This morning dawned a little later than usual- a fine sign that the autumn is slowly coming. We are eternally grateful for the thought, with sweat dripping down our foreheads even before we reached the bottom of the mountain to set up the nets.

In other news, a hive of very aggressive wasps have moved in near one of our trails.

How do we know this? Because yours truly was taking a nice, leisurely walk back to camp, before feeling a sudden, seering pain all over my body. With no idea where it was coming from, but certain I was being attacked by some kind of flying thing, I screamed (not a common occurance), and ran (even less of a common occurance) up the path, almost barrelling into the rest of the team, who were a little way up. Here I found I was not the only target of the wasps. Over the course of the day, all of the team strayed too close to the well-hidden nest, falling victim to their stings. What we do for the birds.

We were rewarded for our pains by host of nice birds though, including this young Common Tailorbird.

As aforementioned, not much is known on the ageing of Common Tailorbirds, however, by using skull pneumatisation we could see that this bird is a juvenile, born this year. It will most likely undertake a Complete post-juvenile moult. But again, we need more individuals to compare the adult (and post-juvenile) feathers to the juvenile feathers.

This species is especially cool due to the nature in which they built their nest- by literally sewing leaves together using leaves, spider webs, fine grass and plant fibers.

A Youtube video shot by Ronit Vasani on this entire process can be found here.

Next up in the day we had a couple of beautiful Silver-eared Mesia! One (above) with a red throat, and another (below) with a yellow throat. The yellow throated individual showed a brood patch- supporting the theory that this could be a breeding pair.

Regarding age, both showed an adult-type iris colour (deep red in comparison to juveniles’ more brown hue (see individual below). All feathers of the individuals above are of adult type, and uniformally worn (probably moulted last Summer in a Complete moult). Therefore, we can determine both to be at least in their 2nd calendar year.

Finally, we had a juvenile Rufous-capped Babbler! This bird also required ageing on the skull for confirmation. However, in the wing we can see that it is currently undergoing a Complete moult. Most of the coverts are post-juvenile, however there are two retained (or maybe missed) GCs (denoted by the red arrow) that are loose and of juvenile quality. Also note the growing primary just visible above GC1.

Daily Totals

*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.*