The weather on Wednesday, Black Rainstorm following the passage of a frontal depression coming from the north, reminded me of similar conditions on 21 May 2008, when I saw large numbers of egrets and bitterns flying into and around Po Toi. Quoting my report on this website for 21 May 2008
"33 Cattle Egret, 7 Striated Heron, a Malayan Night Heron, 44 Yellow Bitterns, 29 Schrenck’s Bittern, 2 Cinnamon Bittern and 8 Black Bittern with some of most species seen flying in off the sea from the surrounding islands and one amazing flock of 22 Schrenck’s Bittern which flew up the east coast of Po Toi at 6.40am"
But this year was not the same, mostly no doubt because I didn't arrive until 11am on the Ferry and only had 3 hours to search the island. All I ended up with was 2 Striated Heron and 1 Yellow Bittern
However, there were some surprises. A single flock of at least 70 Red-necked Phalarope from the Ferry is a very late date, but even later, a single Asia Brown Flycatcher near the Ferry Pier
ID confirmed by Paul Leader, thanks.
Records for Asia Brown after mid-May are very rare and this is the third latest spring record that I can find. The two later ones are 26 May 1963! and 12 June 2010 (2011 HKBR), a record from our friend Brendan Klick which gave the Records Committee a real headache to confirm.
Interestingly, the fourth latest spring record for Asia Brown was 22 May 2008 on Po Toi, the day after the massive day I commented on above. These extreme weather conditions in late May can often produce interesting records.
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Last edited by wgeoff at 26/05/2017 15:39 ]