AJP spotted this bird in the New Territories at the end of winter there. In our time in 1960s Hong Kong it would have caused a sensation amongst the birdwatchers for the simple reason it remained unrecorded there for at least another two decades.
The latest Field Guide to the Birds of Hong Kong and South China (9th edition, 2022) describes it as “mostly an irruptive and uncommon winter visitor increasing, scarce and localised in summer’.
This bird is just one example of the vastly increased number of birds and reptiles now known to occur in Hong Kong compared with 60 years ago. The question then has to be asked: was it an erratic winter visitor to Hong Kong in the decades it was not recorded or was it simply not being seen by the relatively small number of birdwatchers?
When it first appeared in Hong Kong it was known as the Striated Yuhina (Yuhina castaniceps torqueola). That species was split comparatively recently with torqueola being re-raised to a species proper, as Robert Swinhoe described it in 1870. In 2019, as a result of a wide-ranging phylogenetic analysis both species were lifted from the genus Yuhina and placed in the genus Staphida.
Staphia torqueola now has the common name of Indochinese Yuhina. The species occurs from south and south-east China to north Indochina; it reaches its southerly limit around Danang in Vietnam.
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