Let the Birdwatching Begin!
by Thomas Gomersall
Anyone who goes to Mai Po Nature Reserve regularly knows that it is rarely a busy place to be. But expect more activity from now until the end of the winter as bird lovers take advantage of the start of the migration season, which kicked off 3–4 November with Walk for Nature, WWF-Hong Kong’s annual fundraising event.
Before embarking on the walk, each participant is given a Walk for Nature “passport”, to be stamped at each of the checkpoints for a free souvenir at the end. The first of these is outside the AFCD Warden’s post and explains about the colour-coded leg ringing of birds done at Mai Po and other migration points along the East Asian Australasian Flyway, and the distance and speed that migratory species to Mai Po travel to get here. Incidentally, the mangrove channels here are an excellent foraging ground for one such species: the northern pintail. Many common resident birds can also be seen near here, such as the Chinese pond heron, little egret, white breasted water hen and masked laughing thrush.
Checkpoint 2 is at the Tower Hide and shows participants how much a black tailed godwit must fatten up for its 28,500-km roundtrip from Alaska to Hong Kong and back. It’s appropriate given that the hide offers splendid views of a large shallow pond dotted with islands and reedbeds that feeds many such waders. Checkpoint 3 leads you to the Education Centre. For younger participants, the puppet theatre and key ring-making is probably entertainment enough, but for older participants, the large forested ponds provide a good fishing and roosting spot for huge flocks of cormorants. You may even catch a Chinese bulbul or daurian redstart bathing in the ornamental lily pond.
The path to Checkpoint 4 takes you across a boardwalk over a picturesque pond strewn with lily pads and flowers and then through reed beds and forest. Along the way, look for shoals of tilapia or grey mullet cruising just beneath the surface of the mangrove cleansed water. On the path between Checkpoints 4 and 5 (the latter a stall for paper quilling) is where the tranquility and quiet of Mai Po is best appreciated, with only the sounds of your footsteps and of course, birdsong. Be sure to turn your binoculars to the trees lining the path for sights of warblers or the Asian koel: perhaps the most vocal of Hong Kong’s birds.
From the rain shelter hosting Checkpoint 5, it’s a long walk along the border fence with great views across the gei wai. At Checkpoint 6 at the Gei Wai museum, you can build food pyramids out of cups to show what eats what at Mai Po, as well as learn about the food shortages facing birds such as the great knot due to the loss of suitable feeding grounds from climate change and coastal development. Though to see the many leaping grey mullet in the gei wai, it’s hard to imagine how any fish eater at Mai Po could go hungry.
Checkpoint 7 is divided into three checkpoints. The first highlights WWF’s work to protect the critically endangered yellow breasted bunting in nearby Long Valley. The second highlights its collaboration with local fishpond owners to lower water levels to allow hungry water birds to feed on small fish and crustaceans left behind after the profitable fish have been extracted. And the third offers participants the chance to sign up to become a donor to WWF’s many causes, including endangered species protection, anti-shark finning activities, climate change mitigation and the conservation of Mai Po.
At Checkpoint 8, you can conclude Walk for Nature with a photo with the WWF panda mascot. But really the real camera magnet at this and the previous two checkpoints are the vast gei wai themselves dotted with mazes of mangroves and the flocks of northern shovelers and tufted ducks paddling between them.
Walk for Nature may be over and the stalls and checkpoints cleared away for another year. But the extraordinary habitats and species encountered during it are, for the time being, not going anywhere. And now you and your family can see them for yourselves simply by signing up online for any of WWF’s guided eco-visits. (options include a half-day birdwatching trip and a tour of the restricted mangrove boardwalk, among other things). Everything, including a permit, will be arranged for you. Those who would like a tour that includes a packed lunch and a free shuttle bus service from Yuen Long MTR are advised to apply for the “Magic of Mai Po” tour.
Let the birdwatching begin!
