Re-Posted 30th Apr 2006
Hey Zep,
I am not much of a bird watcher, but had been growing up from HK country side all along except the nine years I spent in UK and Canada, I am now living in Fanling area of NT, I do know a lot about wild life in the area(in water, on land or in air - use to spent my summer holidays catching all sorts of things and bring them home as pets - family used to own a huge fish farm for tropical fish breeding), but just this Sunday when I am walking home after lunch, I saw this couple of birds which I swear I never saw in Hong Kong before, I took a few pictures, but because the distance is pretty far off, there is only one showing some obvious feature which I think you might be able to identify, again, there were two of them, but I manage to take picture from just one of them, the size of them are a little bigger than a Magpie, black feathers with some white, when it spread its wing, there is a white ban (sort of like the ceasted myna), very cautious bird, when I try to get close without cover, to about 30 yards, it flew off. From the picture attached, you may notice the beak, looks like some kind of of bird of prey...anyway, hope you will find out what kind of bird is this, I will keep looking out for them ...if I can take more pictures, will post it here to share.......again sorry for the poor quality picture.

Even from a grainy photo far away the features identify this straight away as a black baza - a bird of prey as you suspected and a very nice bird and not often seen, but not a new species, alas!
I've seen one once on Lamma, also similar time of the yesr, and that felt like quite a big deal at the time.

There's a nice photo on the birdforum site:

http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/dat ... 2-6795.jpg

Hey Zep,
Thanks for your reply, it is most appreciated, just one more question, so is this a local bird for HK is just its on its migrating path?

Best Regards

According to the Birds of HK bird book (Viney, Phillipps and Lam - recommended, see pic) it is an uncommon summer visitor, ranging from India to South China and only likely to be found in HK between April and October.

Most appreciated.
Will keep an eye out , if I have new picture sthis or other nice birdie, will let you know,