Birdwatching amid farmland

One of my husband’s hobbies is photography - not the type to sit and wait for hours, the images Paul captures are happy circumstance and of judicious editing. Being out in nature is enjoyable in and of itself and we have gone on numerous jaunts in search of clear night skies, and birds. I’m quite happy just to document our ventures by taking unedited snapshots.

The other day we went to Long Valley. The name is a misnomer, for the area is neither long, nor a valley. It is a triangular floodplain of about 25 hectares where two rivers converge - Sheung Yue (aka Beas River) and Shek Sheung River. It has been a cooperative conservation area for the past twelve years between the Hong Kong Birdwatching Society and the Conservancy Association. Traditional wetland farming attracts numerous wild birds during migration times, and photographers as well.

We wandered in between vibrant green crops and around irrigation ponds on dirt and concrete paths, sometimes quite narrow, built just to keep the water in the plots.

Watercress (xi yang cai 西洋菜 or sai yeung choi) and water spinach (kong xin cai 空心菜 or ong choi) were being grown in some of the wet farming areas.

watercress

water spinach

Other areas were left to dry, or as weedy, marshy areas - I assume during crop rotation. We saw new rice and some of the grown stalks left behind from the last crop to attract more birds.

pigeons and egrets looking for food

new rice

old rice behind young lettuce

There were several varieties of lettuce, tomatoes, squash, cabbage, cauliflower, turnips, parsley in between the rows, basil, and mint in the dry farming areas. As long as you don’t traipse through the crops, the farmers will pay no heed. There were a few signs advertising vegetables were for sale and a produce stand that wasn't open...

ready to harvest lettuce

nice reuse of an old chair for tomatoes

cabbage

The area is yet another area of Hong Kong that will change - it is part of a development plan that includes more housing, but will remain as a nature park - perhaps similar to the Wetland Park.

Change - over the years, just in the areas near where we have lived and worked, we’ve bid adieu to Kai Tak Airport, Kwun Tong and Jordan Road Vehicular Ferries, have watched the landfill of Tai Kok Tsui get built up, the view across Tai Wai get blocked by apartment towers and even a whole new town - Ma On Shan - sprout up with more building in the works pushing east toward Sai Kung. I guess that’s what happens during one’s lifetime - thankful for the days!