Woodcock is Winter bird , may appear from Oct. to Mar. on some locations in Lamma .

lyc, nice to see you have made it into lamma.com.hk.
Have been waiting a long time for others to start posting photos and is gradually starting to happen.

Wonderful shot of the Woodcock, can't even image how you managed to get a shot of such an uncommon bird, you must take birdwatching really seriously to have been able to see them not once, but in several locations.
Seems the woodcock is especially furtive, generally feeding at night and the numbers are supposed to declining.

Nice to see we have them on Lamma. Will open a few eyes at HKBS.

A great set of photos to intoduce yourself with. Look forward to seeing more.
Really well done.

I've seen two woodcock in the past week and reported them to the HKBWS hotline - this is worth checking as it is updated daily with interesting sightings around HK. Just call

2667-4537

Usually I only catch a glimpse of this bird as it is flushed, usually just before dusk in the late autumn or winter months, so how you get a picture of this I have no idea. In this regard, some details of the equipment, location etc of your fine pictures would be most illuminating.

Incidentally this weekend saw the return of daurian redstart, olive-backed pipit and masked bunting - at least the first I've seen this season.

I was at Woodcock. great night!

_________________
My real name isn't Harry.
Slurp my bean juice.

Remarkable series to build on LYC's earlier shot. The detail of the back feathers shows why these birds are so hard to see on the forest floor. Great photography or good luck or a bit of both.

LYC and Guy, great photos of a very furtive species ... hard to catch in the act, let alone find.

Guy, does your camera have a "silent" shooting mode? I can imagine all the clatter made by one of the old motorized 35mm SLRs would have had this bird scurrying out of sight by about the third frame. My old digicam emits a beep when it fires which would probably frighten most birds.

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Lead me not into temptation;
I can find it myself, thank you.

Thanks Chuckm.

D70s is fairly loud & whilst it gets the birds' attention doesn't seem to scare them off.......... seems the Canon cameras make a much sharper noise & it disturbs the birds more.
Also I only take single shots, rather than a burst, so the noise isn't too threatening.
If birds are relaxed, which this one was, I practice with different noises, coughing, talking on the phone, whistling, etc, to see what sort of noises disturb them.

With the Woodcock, even before the first shot, he was staring at the lens..., so had to swing it across very slowly before taking any shots. Didn't even see him at first even though I was looking in his direction & only 15' away.
But after the first few shots seemed very relaxed & stayed in front of the lens for about 15 mins, despite a couple of coughs & an incoming phone call.

Got a nice "Wingstretch" that I'll post later except is screwed up coz of how I set things up the day before........ almost comical, but I'll explain later