Field Guide to the Birds of Hong Kong and South China: a new edition

I have had time to look at my Christmas present from Hong Kong. It is the new, 9th, edition of Field Guide to the Birds of Hong Kong and South China, compiled and published by the Hong Kong Birdwatching Society, of which we were members in the 1960s.

By covering a huge area of China, from Shanghai in the north to the border with Vietnam and Hainan in the south and from Hunan and Guanxi in the west to Zhejiang and Fujian in the east, the birdwatcher in Hong Kong can find details of most of the birds that might on occasion occur there as a rare vagrant. However, that coverage comes at a cost. There are whole pages of birds that have never been seen nor are likely to be seen in Hong Kong. Perhaps a thinner, lighter version limited to the avian residents, migrants and rare vagrants might be more suitable to fit the pockets of those human Hong Kong residents and visitors who have no intention of going to mainland China. In other words, an edition covering similar ground to the early editions of this book written by Clive Viney and the late Karen Phillipps. The 1st edition was published in 1977 by the Hong Kong Government.

With the superbly-produced new edition of the Field Guide and the Photographic Guide to the Birds of Hong Kong, first published in 2010 also by The Hong Kong Bird Watching Society, Hong Kong birders, of which there are increasing numbers—and visitors—are very well served indeed.

I cannot help compare with what we have now with what we had 50-60 years ago. Then, until the second edition appeared in 1967, we had the first edition of Geoffrey Herklots’s Hong Kong Birds. The first edition was published in 1953 from articles in the pre-war Hong Kong Naturalist since Herklots had lost his personal notes during the Japanese Occupation. Colour printing was enormously expensive and the few plates that the publishers (South China Morning Post) could afford had been painted by Commander A.M. Hughes of the Royal Navy who was stationed in Hong Kong in 1929-1931. Herklots’s descriptions of the birds, prepared from skins at the Natural History Museum in London, were extremely good and we managed to identify most of the new birds we had seen while out for a walk.

In turn, Herklots and his birdwatching friends were equally frustrated by the lack of a reference book. He noted that La Touche’s Birds of Eastern China had appeared in parts and had only been completed in 1934. Herklots revolutionised life the the birdwatcher in Hong Kong in the 1950s, followed by Viney and Phillipps in the late 1970s. The Hong Kong Birdwatching Society has carried on that tradition from its foundation in 1957 not only by taking over the preparation and publishing of books but also by producing annual reports and checklists.

Highly recommended but not cheap in U.K. In Hong Kong the book retails for HK$338 (£36). British booksellers (not yet on Amazon) are quoting nearly £50.

Finally, I cannot resist showing the back cover of the new field guide. Black Kites over the harbour and urban areas were the first indication to those arriving by air or sea that they had arrived in Hong Kong, somewhere very different and somewhere very special. The editors could not have made a better choice.