Birds of prey in Hong Kong divert from flight paths they usually take when migrating, but why? Veteran birdwatcher has the answers
- As raptors grace Hong Kong on a detour from their normal migration routes, a birdwatcher learns the reason is a mix of survival strategy and strong winds
The morning of March 30, I headed to a hilltop vantage above Nam Shan in southeast Lantau. Around 10am, I scanned the horizon over the Chi Ma Wan Peninsula to the south, and saw what I thought was one of the black kites so familiar to Hong Kong, but with thinner wings and a more buoyant flight.
Through my binoculars, I saw the bird was brown on top, pale beneath and had a whitish stripe above each eye, as it passed just east of me, heading north, followed minutes later by several more, gliding on thermals of rising air over the hillside.
I counted 10 in the party, and by the time I left, in the early afternoon, I had tallied 31.
I had been hoping to see these grey-faced buzzards, as this species follows easterly winds through Hong Kong on the periphery of a flyway travelled by around half a million birds a year, on epic journeys of up to 6,000km (3,700 miles) between breeding grounds in eastern Russia, northeast China, Japan and Korea, and winter haunts in the Philippines and Indonesia.
With these easterly airstreams persisting until around mid-April, there were more reported sightings by several observers.
Having spent further sessions watching for them on Lantau, Hong Kong’s biggest island, on April 8, I counted 116, a personal best day total for this species in more than 30 years of birdwatching in Hong Kong.
