Ng Tung Chai, Tai Mo Shan & the Shing Mun reservoir

17/2/2023 - Ng Tung Chai, Tai Mo Shan & Shing Mun reservoir

A bombax ceiba growing at the side of the highway

Barely 2 weeks into school after the holidays, I was itching to head out again (birding is addictive, don’t get into it, kids)

So I thought, why not head out to the highest mountain in Hong Kong, Tai Mo Shan, the Ng Tung Chai waterfalls and the Shing Mun reservoir despite having little hiking experience and minimal research on a school holiday?

I headed out at 0700 and arrived at Ng Tung Chai at 0830. As soon as I stepped off the bus from Tai Wo MTR station, I was greeted by a cacophony of bird calls early in the morning. As I walked through Ng Tung Chai road, birds were calling from all around me. But as the saying goes, “You will always hear birds in a forest, but can never spot them.” Or maybe I’m just an amateur idk

However, over from the right, there was a barren tree sticking out of the lush and dense bushes like a sore thumb. I paid much attention to it while walking up the road as that is the easiest place to spot a bird. Sure enough, I spotted the silhouette of an ashy drongo flying around the tree soon after

The ashy drongo was too far away even for my telephoto camera

This seems like an usual spot for the bird, it stayed on the same branch for a while

Two red-whiskered bulbuls singing their beautiful songs early in the morning

Walking along the footpath, the scenery was breathtaking and I momentarily forgot about the birds chirping all around me. But that was until a yellow-browed warbler popped up from a bush by the road, and I managed to get a few satisfactory shots of the tiny bird

Very very similar with the yellow-browed warbler, it took me a while to identify this yellow-browed warbler

It hopped into the undergrowth soon after

Entrance to the Man Tak Yuen

Birding in forests is way harder than in wetlands and mudflats. It takes way more luck for the bird to land at THE spot, having it show up is already a miracle. There are nooks and crannies everywhere around me and often times the birds will just dart away right in front, or above, or beside me before I can even land my eyes on them. Your shots are either out-of-focus, blurry, too bright or too dim 9 times out of 10. But that is the beauty of forest birding, isn’t it?

Flowers of the Pyrostegia venusta complimented by two red-whiskered bulbuls

While I was walking, I heard this peculiar bird call from somewhere around me. The call started softly, then very slowly and smoothly built up to a very high-pitched chirp. I was caught off guard and even got a little scared if I’m to be honest, I had never known bird calls such as this one was possible. I waited around for the bird to show up and voila, right within the undergrowth a small body of brown was dashing from branch to branch. And then finally, after minutes of searching and chasing, I got this grainy photograph of the brown-flanked bush warbler

The lighting conditions were horrible and there was no way that I could’ve gotten a quality shot of this bird. But its call was really unforgettable (try looking it up online)

Soon after I arrived at the gorgeous Ng Tung Chai waterfalls, and I couldn’t help but gawk at the scenery. It was genuinely one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to

At the first and smallest waterfall out of the four

Second one, the prettiest in my opinion

A long exposure 1/4 SS shot of the same waterfall

Set the camera up for a 10 second delay to get these ‘selfies’

The longest waterfall of them all

It’s the height of a 5-storey building

The sound of all the water hitting the bottom is deafening

The last out of the four Ng Tung Chai waterfalls, the scatter fall

Some birds I saw on my way up the mountain, first up is a male scarlet minivet

Second is this unidentified bird, looks like some kind of warbler or flycatcher (if you know what this species is please let me know)

Last of all is this singing cinereous tit by the hiking trail

Although this bird is pretty common, it’s still cool to see it so up close

While taking a rest at the longest and tallest 3rd waterfall, I spotted a bird flying towards and landing on the rock cliff where the waterfall is directly flowing down upon. I then shot this footage of the grey wagtail scaling the slippery stone cliff in search of perhaps minerals and food

Isn’t it impressive how such a tiny bird is capable of scaling such a daunting and slippery cliff?

After hours of climbing up endless flights of stairs, I finally got up to the top of Tai Mo Shan

The view from on top of Tai Mo Shan

A surprising resident

The famous MacLehose trail of Hong Kong

A close-up shot of the cow

Planes were constantly flying overhead at Tai Mo Shan

After a long hike along the ridge of Tai Mo Shan, I started descending to the Shing Mun reservoir on the opposite side of Tai Mo Shan from where I went up from

Saw this lil guy again

It was relatively quiet at the reservoir that day, but there were dozens of black kites flying over the body of water. I stopped by the lakeside and started shooting after finding a good spot and angle to photo them

Saw this big guy at the minibus stop beside Shing Mun reservoir

Monkies in Hong Kong are not shy at all

The trip that I took today broke my legs, I was mainly leaping up stairs while ascending the mountain and my legs were trembling while descending. I hiked over 15 kilometers that day, easily. Don’t ever overestimate your ability to climb, also do adequate research before you head out because I didn’t really plan a route to descend from Tai Mo Shan the day I went, and I kind of decided last-minute to head down to the Shing Mun reservoirs, I could’ve be stuck up there

The scenery was worth the pain tho :)

Thanks for reading!