu and Masai Mara, two very different places.

Samburu is a bird paradise but you have to earn your rewards. A sort of BirdMiles scheme perhaps? We flew in from Nairobi to the Samburu airstrip but our lodge was still nearly 90 minutes away. The road was rutted stone, bone-jarring every inch of the way. By the end of a day in the field the sandy grime matted the hair and clung to the clothes, forcing its way in to your eyes, nose and throat. And heat. Endless gulps of bottled water kept us hydrated as the sun slowly baked the sardine lid roof of the safari bus. Thank heavens we had the bus to ourselves.

Mara is cooler. Our lodge airstrip said we were at 5,500’. Much better tracks, smoothed by the greater commercialism of dozens of vehicles criss-crossing the grassland, desperately trying to sate the clamour for the “Big Five” from eager voyeurs. Fewer trees. More open landscapes with lush greens shading to arid browns, truly breathtaking. For us, Mara meant fewer birds but a greater chance to relax and enjoy the Kenyan experience as you see it in the glossies and on the endless wildlife programmes. But don’t expect a “kill a minute”, Big Cat Diary style. Game drives are leisurely affairs on the whole, gentle giraffes chewing on acacia thorns or lolloping along at a measured pace; herds of buffalo, grazing contentedly then staring directly at you as you approach, unsure whether to back off or snort and snuffle aggressively; timid gazelles, aristocratic elephants, demanding respect and trumpeting occasionally to remind you and each other, who is where and who is in command. Contrast the cool, polished Topi of the Mara with the tinder dry Oryx of Samburu. There are of course sudden changes of tempo in Mara as a bus finds something special. Lion, cheetah, black rhino……in 3 days no sign of leopard anywhere. Anything feline provokes dust storms of F1 style driving as the drivers try to out-position their peers so that their clients have the best vantage point and photo opportunity. High stakes here as end of tour tips tend to be correlated with success on the savanna. Our experience was that the lions were invariably asleep (although we did witness one brief copulation) and the cheetahs more active. We saw one aborted hunt and two days in a row we found the same mother and cubs, providing us with fine entertainment. To Mrs. Ha’s relief none of the cats decided to use the vehicle as a vantage point. I think it was Jonathan Scott, who once had the privilege of being underneath a stream of Cheetah pee as he sat inside the Land Rover or Land Cruiser and the cheetah walked across the roof, relieving itself as it did so.

No balloon trips at Samburu either. Mara is cool, Samburu is the spiky teenage rebel. Mara is the Range Rover whilst Samburu is the Defender.

And I learned a lot about photography. It is a cliché that photography is all about light. Cliché it may be but nowhere is this truer than on an African safari. I had done some bird photography in Kenya in 2005 but this time I was much more aware of quality rather than quantity.

I used almost exclusively my Canon 400mm F4 DO lens with a 1.4x TC on a 1D mk III body. This on a bean bag gave excellent results. It is amazing what 2kg of rice can do to your photographs! In poor light I did a few times shoot at ISO 3200 with acceptable results. Such is the quality of the Canon sensor.

I learned that the soft light of morning and evening can indeed give a warm, luscious tone to a picture but it can also play havoc with whites, caught by the sun. Spangling or dappling effects can create sharp contrast that the human eye can cope with and a digital sensor can not. Try getting a cheetah correctly exposed in late afternoon sun and see what I mean. At times I had to use -2 2/3 compensation to hold the whites and stop them burning out. Yellows were especially challenging. The Yellow-throated longclaws were particularly hard to get right and I deleted far more images than I kept. There were recurring problems with highlights on acacia thorns, elephant tusks and bird legs, all of which reflected a great deal of light. Getting unobstructed images was often tough with grass and thorns obscuring part of the target. Over time I disciplined myself to take fewer pictures and be more selective on when to squeeze the shutter button. Sometimes it is simply better not to take the picture. A few horror moments also reminded me of the need for “re-set hygiene”. Simply put, after shooting I always returned the settings to AV, F5.6, +/- 0, Single shot, “silent” shutter mode.

The real eye-opener for me was the way Mrs. Ha took to photographing birds. I set her D30, 400mm F5.6 combination to take small jpeg files (I took RAW and jpeg combined) and she rattled off a huge number of images. Yet she deleted ruthlessly and her eye for composition is better than mine. She soon was in the swing of jostling me for the optimum shooting position and getting the driver to move a yard this way or that to get the light “just right”. Good on you, my love!

Our guide was from Nature’s Wonderland Safaris. I will provide unbiased references on request. A few logistical comments. We could not get our preferred lodge at Samburu and ended up at one in Shaba. There are 3 adjoining reserves, Samburu, Buffalo Springs and Shaba. As I mentioned above, Shaba is not close to the airstrip, the roads are grim and there is little “big game” Shaba side. You go to Shaba for birds. We stayed at a lodge that was to put it kindly, tired. The rooms were ok but hot with little airflow and the “aircon” only a noisy fan. After a bad first night we were told we could leave our windows open at night (contradicting what we had been told the previous day) and this gave us much relief. The food was ordinary. But the restaurant did boast a Shikra sitting on a branch next to the breakfast buffet on day 2. The grounds also held Giant kingfisher so not too shabby! After a fairly tense exchange with our reluctant guide, whom I had told to drive us on a route that would allow us to pass a lodge (any lodge) for a toilet break at some stage in our 12 hour all-day marathon, we found the lovely Ashnil Samburu Camp. 25 minutes from the airstrip in beautiful surroundings we were welcomed, walked around and shown the rooms and we rapidly wished we had stayed there. It is newly opened and had not a single guest the day we visited. Well worth a look.

At the Mara we stayed at Keekorok Lodge. This was a big improvement on our Shaba experience. It was very busy, many groups seemingly from France and Japan with a few Brits thrown in, presumably spending their last pounds before the currency and country sink without trace under GB’s “leadership”. This lodge is comfortable, well equipped, friendly and has lovely grounds. It is 5 minutes from the airstrip (2.2km the sign says). We enjoyed our stay here but again the food was pretty ordinary and none of the meals started on time. This is not a problem at lunchtime but if you want a 6.30 breakfast before you go off on a game drive it is annoying when the service starts at 6.45. However tea, coffee and biscuits are available from 6.00.

Mr. and Mrs. Montagu' S Harrier

To be continued

On hearing the first ......

2009-02-22T10:34:00.004+08:00

Old Fred Delius was a Yorkshire man and there's not many people know that. Unlike his Trueman namesake he didn't play cricket for any country but he wrote a tone poem called On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring. Well I heard my first Koel, Eudynamis scolopacea, of Spring on Saturday. It is quite possible they have been calling for a while but I have been in Singapore and Jakarta all week so yesterday was the first time I heard our local alarm clock. When we go to bed we hear the Collared scops owl, Otus lempiji. There is something soothing and reassuring about birds calling and singing, whether it is at dawn or dusk or even during the hours of darkness. The bird below is a male Koel

As I write I can hear the bulbuls chattering and outside the study window a Tree sparrow, Passer montanus, is making a wheezy rasp. A couple of Spotted doves, Streptopelia chinensis, are courting, the male bobbing at the female optimistically. Tonight Mrs. Ha and I are heading off to one of my favourite places, Kenya. Just a short 8 day sprint round Samburu and the Mara, ending up with a dinner with friends in Nairobi. So no posts this week but to finish with a couple of moths from last night.

The first is Marasmia trapezalis, rather early to be on the wing and the second is Herochroma cristata. What wonderfully cryptic colouring. Both braved the 18 degree Celsius temperature and the steady drizzle and I thank them both.

Bewitched, bewildered and bed-raggled.

2009-02-15T13:44:00.003+08:00

Lots of birds of late but not so many bugs. We were looking at a house this morning and there were a few birds around in the rain but this was the highlight - a beautiful silk moth, drenched and waterlogged in the middle of the path. I stopped anybody treading on it and then took a couple of photos with my G9 before removing the moth to somewhere dry where it could recover.

I hope Dr. Roger Kendrick will not mind me quoting from his excellent thesis, which states:

Global distribution: India, Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, China (HuN, HeB, SD, FJ, GD, GX, GZ) (Wu, 1984; Liang et al., 1989; Zhu & Wang, 1996; Brosch et al., 1999; Nässig, 2000).

H.K. distribution: uncertain, possibly restricted (TLF, Lam Tsuen). H.K. status: uncertain, possibly rare or declining. H.K. larval hosts: Cinnamomum camphora (L.) J. Presl. (Lauraceae) and Liquidamber formosana Hance (Hamamelidaceae) (Lee & Winney, 1982). Notes: populations of this species appear to be localised and declining in number (P. Aston, pers. com.), although some populations are quite abundant. Previously reported in Hong Kong (e.g. Lee & Winney, 1982; Hill et al., 1982) in the genus Eriogyna, which was synonymised with Saturnia by Nässig (1994). Hill et al. (1982) reported this species as quite common, page 208 especially in the New Territoires and that it was probably univoltine (without specifying when), but that it was possible there may be a “second generation in the summer sometimes”."

This record is consistent with it being univoltine / February.

Pick me up

2009-02-08T16:17:00.004+08:00

If the sky above you
Should turn dark and full of clouds
And that old north wind should begin to blow
Keep your head together and call my name out loud
And soon I will be knocking upon your door.
You just call out my name and you know where ever I am
Ill come running to see you again.
Winter, spring, summer or fall
All you got to do is call
And Ill be there, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shakespeare it ain't but its still a great song by James Taylor.

Life is pretty hard at present. Not, job-loss, lost the shirt on mini-bonds type stuff, but just unrelenting grind and endless frustration trying to find somewhere to retire to that I can afford type stuff. Long hours at work and very little down time. Even the last few birding outings have been pretty disappointing. So this buzzard was a real tonic (without the gin) this afternoon. The kites are regularly wheeling around, having fun and showing off. A trio of birds was cavorting in front of me in the soft afternoon sun when I suddenly realised that one was a buzzard and the other two were giving it a hard time, trying to drive it away. I ran for the camera and fired off half a dozen frames. Two were ok and here they are, the first banking towards me and then directly overhead. Direct overhead shots don't work too well but at least this has some semblance of eye contact. I felt a lot better for seeing Buteo buteo (so good they named it twice!). This buteo is japonicus whitish below with a dark belly patch and a pale unmarked tail. (If you click on the images you get better sized ones.) So it was the buzzard that knocked on my metaphorical door today and I am very grateful.

As a postscript, and assuming you can spot four pictures not two, the bird came round again and performed again. Bravo!

Black bulbul

2009-02-01T16:20:00.002+08:00

This is Hypsipetes leucocephalus although I don't know why. This variation does not have a white head! I also need to check whether the taxonomy is current. I have seen this bird before but never photographed it. This was a very distant shot, cropped to a reasonable size but showing the effects. Its status in HK is "classic irruption species, common and widespread in some years... scarce or absent in others."

George....... don't do that!

2009-01-31T21:06:00.004+08:00

These 2 images are of the same bird. I know they look different colours but that is a function of the light (and shade). One was taken by me and the better one was taken by Mrs. Ha.

We ventured out a-birding quite early and saw little at Shek Kong Airfield Road (except a rather cute Yellow-browed warbler - below).

Any road up, after a leisurely stroll we tootled off to the Shek Kong Catchment and found a fair number of bird photographers gathered to await the Crested goshawk, Accipiter trivirgatus, scheduled, if the previous 2 days were anything to go by, for 12 noon prompt. And lo and behold, as if by magic, shortly after noon the old boy dropped in. There was a mad flurry of activity and much jostling for position, during which I rather lost out. The bird moved around, generally in dappled light making exposure difficult. I had the (now familiar to my reader) 800 gun mounted on a tripod and that made mobility limited. The slimmer by far Mrs. Ha simply squeeezed in with my old 400mm job and pressed away, click, click, click. As most of the directions were flowing in Cantonese I was always a tad behind the pack and even when the extraordinarily kind Michelle and Jemi guided me towards the bird I found my view obscured by foliage. Eventually I got a few shots away over someone's shoulder but didn't allow enough for the sun on the back of the bird's head so those clean-ish shots were all deletes - overexposed. So I am left with one fairly ordinary shot of a most un-ordinary bird.

You see, whilst the Keystone Cops conducted their Chinese Firedrill on the grass, the bird refused to be bothered. Indeed, Mrs. Ha maintains to this evening that he was playing games with us, ducking and diving, Cockney fashion, to make life just a tad more tricky for us. So I have decided the said gossie must be called George. And when Mrs. Ha and I return at 11.59 tomorrow, if he starts playing up again I shall do my best Joyce Grenfell impression and admonish him firmly. George...... don't do that. Good night all.

Sticky fingers

2009-01-30T14:39:00.005+08:00

There are days when the birds just sit up and beg to be snapped and you just can't get it right. Yesterday was such a day. I had chances to photograph some decent birds and missed the best one, so ably snapped by John H.

Nonetheless a decent potter about was had and I discovered some new sites to explore.

Here are the only half decent pics from yesterday:

The Hawfinch or Coccothraustes coccothraustes to his friends was a difficult bird to put it mildly. High up in the tree, obscured by twigs and against the light. A most imperfect combination on a dull, grey, warmish day. The Black-naped monarch, Hypothymis azurea, so ably captured by John (see his blog) simply would not cooperate with me. Each time I pressed the shutter I ended up with a blank screen as it flew faster than I could react. A small bird in a large expanse of foliage, moving quickly, when you are working with an 800mm lens trying to find the blighter, is a real challenge. The fact that several others managed it doesn't console me much! Ditto the cuckoo-shrike. I had a couple of good opportunities before it moved back into the leaves and I was just too slow. Exposure wrong, lens focused on wrong branch...... just a duffer's day for yours truly. The flowerpecker is a real cutie, Dicaeum cruentatum, and this is a big crop as this was a 9cm bird in the top of the tree and very small in frame, even with the bazooka.

So when people say "gosh, you must be good" (and they do occasionally) little do they know that for each decent shot there are days of frustration and hundreds of "deletes". That of course is the joy of digital. It costs NOWT to press the shutter. Nowadays I actually press the shutter less often as I become more conscious of composition, size of bird in frame, exposure limitations etc. There are probably a couple of dozen really top-notch pro-amateurs photographing birds in Hong Kong now. I won't name them but they all outshine me but also give me something to aspire to when I retire.

The saddest part of yesterday was finding the remnants of a Painted snipe, Rostratula benghalensis, at Long Valley. John speculated it might be a victim not of H5N1 but moggius domesticus. Pesky creatures. Drown the lot of them, I say. We did see 2 live P.S.s but they were buried deep in the vegetation and deigned not to be photographed. "Another day, another snap, another snipe" as we say in the trade.

No bugs thanks, we're Bovine.

2009-01-24T17:30:00.003+08:00

The year of the Ox in the Lunar calendar is almost upon us so Mrs. Ha and I went to the CNY Fair in Victoria Park. There the mix is flowers and trash. About 50:50. We go to buy blossom, daffs and berries to decorate the house. The prices are down quite markedly on last year, a sure sign of recession. The trash includes just about anything you can imagine to do with The Ox or cows and of course...... giraffes!! Yes, giraffes were everywhere and I know not why. My favourite trash this year was a poster of Wee Donald McTsang with a face full of banana skins. Its a political joke, a touch of satire even. Made me chuckle anyway. Windmills are a symbol of change for the better. I guess the wind blows away all the ills of the old year and blows in good luck for the new year. I have never been quite clear what the strange yellow fruit are that proliferate. Anyway, I hope the wind blows me and all my chums good birds in the Year of the Ox. Gong Hei Fat Choi as we say in the valleys [of Clearwater Bay].

A grand day out, Gromit[?]

2009-01-19T21:07:00.003+08:00

A trip to Tai Po Kau, Mai Po and Long Valley was very enjoyable but what really made it was the gorgeous soft light from 4.30 - 5.30ish at Long Valley. Guess which pictures were taken at that time.

These birds are Eastern marsh harrier, Richard's pipit (Dick to his mates), Scaly-breasted munia, Black-necked starling and Zitting cisticola. And no, I didn't make that last one up. Africa is full of cisticolas, many told apart only on vocalisation unless you are either a) an expert or b) another cisticola. I particularly like the pipit, which looked gorgeous in the soft light of the setting sun, the breast looking almost vinous in colour rather than the handbook's rather boring "buff" description. I suppose having the words "buff" and "bird" close together may get Fumier excited. Life is full of disappointments. I should know.

Gaudy bird or "if you've got it, flaunt it"

2009-01-04T15:11:00.002+08:00

What a fabulous bird this is apart from the rather tedious latin name, Monticola solitarius philippensis. The photos were taken in harsh light, which spoils them somewhat. The "flauntiness" of the bird (which is a male incidentally) was reminiscent of the 3 birds of the other variety, sitting opposite us in Tokyo Joe last night. Such a shame that girls can't get clothes to fit these days. There was insufficient scaffolding to support their infrastructure and a constant need ensued to "rearrange" the woefully inadequate upper garments. This is terribly un-PC but in mitigation I shall post no photos of the offenders.

A trio of New Year images

2009-01-04T09:14:00.002+08:00

I present to you the world's first "goose-stepping" pond heron, the world's most unhappy mudskipper and my favourite bird of the New Year, the Black-shouldered kite, Elanus caeruleus. You correspondent is out on a "twitch" today for Blue rock thrush. Such jewels of sanity when the world has gone Mad-off. I thank you.

In honour of Mr. Fumier.... its a Parus major

2008-12-27T18:45:00.001+08:00

2008-12-25T18:12:00.000+08:00

The Kite

2008-12-16T18:24:00.003+08:00

Ho ho ho! This Santa is about 50 years old. How do I know? Because it hung on our family Xmas tree when I was a child and it has the words "Empire Made" on it. Those were the days, when Wales had an Empire. We called it "England" or something like that. The other 2 are of a pre-Christmas kite enjoying the tree opposite my home. If you are really lucky I shall post a photo of the home-made gingerbread men.

In response to public demand....

2008-12-14T17:54:00.003+08:00

The middle 4 images are of a Bull-headed shrike; lanius bucephalus. This was a good find at the Lion's Nature Education Centre near Sai Kung. There aren't too many records of this species although there was a repeat visitor for many years in the orchard at Tai Po Kau.

The top one is our old friend Mr. Daurian Redstart and the final image is Blue whistling thrush. This is almost a misnomer as it utters a rather wheezy whistle and it has none of the jauntiness of the Cockney sparrer's whistle or the lilting harmony of Roger Whitaker. But there we are. The BWT can and does fan its tail rather engagingly and as far as I know that is something Roger W can not do but I stand ready to be corrected.

I do of course wish my reader a most enjoyable holiday season (note that I am politically correct and do not assume the celebration of Christmas) and a prosperous 2009. However, unless my reader is a bankruptcy lawyer I suspect the second part may be a struggle. Humbug.

A cornucopia of flora and fauna.

2008-12-06T16:22:00.003+08:00

Waders of the lost ark?

2008-10-12T15:13:00.005+08:00

Ok, so they are not all waders but yesterday was a gorgeous day at Mai Po. I rose at 5am and arrived on the reserve at 6am. By 6.30 I was already taking photos. The light came up very quickly from dark as I arrived to goodish by 6.15am. I was surprised that the tide had already covered the mudflats but the kingfishers gave me something to do. The Black-capped is a bit soft as it was taken at great distance with stacked convertors.

The common kingfisher was a lovely poser and gave me plenty of time but not much activity - nary a fish in sight. The Tringas were plentiful. I was especially pleased with the close up of the Wood sandpiper.

The star attraction was the Eastern marsh harrier that flew around several times and gave a few chances for closish shots but mostly longer distance.

After a frantic week on the markets this was a great relief to me and just reinforces the value of a really relaxing hobby. Vive les oiseaux!!

Lunch time for the Osprey

2008-09-29T17:52:00.004+08:00

This bird was sitting on a pole a long way out from the hide on the mudflats at Mai Po. However with the new monster lens and the help of a couple of tele-converters I got some pretty reasonable shots. He (or she) ate the fish from nose to tail, or should that be mouth as fish don't have noses as such, do they? "Noses run in our family", as my dear old dad used to say. And it was a fair chunk of meat, too. I took maybe 50 shots and deleted most but this was a definite "keeper".

The second bird is a Black drongo. Astute readers, if there be plural visitors to the site, may recall the Hair-crested drongo from Sai Kung. This is a close relative, also snapped at Mai Po - a rather ritzy thing he is too. Let's hear it for the drongo family.

A treat for you

2008-09-28T18:43:00.002+08:00

This huge moth was outside the house today. I have not seen the species before and was suitably impressed.

The Pom Pom bulletin remains worrying. She has good days and bad days but she isn't gaining enough weight (unlike me) and continues to have the sniffles. The vet says she does indeed have canine distemper. Mrs. Ha is a saint, spending hours with her coaxing her to eat. I am on the Lehman's diet at present. The pounds are dropping off.

The Prisoner

2008-09-14T16:18:00.002+08:00

I think it is fair to say Pom Pom is on the mend. She bit my toe and then chewed a pair of Zegna shorts (which I happened to wearing at the time). Go to Jail, do not pass Go, do not collect any dog biscuits.....

Recovery

2008-09-13T18:15:00.004+08:00

Pom Pom is making reasonable progress I am delighted to say. A second trip to the vet for her today and she was pronounced "much improved". A bit like my maths teacher might have said on rare occasions.

At 5am today I headed off to Mai Po and produced a few decent images from a poor morning tide.

The frontier gate was opened at 6.15am but even though high tide was not until 8.30 the mudflats were already almost covered. Barely 10 minutes of photography with the new lens. I waited for the tide to fall and when it did the birds flew too far out so not a single photo on the falling tide. So this collection is just some shots of perched or fly-past birds taken whilst I was killing time.

Everybody should recognise the beautiful Common kingfisher, then the "punk" Striated or Little green heron, a Whimbrel, an elegant Marsh sandpiper with a Redshank in the background, and finally a Black-winged stilt. It can't really be a waste of time when you see birds like this now, can it?

Ups and downs

2008-09-07T14:04:00.004+08:00

Poor Pom Pom is unwell and refusing to eat so we are taking her to the vet later this afternoon. She is so small and vulnerable we are quite worried. On the plus side my lens arrived yesterday. I hope I can find time to try it out soon. I grabbed a couple of hours in the park yesterday and here are some results.

Frogs - don't you just love them - this is Polypedates megacephalus. More boringly known as the Brown Tree Frog.

An arrival is announced

2008-08-31T18:34:00.002+08:00

Mr. & Mrs. Ha are pleased to announced the arrival of PomPom on August 31st 2008. Puppy and credit card are doing as well as can be expected.

What big eyes you have

2008-08-24T16:53:00.005+08:00

Well I survived the typhoon. And this dragonfly did too thanks to Mrs. Ha. She found it upside down on the sun terrace and called it "dead". In fact it was simply soaked through and could not do the necessary backflip with twist, double somersault piked to get on its pins again. Or have I been watching too much diving? There is, by the bye, a debate going on in the house about what to name the new dog when she arrives. One option is (Guo) JingJing and the other is Gong Li. Or maybe Pom Pom as it will be another Pomeranian. Anyway, we are all Olympicked out.

During the eye of the typhoon, a two hour lull as it passed over Sai Kung, these dragonflies, Pantala flavescens, came out in their thousands. Sadly of course as the eye passed and the back end of the typhoo unleashed itself, many of them simply became so bed-raggled they couldn't fly.This chap made it though to morning, I dried it off, gave it a bit of a blow with the hair drier (ok, not really), snapped its physiog for the records file and off it went.

The Blue magpie in a recent post got an overwhelming response (2 comments I think) so here is a less sensational one; still quite pleasing none the less.

Finally, my willpower (that with the breaking strain of a KitKat) gave in and the new lens is on order. Off to Taiwan then Pakistan this week so more debilitating travel hot on the heels of another "Stan" last week. I do like Stan but Hilda was always my favourite. "Can I do you now, Mrs. Walker?"

Carry on up Coronation Street? Bring back Len, Ena and Minnie. Those were the days.

Round and about

2008-08-10T15:12:00.002+08:00

A bit of a mish-mash here but some nice flutterbys, a froggy thing or possibly a toad in the pond, some rather fetching flora and it's just not cricket. And then I threw in a dragonfly for good measure. All taken with my 300mm f2.8 lens which gives nice OOFBGs (out of focus backgrounds). I am wrestling with my conscience at the moment as Canon has brought out an 800mm f5.6 lens - a snip at HK$90,000. My willpower has the breaking strain of a KitKat so I expect it will make an appearance in the mailbox at some stage.

Enjoy.

Blue magpie

2008-07-27T18:14:00.002+08:00

This great bird was opposite the house today and I managed to capture it just as it flew.

Eyes front.

2008-07-12T16:55:00.001+08:00

And then he spotted me photographing him and decided to attack. I dropped the camera and ran. (I made that bit up). But that's what I call a cute bird.

Kite surprise

2008-07-12T16:41:00.003+08:00

More bad weather today but I was perked up by a scruffy Black-eared kite, Milvus lineatus, swaying on top of a tree opposite the house. He flew around a few times trying to land safely and I caught this picture of him.

I am experimenting with ScribeFire to post this. I am having trouble uploading from the PC rather than the web. Any Techies with suggested solutions please see me after class. Dismissed.

June was busting out all over

2008-07-05T16:16:00.007+08:00

Well, its been a while. Mrs. Ha and I went to Italy, Honkers suffered its wettest month on record and presumably Fumie has been searching for chums to join him in moistness on a Friday night. I have however managed a trip or two with the camera and here, for the lucky reader who passes by, are just a few.

As you can see, the bugs have prevailed over the birds this time. The birds are a bit absent at this time of year. But I have managed to pick up a rather spiffing bird book entitled "Birds recorded from or known to occur in the Shanghai area". This was written by Arthur de Carle Sowerby in 1943. It would have to be fairly old as most of the birds in the area have since died of asphyxiation. The book contains a signed photograph of the author, with details in his own hand on the reverse. The photo shows him on horseback at "Si-an Fu, capital of Shensi Province" relating how he had been on an expedition "to rescue missionaries in the far interior of China". I paid an enormous amount of money to the proprietor of "Picture This" for the book along with "The Birds of Burma" by Bertram E. Smythies, the most generous benefactor of the Oriental Bird Club (of which I am a member). The book is illustrated by Commander A. M. Hughes, the same Commander H., who illustrated Geoffrey Herklots books.

Sowerby, by the way, was the editor of the China Journal, of which I have a dozen or so copies from the late 20's early 30's and a jolly good read they are too. So, coincidentally I am orf to Shanghai tomorrow with probably nary a bird in sight but I shall do my utmost to see what bugs there are in the Shangri-La.

Pip pip.

BTW (again) the top picture is of a Mantid, Hierodula patellifera, and I am assured that they can and do bite.

BTW (2) if you want some gripping yarns to read may I recommend The Alexander Trilogy by Valerio Massimo Manfredi. Man this is an epic story, of how Alexander the Grate burnt the cakes in Ancient Wessex before invading Persia, Egypt, India and Balham. If you like history, heroes, blood, gore and a soupcon of sex, this is where to find it.

Shear delight

2008-05-24T21:55:00.003+08:00

A long day on a boat today along with 20 other birders, many finer photographers than I......... John Holmes, Martin Hale, Pippen Ho, Hendrix - all top notch HK photographers. It was hot but we managed to find (thanks Mike) Short-tailed shearwater, a tick for me and the subject of my middle three images. Go to the pbase site for better quality. This is not a common bird and I was pleased with the pics though others will have better ones. The White-winged terns are just stunning and the Yellow bitterns unusually open - normally they skulk. So a splendid day on the water with a couple of hours on Po Toi. Great stuff.

It's a fair cop

2008-05-17T15:21:00.003+08:00

Over a month without a post. But I have been to Karachi (like Bombay but with more guns), Singapore, London and Po Toi....... so I have a reasonable excuse. Some nice images of moth-heads, macro shots with my 180mm f3.5. Just for Fumie, 2 images of insects in the act of copulation, a rather nice Greater crusted tern (or 'crested' as the pedants would have it) and some beetley things on some flowery stuff. I am not a botanist.

Don't expect much more frequency in the near future. I am off to Singapore again on Monday then in June Mrs. Ha and I are set to invade Italia for a couple of weeks or so. Florence ("time for bed, said Zebedee"), Venice and Rome. Yawn. I shall be all cultured out when we get back. In the meantime, look after the bugs etc. fo me.

Four birds and a smirk for Fumie

2008-04-13T10:40:00.003+08:00

Here are 3 shots of a Sandplover, the top one being particularly nice in my humble opinion and an Avocet, which any self-respecting Brit knows as the logo or "Trustmark" of the RSPB. The odd one out is a moth called Ceira longipennis and I thought it would make Fumie say "oo-er missus", or something similar.

As you can tell, work is still prevailing. Could someone end the liquidity crisis please?

Lazy old blogger

2008-04-07T20:53:00.003+08:00

I plead guilty to slacking. Mrs. Ha has been unwell for 2 weeks and I have been devoting myself to her even at the expense of Sunday at the 7s. We went to Dubai and she shopped whilst I dropped. Actually she dropped and I shopped after working for 2 days. My encounter with Cathay Pacific was beyond the pale. If you read this Tony Tyler, your Dubai desk is a shambles. Sorry old boy, but it is. I shall be in touch.
And so I escaped to Mai Po and rattled off a few frames but the tide is so fast. Whoosh in, whoosh out. Not good for photography and the camera autofocus was giving me problems. A few good ones though and I shall repeat the exercise tomorrow.

Toodle jolly pip.

Whoops - forgot to give Fumie the names. Black-winged stilt,Koel (a handsome male), a flock of waders and a Marsh sandpiper.

Trials and tribulations

2008-03-22T07:09:00.008+08:00

I am in turmoil at the moment because my renewed AFCD / Police permit has been caught in a Kafkaesque bureaucratic circle and I am without. This means I cannot (legally) go to the mudflats in the frontier closed area. Fortunately WWF gave me a temporary one yesterday but this involves considerable hassle and goodwill on their part. Thank you Bena!

At 7.30am yesterday, Mrs H having made me brekkie at 5.30am, I was already in the hide. Not much to see. Two bags of old jumble stuck on posts a long way out. Ah yes! Those would be Ospreys. It is grey, overcast and only the sound of wind and curlews reaches the hide. Off to my right a gaudy Black-capped kingfisher sits on a branch at the edge of the mangroves. Too far away to contemplate a photo.

Out of the mist 3 Grey herons emerge. Large, flappy pterodactyls with not a lot to do and in no hurry to do it. A Swallow skips past the hide, chipping away quietly. The hide begins to fill up. Lots of (very good) local bird photographers. They have their breakfast rather too noisily for my liking but the birds are still distant. No harm done. The sunshine is squeezing though the clouds. It is a tight fit but a Little egret gets a luke warm dousing of golden light. An Eastern marsh harrier quarters across the mudflats. Distant ducks panic. Wigeon and Shoveler mostly. At 8.06 the gulls are within view and at 8.10 they start to stream in. The action starts.......

Gulls, gulls, gulls and a Greenshank

2008-03-08T18:47:00.003+08:00

Astute readers will recognize this as a Black-headed gull, common in Blighty as it is here. The wader is a Common greenshank. Oh, and I got a distant view of the Slender-billed gull, thanks to Geoff Carey. HK tick. :-)

More from Mai Po

2008-03-08T17:42:00.001+08:00

Little ringed plover, Koel (Mrs.), 2 shots of a curlew.....

Spring has sprung

2008-03-02T15:35:00.007+08:00

Spring has sprung
The grass has riz
I wonder where
The birdy is?

Well yesterday they were at Mai Po, freshly reopened from the government's ludicrous 21 day ban. If anyone can get close enough to a live bird at MPNR to catch H5N1, please tell me how so I can take photos. If its dead I suspect most people are not going to put in their pocket with the cheese sarnies for a tasty 11 o'clock snack. Bird 'flu, cheese and pickle. Whoopee! But I digress.

I left the warmth of my bed at the crack of dawn yesterday and was at MPNR before 7am. So early in fact I was 3rd in the new hide. We were there to welcome a solitary Dalmatian pelican, returning after a couple of years absence and without his/her chums. And there it was, in all its glory, no more than a mile out in Deep Bay. This is a splendid bird and when it flew over us at 10.41 the few of us privileged to see it where united in our awe and joy.

My first delight of the day was a Plain prinia, sitting up and singing its little heart out, oblivious to the lens poked in its face. A scrap of a thing but bursting with lust (I suspect).

Walking on, a flock of (Red-billed) starlings turned somersaults in the sky, a loud swoosh, invented long before NIKE thought of it, clearly audible as they tumbled. Then breeding cormorants, with their gleaming white flank patches and filoplumes on the head and neck... so much more exotic than their, forgive me, rather drab non-breeding plumage. As I reached the end of the avenue leading to the Frontier Closed Area a female Daurian redstart flitted around in a bush, half hidden in the shade but flashing her reddish bum in the sunshine whilst her face stayed hidden, possibly in embarrassment at her brazen behaviour.

Once out in the hide the birds were distant as the tide was out. A long way out. The sound of Curlews blowing bubbles through a flute dominated the soundscape, the flashing white rump revealed on landing confirmed them as the common Numenius arquata (orientalis) rather than the less frequent Antipodean N. madagascarensis or Australian curlew, whose call has more of an Aussie whine to it.

Also in the distance specks of white merging in to long streamers. Avocets. Wonderful birds with a harsh "kluut" call. As my far more knowledgeable hide-companion observed, ok at this level but damned annoying from dawn to dusk on the breeding grounds. Theirs presumably, not his.

You are always guaranteed egrets on the mudflats even when nothing else shows up and sometimes they look simply stunning with the delicate aigrettes all fluffed up with nowhere to go. Maybe at midnight they turn into pumpkins but in the soft morning sun they look as good as Cinderella ever could.

Mid-morning the smoky streamers of cormorants crossed before us, from Tsim Bei Tsui (The Fence) towards wherever they cared to settle. Hundreds and hundreds. Possibly thousands. I didn't count. A real "birder" would have counted them so I guess I'm a dude really. The shame of it. I just like 'em. The multi-coloured dots drifted slowly in with the tide - male Shoveler. Crackingly good-looking birds. They are real dandies, gaudy show-offs with large saptulate bills. Hooray for Shovelers, I say.

Panic suddenly as a Greater spotted eagle lapped across the mudflats. What a bird. How could you not like a bird with the Latin name Aquila clanga? This is a name I never forget. It ought to whistle like a a real clanger, angry at the Soup dragon or Iron chicken. (Actually I was more of a Noggin the Nog man myself. Of course Graculus the bird was my favourite.) But it doesn't. In fact I've never heard a Clanga utter a syllable.

A couple of kingfishers loaf on posts. Black-capped and White-breasted. Should be regarded as "exotics" on colour alone but they belong here. Over-dressed if ever a bird were.

More panic and the avocets go up. An eastern marsh harrier is mobbed incessantly by a Collared crow, driving it off until everything settles again. The dog fight lasts several minutes and is almost as exciting as a Welsh win at Twickers. Diolch yn fawr, chaps.

Just before 10am I notice an Osprey also sitting on a post. A big bird to stay invisible for so long.

I stayed several hours more. The tide came in ever so, ever so slowly. The hide filled up with people eager for high tide and a glimpse of the pelican. So many 'scopes, bins and cameras it would have put half of Stanley Street to shame. Weariness overcame me and I left. Too early. I gave up on the tide coming in really close but I discovered this morning that I had missed a Slender-billed gull. Aargh. I have seen them in Greece but never in Hong Kong. Still, I saw the dapper little Saunders gulls so that was some consolation. But not a lot. So I will have to go back again next weekend if the tides are right. Such is life.

Munia slip

2008-02-23T18:07:00.002+08:00

3 from the day's walk - a Great tit, a Spotted munia and a White-backed munia.

Abdul the Bulbul

2008-02-17T17:33:00.005+08:00

Two very common birds and an old poem, of which, I am ashamed to say, there is a slightly less tasteful version but it is not for quoting here. It is more "Chopped Onions" style.

ABDUL EL BULBUL AMIR

The sons of the Prophet were brave men and bold
And quite unaccustomed to fear
But the bravest by far in the ranks of the Shah
Was Abdul el Bulbul Amir
If you wanted a man to encourage the van
Or to harass the foe in the rear
Storm fort or redoubt you had only to shout
For Abdul el Bulbul Amir

There were heroes in plenty and well known to fame
In the troops that were led by the Czar
But none of more fame than a man by the name
Of Ivan Skavinsky Skivar
He could sing like Caruso, both tenor and bass
And perform on the Spanish Guitar
In fact quite the cream of the Muscovite team
Was Ivan Skavinsky Skivar

One day this bold Russian had shouldered his gun
And put on his most arrogant sneer
Down town he did go where he trod on the toe
Of Abdul el Bulbul Amir
Young man, quoth Abdul, Has your life grown so dull
that you're anxious to end your career?
Vile infidel know, you have trod on the toe
Of Abdul el Bulbul Amir

So take your last look at both sunshine and brook
And send your regrets to the Czar
By which I imply you are going to die
Count Ivan Skavinsky Skivar
Said Ivan, My friend, your remarks in the end
Will avail you but little I fear
You will never survive to repeat them alive
Mr Abdul el Bulbul Amir

Then that bold Mameluke drew his trusty skibouk
And shouted out, Allah Akbar!
With murderous intent he ferociously went
For Ivan Skavinsky Skivar
They parried and thrust, they side-stepped and cussed
Of blood they spilled a great part
The philologist blokes, who seldom crack jokes
Say that hash was first made on the spot

They fought all that night neath the pale yellow moon
The din, it was heard from afar
And huge multitudes came, so great was the fame,
Of Abdul and Ivan Skavar
As Abdul's long knife was extracting the life
In fact he was shouting, "Huzzah!"
He felt himself struck by that wily Calmuck
Count Ivan Skavinsky Skavar

The Sultan drove by in his red-breasted fly
Expecting the victor to cheer
But he only drew nigh to hear the last sigh
Of Abdul Abulbul Amir
There's a tomb rises up where the Blue Danube rolls
And graved there in characters clear
Is, Stranger, when passing, oh pray for the soul
Of Abdul Abulbul Amir

A splash in the Black Sea one dark moonless night
Caused ripples to spread wide and far
It was made by a sack fitting close to the back
Of Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.
A Muscovite maiden her lone vigil keeps,
'Neath the light of the cold northern star,
And the name that she murmurs in vain as she weeps,
Is Ivan Skavinsky Skavar

Let Osprey for better luck next time

2008-02-16T18:47:00.002+08:00

Taken from a moving boat in weak sunshine :-(

We were looking for the elusive White-billed diver. We dipped. The Osprey flew overhead and shortly after I saw this Wild pig beachcombing. I nicknamed him J B.

Eye to eye

2008-02-08T18:01:00.001+08:00

An eye level shot of a Black kite whizzing past the house - scroll down to see what gets shots like these.

The long awaited photo

2008-02-08T17:55:00.001+08:00

A number of enquiries have been received about my equipment. Well here in all its glory is my standard handheld combo - the 1D mk III and the 400mm f4 DO IS lens with a 1.4x TC. I know The Phiz is yawning already. I'm sure she has seen better, many times. But this is the outfit that gets the birds in flight.

Getting a buzz

2008-02-03T17:57:00.000+08:00

Sitting in the chilly sunshine of a late Sunday afternoon I recognised a distant Common buzzard. They are easy to pick out from the kites even at a kilometre or so because they are slightly smaller, have rounded wings and they hover. Yup. It is not just Kestrels that hover, buzzards do it too.

I'd already seen a White-bellied sea-eagle this morning but it never came close. The buzzard started flying in circles, each one getting closer to me until at last I managed to fire off a few frames. And here they are. Better quality pics are available on the pbase site. I would like to have gone to mai Po today but Mrs. Ha and I went to the Flower Market instead. Not too busy on a Sunday morning, thank heavens and we came away with some nice pots of daffs to go with the blossom branches and hydrangeas we bought in Sai Kung yesterday.

For those who follow the trials of the dog, she is recovering from a tumble down stairs this afternoon but she seems to be making a full recovery. She currently has her very own fan heater as she can't cope with sub 10 C temperatures (and neither can I). After 3 of the last 4 weeks having been spent in Singapore I am shell-shocked when I go from 30+ to <10 at weekends. Shiver me timbers, Master Bates, as Capt. Pugwash once said. But then again he also had Roger the cabinboy and Seaman Stains in his crew. Hmmm. Children's entertainment? Crackerjack!!

Let the sun shine.....

2008-01-20T16:45:00.000+08:00

A wonderful day out after 10 days locked away in the bowels of a hotel in Singapore. The Olive-backed pipit is a departure from my normal close up jobs and puts the little chap in his (or her) environment. Then there is a Japanese white-eye and finally a Purple sapphire, heliophorus epicles. Back to work tomorrow but I do feel better for a couple of hours in the field.

A grand day out

2008-01-06T17:54:00.000+08:00

Here is a selection of photos by Mrs. Ha and my good self taken almost exclusively at Mai Po this morning. My faves are the Azure-winged magpie (Shirl's) and the Red-billed starling.

Beautiful plumage the magpie :-)

Link here for decent sized images.

The dog

2008-01-01T10:43:00.000+08:00

DG expressed some surprise that the dog seems to have been rehabilitated in the Ha household. It is true. About 6 months or so ago we feared to leave the house unoccupied as the dog would go beserk, barking incessantly and depositing do-doos all over the place. Singularly unpleasant and often close to a hanging offence. One day we went out and the dog stayed quietly in her basket, wrapped as always in her masai blanket. No barking. When we returned home she was still dozing gently in her basket, no pee, no pooh. And so it has been ever since. Some sort of damascene conversion I presume. Or maybe she is slowing down as she sees the pearly gates in the distance. She is after all approaching 16. With such improved conduct she is now an accepted member of society. Even when the house was full of 30-40 people wassailing before Xmas she behaved impeccably. She is indeed a dog to treasure now. As I said, a real cutie.