This morning brought more cooler weather, again appreciated by the ringing team! Even though the migration season is still slowing, we started off the morning with a beautiful Little Bunting!
This individual, like our last bird, is a 2nd calendar year female Little Bunting, with quite a clear contrast between the nicer post-juvenile GCs and the more worn and bleached juvenile PCs. Furthermore, we can see the wear in the juvenile tertials and the pointed, juvenile tail.
Next up we had a Black-collared Starling. These guys breed in the area, and it is most likely that this is one of our breeding individuals! But whether this bird was born last year is unclear, most likely because the adults and juveniles undertake a full summer complete moult (however we need more information to confirm this).
Interestingly in this individual, we have one very obvious old, unmoulted feather, that may have been ‘forgotten’ in the summer moult. Being able to age this feather could allow us to determine the age- i.e. if it is of juvenile type, we could call this a 2nd calendar year bird, if it is adult, we can say this is a 3rd calendar year or older.
As the morning continued, we ended up with another Snipe-dominated ringing session! We started off with a couple of Common Snipes, all showing nice adult-type wings!
After these, we caught not one or two but three Greater Painted Snipes!
This species is a little strange, as the roles of the sexes are reversed! In the photo above, the bird on the left is a female, and the right is male. In this species, it is the female that courts the male. Once the female lays her eggs, she leaves the male to incubate them, while she moves on to mate with other males! This mating system (one female, many males) is known as polyandry.
The moult of this species is, again, poorly studied. But, in general, what we look for in these guys are retained juvenile secondaries. In the photo above, we can see an adult female Greater Painted Snipe wing. Though there is a potential moult limit in the secondaries, all feathers have a nice, white fringe to them, suggesting this is an adult bird.
By comparison, the two male individuals above show more buffy tips to their secondaries- characteristic of juvenile feathers.
Other nice birds of the day was a Spotted Dove (common bird, but not caught so often). These guys breed all year round in Hong Kong, making them notoriously difficult to age.
Finally, we had a Wood Sandpiper- a very uncommon bird or us to catch in the Paddyfields!
Daily Totals
| Species | Original | Recapture |
| Black-collared Starling | 1 | 0 |
| Common Snipe | 3 | 0 |
| Greater-painted Snipe | 3 | 0 |
| Little Bunting | 1 | 0 |
| Plain Prinia | 0 | 1 |
| Scaly-breasted Munia | 6 | 0 |
| Spotted Dove | 1 | 0 |
| White-breasted Waterhen | 1 | 1 |
| Wood Sandpiper | 1 | 0 |
*Please note that all wild birds are protected under Hong Kong Law. All ringing activities are conducted with the necessary permits issued by the AFCD. Handling and processing of birds is only carried out by experienced individuals.*
