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.  

War in the garden: birds vs snake

A few weeks ago, I heard the Red-whiskered Bulbuls making a lot of stressful noise in the garden. They would often stand on the big pomelo tree and looked as though they were “shouting” at something underneath.

When I went to investigate, I found that they were actually “screaming” in the direction of a small tree. 

Initially I thought it had something to do with the old nest that a pair of Red-whiskered Bulbuls abandoned last year (the dark shadow in upper center).

When I got closer to the tree, I noticed a pair of bright eyes staring at me. Actually, a big green snake was resting in the tree!

In fact, the snake was sunbathing in the tree but the birds were not happy about the snake being  in their territory. It seemed that they were trying to scare the snake away from the garden.

In the following days, over a dozen Red-whiskered Bulbuls came to the garden regularly and kept “screaming” at the snake. Some brave ones even got really close to the snake (just above the black knot).

Others were either sitting on the big pomelo tree above 

or keeping their distance from the snake.

The loud stressful noise must have alarmed other birds nearby. Soon, several types of birds came to the garden to investigate, including Common Tailor-birds, 

Oriental Mygpie Robins.

Initially, the snake did not take any notice and continued his sunbathing everyday for about a week.

But the birds seemed so determined that their “shouting” frequency was increased to 3-4 times a day. After tolerating the noisy birds for over a week, the snake was finally fed up and left. It hasn’t returned since.

The Red-whiskered Bulbuls are now back to their happy go lucky nature and the stressful “shouting” noise has been replaced by happy singing sounds.

 I wish I could tell them how much I admire their courage and determination for winning the war against a potentially lethal enemy more than 10 times bigger than themselves.