Early Arrivals----Black-winged Stilts

   The pleasant autumn brings not only the cool and comfortable weather but also the annual bird visitors to Hong Kong.  

    Although at the moment most of the migratory birds from Northern China are still on their way to the South, some early starters have already arrived in Hong Kong. The Black-winged Stilt is among the early arrivals. A couple of days ago, I saw several Black-winged Stilts enjoying a quiet and peaceful lunch.

   The long orange-red legs and a straight and thin black bill make them very easy to identify.  

  The feather of the young Black-winged Stilts are mainly grey coloured. 

  The Black-Winged Stilts usually breed in West and Central China and spend winter in the South, including Hong Kong. They feed mainly on aquatic insects. Instead of swimming, the prefer to walk around in shallow water,

and catch prey on the surface.

Occasionally, they plunge their heads below the surface to catch prey in the water.  

Butterflies in love

The warm weather and abundant food resources put butterflies in the mood for romance. I managed to have captured some of the loving moments.

Hong Kong Fritillary 

Common Tailor 

Common Rose 

Common Grass Yellow

Banded Tree Brown 

Gram Blue

A Butterfly Bully

A couple of days ago, I witnessed a fight between a pretty Red Ring Skirt butterfly and several Stag Beetles over drinking tree sap. To my amazement, the sophisticated looking butterfly was actually a bully and single-handedly chased the beetles off their feeding territory. Because both the butterfly and the beetles were so involved in the fight that none of them was aware of the presence of my camera which gave me the opportunity to record this interesting story.

You probably know that both Nymphalidea butterflies and Stag Beetles feed mainly on tree sap and rotten fruit. So it is not a surprise that sometimes the tree sap producing fruit trees are war zones between these two species of insect.

When I arrived at the scene, a couple of Stag Beetles were enjoying the tree sap peacefully on a citrus fruit tree. Suddenly, a Red Ring Skirt butterfly flew over,  

and decided to claim the territory.

 

Initially, the beetles ran away.

I guess the tree sap might be too delicious for the beetles to give up. Within seconds, they turned around and decided to have another go.

The butterfly was not very pleased to see them back and began a series of  vicious attacks.  First, it flicked its wings trying to scare the beetles away.

When that didn’t work, the butterfly started using its proboscis as a weapon.

Finally, after about 10minutes, the beetles  admitted defeat and ran away.

The butterfly claimed victory in the ‘Battle of the tree trunk’.