This week we are back in the paddyfields, and the birds kept coming, with almost 100 birds caught today!

First up was a gorgeous young Black-collared Starling! These beautiful birds are one of our most charismatic residents, with its unmistakable and loud, almost-robotic melodious song. Their moults are not clear, but it is thought that both adult and juveniles undertake a Summer Complete moult. This bird seems to be in the middle of this moult, and potentially the old feathers could be aged. However, due to the little amount of literature on the ageing of this species, the safest options (for now) is to leave this individual as a 1st calendar year or older.

Next up was one of our less common visitors to the nets, a Chestnut Bunting! These are a little smaller than most of our species, but nonetheless beautiful! Again the pointed, juvenile-type tail, incomplete skull pneumatisation, and moult limit between the GCs and PCs allows us to determine that this is a 1st calendar year bird. From this, if we look at the extent of the chestnut on the upperparts of the bird, and yellow on the belly, we can see that this is very nice looking 1st calendar year male!

Finally we got to give some of our local waterbirds some attention with a stunning Greater-painted Snipe in the nets! It is not so common that we catch these, as our nets are especially made for smaller birds, so big birds can very easily escape them before we get a chance to catch them! These guys have an incredibly wide distribution, from all across Africa to Southern Asia! They are also one of the species where the females are more colourful than the males, but both show this patterning of spots on their flight feathers. The adults show a much more white and clean pattern to these spots, while the juveniles have this more buffy and brown tone to them, as seen in the juvenile above.

As the morning wore on, we were lucky enough to get yet another Richard’s Pipit! This is our 2nd this season, and another great example of these guys’ moult! In the wing we can see the 7 outermost GCs are juvenile, worn, bleached and with white tips, compared to the moulted innermost three. The white-tipped worn juvenile feathers can also be seen in the highest row of LCs. Here we can see how juvenile Richard Pipit’s gain that ‘scaley’ patterning. In the tail, we can see the difference between the juvenile shape of the feathers (pointed, worn and narrow) in comparison to the two moulted postjuvenile feathers (more broad and rounded tips). A great bird!

The good birds just kept coming, and next up was this gorgous male Russet Sparrow! This is just the third ever caught by the HKBWS team! It is thought that the adults and juveniles of this species both undertake a Summer Complete moult (as with most Sparrows). However, this individual showed an incomplete skull development, and thus could be identified as a 1st calendar year male!

As the morning drew to a close, we ended up with one last gorgeous bird, a Von Schrenck’s Bittern! These beautiful and elusive creatures are rather hard to age, especially due to the similarity in immature birds and adult females. Therefore, we aged this one as a 1st calendar year or older!

Daily Totals

*Birds are highly protected (under Wild Animals Protection Ordinate, Cap. 170) in Hong Kong. It is an offence to wilfully disturb, take, remove, or injure wild birds or their nests/eggs. The actions described here were undertaken by trained professionals holding the necessary licenses and permits issued by the AFCD.*