I think the habitat is not so surprising for a wild Speckled Piculet. I was responsible for the first Hong Kong record, trapped in rather degraded shrubland in Sai Kung. Also I have seen this species in farmland edge riparian bamboos in Yunnan. A key habitat requirement is bamboos and there are lots of these around Long Valley; also remember that it is not so far from Ho Sheung Heung fung shui wood and there is a patchwork of woodland all the way north from there to the Shenzhen border with forest on the other side in the east. So a wandering bird moving through forest and bamboo patches is not so unlikely for this species, it is not a closed canopy forest specialist.
Date is interesting; my Sai Kung record (which was a newly fledged juvenile) was in mid-August, is summer wandering a feature of this species, post-breeding dispersal?
Mike Leven
