The Last Leg - Hong Kong & River Dolphins!

Perhaps after 7 weeks away Hong Kong was a city too far! But nevertheless we made the most of our two nights there. Prior to leaving home I had booked a Dolphin watching trip for the morning of our only full day, we were quite excited about this one.

So an early start to get across to the pick up point for the trip, then a 30 minute drive from Kowloon to where we were to pick up the boat at Lantau Island. The first two hours or so out on the boat proved fruitless, with just a few birds seen;
A distant Pacific Reef Heron,

 Great Egret,

 Black Kite.

Chinese Pond Heron, Intermediate Egret, Chinese Egret, Tree Sparrow and Grey Heron were also seen. After tootling around for a long time the skipper asked if any of us were in a rush to get back, luckily everyone on the boat said no. Because about 15 minutes after that;

We saw at least two Dolphins, commonly called Pink Dolphins, they are actually (after looking it up!) classed as Chinese White Dolphins, to differentiate with the Amazon Pink Dolphin, apparently a different species. The local experts think that there are now only about 42 left, a few years ago the count was in the 70s.

I am not surprised, the rubbish/pollution in the water around Hong Kong is shocking, then mix that with the fact that the Dolphin territory runs into the very busy shipping lane to the south west of Hong Kong and that they have built the new Hong Kong - Macau bridge right across it as well (due to open early 2018) there demise seems inevitable.

I am glad and privileged to have had the opportunity to see them, and happy that a fair portion of the money that we paid for the trip goes to the conservation group trying to save them and who organise the trip as well.

So on to our next day. Our flight home wasn't until midnight, so we arranged an extension on our room so that we could check out at 6pm as we had booked a city tour for that morning. This was a general tour of the sights, Kowloon, Hong Kong and Victoria Peak. The trip took us out to Stanley Market, bought a few bits there and found a nice coffee shop, where we were suddenly inundated by bird song, thankfully I was carrying the big lens in my rucksack just in case!
These were all in one tree by the cafe, overlooking the sea, awesome!
Crested Myna,

 Oriental Magpie Robin,

 Black-collared Starling,

 Light-vented Bulbul,

 Red-whiskered Bulbul and

Spotted Dove (on the Cafe roof)

So there endeth our trip.

Absolutely knackered after it, but wouldn't have missed any of it!