Waterfowl Count 21 May 2000
Summary Report

The May 2000 waterfowl count occurred on 21st. Unfortunately, not all sites within the Ramsar Site were covered, with Deep Bay C, D and E in Inner Deep Bay not surveyed. In addition, the stretch of coast from Nim Wan to Lau Fau Shan was also not counted; though this area lies outside the Ramsar Site, it is usually counted in all months of the year.

A total of 2,206 waterbirds were recorded in the Deep Bay area, with 1,862 of these being recorded in the Ramsar Site. The number of birds recorded in Inner Deep Bay is usually low from April to October as the count is made at high tide. Consequently, had these areas been counted, it is unlikely they would have added signficantly to the total. Previous counts for Deep Bay in May have been 3521 (3063 in the Ramsar Site) in 1998, and 3973 (3438 in the Ramsar Site) in 1999. Consequently, even allowing for the slight understimate of numbers present (which, incidentally occurred in 1998), it would appear that the number of waterfowl in Deep Bay in May was lower than in the recent two years.

The two largest groups at this time of year comprise ardeids and waders. A comparison of these two groups with the Ramsar Site figures for 1998 and 1999 is contained in Table 1.

It can be seen that in terms of both numbers and proportion of the overall total of waterfowl, there is little clear-cut difference between the figures for this year and those for 1998 and 1999. Numbers in 2000 are obviously lower than both previous years, but the extent for each group varies; with regard to percentage of the overall total, the results for ardeids and waders are both intermediate between those of 1998 and 1999.

The cause for the lower numbers this year may be very simple, and relate to one or both of two factors, viz. i.) a significant number of ardeids were feeding on a fish pond outside of the count area, ii.) the May 2000 count occurred relatively late in the month allowing time for more waders to have departed on their northward migration. A longer dataset would allow a better context in which to examine these results.