birds of hong kong

Now I’m not much of a birder but I do love photography. On a recent trip to Hong Kong, I decided to take my 70-200mm lens out and take some mediocre bird photos as my mom was birdwatching. It made birding much more exciting to see if I could capture them in my camera. But excuse the photos, for they are not up to par as with a more standard 400-800mm lens could capture.

We went on a bird tour with Matthew Kwan and he documented the full list of birds we saw on ebird. His tours are great since he is a local Hong Konger and has a car to drive clients around to different spots.

It started off a bit rainy but we still saw a bunch at Tai Po Kau Nature Reserve near the Chinese University of Hong Kong. We parked at the Tai Po Kau Park. I was impressed I could catch a Red-Billed Blue Magpie in flight. Then we went to the Tai Lam Country Park briefly and walked along the road to see what we could find. Plenty of Scarlet Minivets immediately! We then headed to Long Valley, a misnomer for the region. We first got our fill of dessert tofu for lunch at GuGuSoy, the town of Ho Sheung Heung is famous for it. Then we walked along the Long Valley Nature Park where wetlands are created for the perfect bird environment. This was my favorite since we were able to see so many birds more easily as opposed to the forests. Afterwards, we drove around San Tin and Tai Sang Wai by the fisheries. Supposedly we saw 86 species, which seems great for a drizzly day!

Note: I added a few others we saw throughout the trip, including the Hong Kong Wetland Park