birding

Lying in the tropics, on migration routes for birds breeding from Japan west to Russia and north China, and boasting a range of habitats including the world-renowned Mai Po Marshes Nature Reserve, Hong Kong is an excellent place for birdwatching. Here, you can find global rarities that are tough to see elsewhere, encounter stunning songbirds, watch seabirds blasted inshore by typhoons (yes, typhoons – birdwatchers do far sillier things than just lurk in bushes), and savour waterbirds thronging the mudflats of Mai Po.

I am an experienced birding guide, now chiefly leading private birdwatchers to Mai Po Marshes Nature Reserve, Hong Kong.

Believing nature tourism can help protect wildlife and wild places, I was instrumental in making Beidaihe in east China a hotspot for travelling birdwatchers. After leading and co-leading migration surveys at the town from 1985 to 1990, I helped launch birding tourism there, initially through planning and co-leading Sunbirder tours (through these, did much to discover Happy Island as a migration hotspot); also organised and co-led a tour for Ornitholidays.

I also promote nature tourism in Hong Kong. Here, I have co-led birding tours with companies including Limosa, Ornitholidays and Sunbirder. Became director of a small nature tour company, FirstStep Nature Tours (focused on Mai Po Marshes Nature Reserve; company closed partly thanks to silly red tape from government); and since began leading private birding tours to Mai Po in association with WWF Hong Kong - also sometimes taking people to other birdwatching sites, including Tai Po Kau Forest Nature Reserve.

Please contact me if you are interested in a birding tour to Mai Po or other Hong Kong sites.

This is a perfect, tropical morning. With the sun just rising, palm trees cast long shadows on the beach, their fronds etched in sharp silhouettes. Close inshore, fishing dhows dot the languid, blue sea. Hundreds of terns – elegant, white seabirds – dip amongst them, searching for small fish.

Today, this place seems wonderfully peaceful. Yet just months ago, the sea rose, swept in across the sand and into a resort’s restaurant, sending diners and waiters rushing to safety. Here, on the west coast of Sri Lanka, the tsunami was startling, but caused little damage. Elsewhere, though, resorts and coastal communities were wrecked, tens of thousands of people died. And yet, my wife and I have come to Sri Lanka on holiday.

We’ve come after reading and hearing of the need for tourists to visit Sri Lanka, and so help the many people whose livelihoods depend on tourism – and after learning that Sri Lanka offers marvellous attractions, with no need for us to stay in damaged places.

We’re beginning a journey through this teardrop shaped island, which was once called Serendib – giving rise to the term serendipity, for unexpected, fortunate discoveries. Later, to the British, it became Ceylon, an exotic country in the east, with elephants, gems, temples, tropical trees and flowers, and tea plantations in the hills. This is the land we are about to explore, on an adventure blending Sri Lanka’s wildlife, scenery, and rich cultural heritage.

When I first headed to China in 1985, the only guide to the country's birds was a (then) recently published volume by museum man Rudolphe Meyer de Schauensee, who reportedly figured he could learn all he needed about the country's birds from his specimens (in the US), without visiting China. This had a fine introductory chapter on the history of ornithology, including tales of derring-do by Russian ornithologists risking and occasionally succumbing to bandits and diseases to collect specimens including species new to science. Yet, the field descriptions were sadly wanting (honey buzzard has feathers on the head and throat "which are short, stiff, scalelike and very dense"!) The plates were poor, omitting many key Chinese species - presumably as the artist could only portray available specimens.

Against this, A Field Guide to the Birds of China by John MacKinnon, with illustrations by Karen Phillipps (Oxford University Press, 2000), is a major improvement - as it should be, given John MacKinnon has extensive field experience in China; Karen Philllipps lived in Hong Kong. Notably, most of the over 1300 species are illustrated in colour (some only in black and white, accompanying the text).

But here too, the descriptions are often casual and cursory. We're not quite at the level of having to touch the heads of passing raptors, but some of the tough birds like warblers might not be described with too much more than "medium-sized, brown": works for readily separated species, but when the identification gets tough, well, Birds of China doesn't get going.

I first visited Beidaihe, a resort on China's east coast, in spring 1985, and have returned each year since, mostly as leader or co-leader of migration surveys and birding tours, a couple of times for a holiday. In all, I have spent over a year at the town, garnering a Beidaihe list with over 300 Asian migrants, and experiencing superb spells of birding. In addition, trying to stimulate conservation work — it was partly on my urging that, in spring 1990, the town established an unimpressive nature reserve.

Not exactly a birding jaunt, this is an article I wrote for Discovery in spring 1997

Birds Recorded at Wuliansuhai (west of Baotou), Inner Mongolia, 24 and 25 September; and at Hasuhai (between Baotou and Hohhot) on 26 September 2004

Martin and Maya Williams

During afternoon of 24 September, we covered sections of the lake shoreline of the lake - also written Ulansuhai Nur.

On 25 September, with the help of Mr Chang Long (a local who knows many of the birds). we took a boat ride on the lake, and again covered stretches of shoreline, including in a reserve.

On 26 September, during the return to Hohhot, we called in at Hasuhai, a smaller lake, with fishponds and fields along the edge.