When: June 2015 Weather: Hot 31C
Leica M240/Noctilux F1.2 and 35 F1.4 summilux Nikon P900
In Hong Kong last weekend and found time to do two walks and look for some birds….the first place we decided to go to was the Peak Circular Trail…one of the more popular tourist attractions in HK. I had only ever done it as a tourist before, going up just for the view and a drink and coming back down again…but this time we took a walk around the Peak Circular trail, a gentle 3.2km walk in shady walkways and punctuated with glorious views of the fragrant harbour. So if you only have 2-3 hours to spare and want to go somewhere special with outstanding views, and commune with nature, you could hardly do better than this….it’s a US$10 and 15 min cab ride to the top from Central and then the walk itself is about 2 hours depending on how much you linger to enjoy the views….
A first glimpse of the harbour beyond the foliage..
the walk is gentle along a paved road..
and then this spectacular view of HK Harbour appears….with the bluish ICC Tower on the left and the white IFC building on the right
The ICC Building on the Kowloon side shimmered brilliantly blue
whilst the IFC Tower glowed white…
This was a good place to try the 2000mm zoom on my Nikon P900…I saw this horizontal pole sticking out of the IFC..
And zooming in big time….this pole turned out to be a boom suspending the cables for the window cleaning equipment!
Whilst there were lots of little birds flitting around, we only managed to get one decent shot of this red whiskered bulbul…
the sun started going down
casting a warm glow over the sea
Lamma Island
And just at the end of the trail, there is a pretty little waterfall..
Going down from the peak was another easy taxi ride down….this Peak Nature Trail is easily accessible, blessed with great views and a few birds as well…doesn’t get much better than this..highly recommended.
The next morning we headed out at 630am to Tai Po Road and the Kowloon reservoir and Eagles Nest Nature trail. This is a 5km walk near the Beacon Hill area and was easily accessible from my Hotel the Langham Place Hote in Mongkok.
the Eagle’s Nest Nature Walk
This was a slightly more fruitful walk as far as birds were concerned…not sure what this was though. a type of bulbul?
a slightly tatty moth
and then RIchard spotted this bird perched rather near to us, preening itself…I thought it was a pigeon at first…
But from the other side, it was obviously a raptor, and my good friend Nishant tells me that it’s probably a Besra…our bird of the day!
Coming down from the Eagle’s Nest trail, we crossede the road and headed to the Golden Hill Nature Park…a lovely little walk through the Kowloon Reservoir area….
really quite pretty
there were lots of red eared sliders around
And in the shallower waters, we could see blue tilapias and a snakehead if you look carefully…
June in HK is obviously not the best birding season, it’s hot and horribly humid but these two locations were actually very scenic and I can see myself coming back in December to March period to catch the migrants and bird in cooler climes…
The Natural Traveller 
Looks like a nice walk–I should do that when I’m in HK the next time. Lovely shots, as usual.