Miscellany (pdf)

	"Reef Check 2004" a big splash at Sharp Island
	The Environmental Life Science Society
	Birdbrains in the Big Bird Race
	Rocky shore envy: observations vs. experiments in ecological research
	Kadoorie Farm & Botanic Garden - Wildlife updates & sightings

Birdbrains in the Big Bird Race 2005(pdf)

The Big Bird Race 2005 was held from 17.00 h on Friday 11 March 2005 to 17.00 h of the next day. Once again, I was honoured to be the leader of the DEB team – Swire Birdbrains. Team members included Yu Yat Tung (DEB BSc and MPhil graduate); Aidia Chan, Fion Cheung and Jackie Wang (DEB MPhil students); and Polly Chick, Vicky Yeung and Law King Wai (DEB graduates). Hit by a cool front during the race, temperature went below 10 degrees in the New Territories and it was raining most of the time. We were all soaking wet at the end of the race. Despite the appalling weather, the race was fun and we had a good start at Tsim Bei Tsui on Saturday with 45 species in less than two hours. However, our luck began to fall with the sunlight – we failed to get any owls! We arrived at the Kowloon Hill water catchment at 5.30 am the next morning looking for our bird of the day – the Forest Wagtail. We got 17 woodland birds there and, just before we gave up on the Forest Wagtail and were preparing move on to Tai Po Kau, I spotted one Forest Wagtail foraging down at the water catchment. Unlike other wagtails, in which the tail flips up and down while walking, the Forest Wagtail’s tail swings horizontally. Our luck fell again at Tai Po Kau when the rain became stronger. We missed many of the "must see" species, such as the minivets, despite our strong determination in the rain. The rest of the day was depressing. We only managed to get 122 species which made us the 9^th amongst the 13 teams. The winning team had 145 species. However, we did very well this year in fund-raising. Birdbrains (see photo) raised nearly 20,000 dollars on top of the corporate sponsorship from Swire. I must thank David for agreeing to send the pledge forms out to colleagues in HKU under his capacity as the Head of Department. It surely worked! With the help of the HK Bird-Watching Society, I am currently running a bird-watching course for around 30 year 1 and 2 Environmental Life Science students and hope that some of them will form the Birdbrains Team in 2006.