A Hong Kong Sunbird fest

Hong Kong birdwatchers and photographers were out in force to see these 'Occasional Visitors' over Chinese New Year. Our Hong Kong correspondent was there, hiking from Shing Mun over Lead Mine Pass to Tai Po Kau.

Mrs Gould's Sunbirds (Aethopyga gouldiae) was what the birders were there to see. When first seen in Hong Kong they were regarded as escapees from captivity but it is now realised that Hong Kong is part of their natural range (from India, Nepal and Bhutan to Bangladesh, China,  Burma, Thailand, Laos and Viet Nam). First described in 1831 by the lawyer and politician Nicholas Vigors (1785-1840) while Secretary of the Zoological Society and pursuing his misguided 'quinarian system' of classification, it was named for Mrs Elizabeth Gould (née Coxon) (1804-1841) the artist wife of John Gould FRS, ornithologist, taxidermist and artist.

Mrs Gould's Sunbird - male

Mrs Gould's Sunbird - male. To show the iridescent feathers of the head

Feeding on the same flowers were 'Resident' Fork-tailed Sunbirds (Aethopyga christinae). Also called Mrs Swinhoe's Sunbird after the wife, Christina, née Lockie, of Robert Swinhoe FRS (1836-1877) who described the species in 1869, this bird in Hong Kong was regarded as a rarity when we lived in Hong Kong in the 1960s. First seen in Hong Kong in 1959, it could for years only be seen at Tai Po Kau. Since then it has spread throughout Hong Kong and on our first return to Hong Kong in 1997 a pair was nesting yards from our room at Robert Black College at the University of Hong Kong.

Fork-tailed Sunbird - male

Female sunbirds are easily overlooked:

Mrs Gould's Sunbird - female

And here are the photographers:

Also around was this Mountain Bulbul (Ixos mcclellandii) once a great rarity in Hong Kong but now regularly spotted:

Mountain Bulbul

A Verditer Flycatcher (Eumyias thalassinus)

Verditer Flycatcher - male

...and a female Red-flanked Bluetail (Tarsiger cyanurus) showing why it used to be called a bush-robin, a winter visitor to Hong Kong from the north:

Red-flanked Bluetail

Finally, a portrait of Mrs Elizabeth Gould with a pet Cockatiel. As well as illustrating John Gould's publication she had eight children, dying at the age of 39 after the birth of the eighth.